Baba Sucks

Reuters again! Adam is really on the ball. Edward Castronova, the TerraNova blogger and virtual world economist, comes to Second Life. Update: He still hates Second Life, and is rolling his own VW. Good luck mate ;0

Prof gets funding for virtual Shakespeare world

By Adam Reuters

SECOND LIFE, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Indiana University Professor Edward Castronova has made a name for himself as an economist who studies virtual worlds. Now he’s been awarded a US$240,000 grant to create one himself, based on the world of William Shakespeare.

“What we plan to do is have people encounter the texts in Shakespeare and ideas in the text at many points within a really fun, multiplayer game, so without even knowing it, they gradually are learning more about the bard’s work,” said Castronova, (right) author of “Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games.”

But Arden, Castronova’s planned world, will have a hidden purpose beyond teaching: he plans to use it as a Petri dish for testing out economic theories by creating controlled experiments within the game’s population.

^{Read the rest at Reuters}

The Reuters news, about Reuters the news agency, continues to cause waves. Yahoo has a story on their main page covering the event, as do several other major newspapers and online news sites. The barrage of press(mostly Yahoo) has hit the Second Life web-server like a sledgehammer. 

Meanwhile, the techies seem a bit more apathetic to it all if not downright dismissive, "What's next Third Life? lawl." 

Perhaps they're not aware of libsecondlife ( http://www.libsecondlife.org ) just yet.

In response to my post "Breaking News: Congressman buys Girl Bits!" Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) has issued a statment via Reuters.

Virtual economy tax ‘would be a mistake’ - US Rep

By Adam Reuters

SECOND LIFE, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The head of a U.S. congressional committee said it “would be a mistake” if the Internal Revenue Service introduced regulations to tax virtual economies such as Second Life and World of Warcraft.

Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, confirmed an earlier Reuters report that the committee was studying the public policy and tax issues related to virtual economies.

“There is a concern that the IRS might step forward with regulations that start taxing transactions that occur within virtual economies. This, I believe, would be a mistake,” Saxton said in a statement released on Tuesday.

^{Read the rest at Reuters}

3pointD reports that Reuters has come to Second Life, and it seems they plan to stick around. One of their first stories covers the US Congress launching a probe into virtual economies(I'm sure that's not all they're launching *nudge wink*). It's all kind of dry, but if you're interested in virtual world economies, give it a read.

This is an exerpt of the interesting bits,

“I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is. The idea of Second Life or World of Warcraft or some of these other synthetic universes, they have trouble wrapping their head around it. So there’s an educational hurdle to overcome here,” he said.

However, there are probably some on Capitol Hill who won’t require much explanation.

“I can almost guarantee that there are some members of Congress spending time in Second Life or World of Warcraft,” Miller said. 

I'm normally not into this type of thing. It's all fancy pants and might make people think I'm some sort of girly man, but this scrapblogging looks kind of cool. Check out the scrapblogging video demo by CEO Carlos Garcia to get an idea for what it's all about.

Just watching to first few seconds made me think of how cool it would be to create a scrapbook in Second Life with all interesting templates. Easy to import your photos off of Flickr or upload them. I'm off to try it out right now ;0

Update: Check it homies! http://babasucks.scrapblog.com/filtered/

An Automated Tool of some Convenience for Certain Fok. Thanks Ordinal!

Developers? Get some new ones! I'm a starship pilot and if I did this in my job I'd be fired!

We should get compensation for W-Hat being allowed!And lag is just the last straw! Being a lawyer with twenty years experience means that I know how things should be run - and this isn't it!

I put my kids through college by selling stolen textures! This is the worst level of service I have ever seen.

Why don't we get more warning about war in Jessie? Thanks a bunch LL!

But no, all the customers are being forgotten just so Philip can get to one million signups. If people can't log in to buy Siggy's waterslide, I could starve! You need to sack all your staff and get new ones, because they suck! I signed up so that I could sell carefully-detailed copies of other people's stuff - and I can't! Being a lawyer with twenty years experience means that I know how things should be run - and this isn't it!What are you THINKING?

On top of everything else, we have to deal with GLIntercept! If people can't log in to buy prefabs, I could starve!

Pathetic! SL is a rip-off! Developers? Get some new ones! I can't believe I actually PAY for this! What are you THINKING?

Once again, LL shafts the hard-working customer.

_{Created with the Random Linden Lab Flame Generator}

<BabaYama> let's start a new VW

<BabaYama> ;0

<Inuchance> k

<BabaYama> … are you done yet?

<Inuchance> almost

<Inuchance> i'm adding in havok 3 now

<BabaYama> great

<BabaYama> havok 4 is out bitch

<BabaYama> the users are complaining

<Inuchance> oh shi

<Inuchance> well, we're aleady pretty far with havok3

<BabaYama> lets scrap it and go 4

<Inuchance> look, i made this sphere physical and it rolls like a sphere would

<Inuchance> aw, okay

<Inuchance> actually, what about aegis

<BabaYama> and scrap that other cool project too

<BabaYama> umm

<Inuchance> you mean the planetary system for our virtual world so we would never run into issues with there being limited land?

Read more

Second Life is like a series of rivers!

Griefers are like beachballs, clogging the rivers of Second Life.

We need dolphins, which can swim freely through the rivers and bat the balls out of the way, clearing the rivers and allowing small children to drift safely through them.

This is an open call to all residents of Second Life.  We must unleash the dolphins of war! Let them rain down on the griefers in unendding waves! They shall feel our Cetacean wrath! I seek out skilled builders and scripters to aid in this effort to create the most powerful anti-griefing dolphins the virtial world of Second Life has ever seen.

We will fire dolphins from cannons and launch them like missiles. We will have giant mecha dolphins and tiny micro dolphins. They will patrol in every simulator, they will read every email and report back to us if you show any griefer tendancies, and they will STOP GRIEF.

If you are interested in the future of Second Life or you just want to live in peace, you will join the group "Dolphin Alliance"

Remember folks, if you're not with us, then you're with the griefers. Don't be a griefer!

Dolphin Alliance Founder
Baba Yamamoto