It’s been brought to my attention that this Science Fiction Spime Guy has posted something of relative interest (Link). Too bad he misses on a couple of cylinders.

The first thing he does is make the following comment:

For instance: how about designing some object in Second Life, then outputting it as a .stl file, and then fabbing it?

Been there. Done that. And it’s been blogged as well by a number of people (including moi – reLink 1 and reLink 2). It can actually go much further as I’ve also shown (reLink), but that’s for a bit down the road for when I have some time and a little money to waste; right now I’m swamped and not swimming in cash. But you know, if a person is going to be routinely sarcastic, they really need to avoid that kind of mistake.

The second thing is this comment: Continue reading →

There’s an article over on C|Net by regular virtual worlds writer Daniel Terdiman that’s worth a read. In “Making virtual worlds more lifelike” (Link) Terdiman talks with the folks at PARC studying users inside virtual worlds and video games. From the article:

“It’s incredible the palette of skills you need to design these spaces in the right way,” he said.

Among the skills that would be helpful would be urban planning, sociology and politics, fields of expertise game companies are not brimming with.

I know some industrial designers who might have a useful palette. From my own experience, virtual world design problems have a have a lot in common with the real world problems IDers routinely encounter. And as virtual worlds become more realistic that does kind of make sense, doesn’t it?

As much as I’d like to post more often, both time and my slowly wearing hands prevents that. Fortunately, some posts don’t need many words. The above image is a comparison shot. One side is real. The other side is an image from the CRYSIS game engine. It’s more impressive if you see the big image (Link).

via Blue’s News

{Image source unknown}

Interesting article on Reuters (Link) concerning the difficulty in placing a value on music. The piece mentions the following pricing models currently in play:

I’ve heard of these models before, but unfortunately I still don’t see what I’d call “The Experience Model“. In that scenario digital music is free. If people want it on CD or want something else tangible, they pay for the manufacturing just like any other product. Where the real money comes is from bundling an experience with the music. Continue reading →

Most recently I once again pointed out my assertion that internet anonymity is a thing of the past in comments regarding an article (reLink) in the Harvard Business Review. I’ve just finished reading a New York Times article on C|Net, “Online throngs impose a stern morality in China” (Link), that documents our increasing move into a non-anonymous and highly-connected world; some of it facilitated by social software (like MySpace) and MMORPG’s (in this case, World of Warcraft) that bring together people who might not otherwise interact in meatspace. Here are some clips from the article:

It began with an impassioned, 5,000-word letter on one of the country’s most popular Internet bulletin boards from a husband denouncing a college student he suspected of having an affair with his wife. Immediately, hundreds joined in the attack.
Continue reading →