Slashdot | Review: Spore

Slashdot | Review: Spore

The hype leading up to Spore was excessive. But then, so is the scope of the game; following the growth of a species from the cellular level to galactic domination was an ambitious goal, to say the least. Bringing evolution into the realm of entertainment was something Will Wright hoped and gambled he could do after the success of the Sim franchise. But rather than evolution, Spore became more about creation — creation that allows a single-player game to include the community, as well. It ties the various parts of the game together to make Spore very entertaining as a whole. Read on for my thoughts.

Yessir!

ZOMGZOMGZOMG

This could make me read off the screen: flexible computer screens!

Researchers Find Racial Bias In Virtual Worlds

Slashdot | Researchers Find Racial Bias In Virtual Worlds

“Real-world behaviours and racial biases could carry forward into virtual worlds such as Second Life, social psychologists say. According to a study that was conducted in There.com, virtual world avatars respond to social cues in the same ways that people do in the real world.

Users, who were unaware that they were part of a psychological study, were approached by a researcher’s avatar for either a ‘foot-in-the-door’ (FITD) or ‘door-in-the-face’ (DITF) experiment. While results of the FITD experiment revealed no racial bias, the effect of the DITF technique was significantly reduced when the experimenter took the form of a dark-skinned avatar.”

Read more at Researchers find racial bias in virtual worlds - Internet - iTnews Australia

No, I have no question about the assertion of racial bias in Virtual World. I’m just reading Lisa Nakamura’s Digitizing Race, which is interesting. However, the research seems pretty lame for reasons commented on in the comments on the first two links, and others. Would be nice if peeps reported on research that would appear better constructed to take up what I think is an important issue.

Information Bombardment video

I’m one of the series of pundits talking about Information Bombardment… My fav of my quotes is “The Internet isn’t in its infancy… it is prenatal.”

Metal Snow Girl

Metal Snow Girl, originally uploaded by complicitytheory.

Note the ribbon in her hair. And us in the mirror. And yes, it is a rare-earth magnet in the middle holding it all together.