Games company Electronic Arts have donated Will Wright’s classic game SimCity to the One-Laptop-Per-Child project. Which is excellent news – not just because it adds to the educational arsenal of the machines but because SimCity is a great game that still holds up against current titles. [Image by Theogeo]
Well, I’ve had a click around, and this seems to be genuine. Forget high-tech panopticons and increasingly arcane psychological regimes – the way to reform career criminals is to let them raise a dog in prison. The PuppiesBehindBars program does exactly that, giving inmates the chance to train and care for canines that go on to become guide dogs or bomb detectors. The heads-up post at Metafilter has a number of links to articles that suggest the scheme is incredibly effective, for both dogs and convicts alike. [Image by ngader]
Cynicism and romance aren’t the best of bed-fellows … which may go some way to explaining why I’m still a bachelor. Still, gripes aside, the cynical part of my always gets a warm glow when science manages to debunk another myth about the mystical sanctity of love – like when I read that new research suggests "love at first sight" is actually a function of narcissism rather than a bolt from the blue:
"Social signals about how attracted someone else is to you actually seem to be quite important," [Jones] said. "You are attracted to people who are attracted to you, and that shows attractiveness is not just about physical beauty."
Lucky for me, eh? That knowledge should keep me warm through the long winter nights. Now, where’s my violin … [Image by Binkley27]
A group of UK based psychology researchers were interested in seeing how Second Life users reacted to invasions of personal space within the virtual world. So, they developed a way around the built-in limitations that Linden Lab put in place to prevent software-controlled avatars being deployed, enabling them to send an avatar on autopilot to interact with other residents and record their reactions.
To which your response might be "so what?" – especially if you’re skeptical about Second Life to start with, which is not an uncommon stance. But as the heads-up on SlashDot points out, what can be done by psychology researchers in the name of science could just as easily be done by spammers seeking a automated method of advertising in the metaverse … which would seem to reinforce the adage that no platform will ever remain completely immune to spam techniques. Still, at least in SL you can always teleport away from an annoying avatar, which is more than you can do when confronted by a Scientologist or insurance hawker in the high street … [Image by PsychoAl]
Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and the man behind the Long Tail hypothesis, takes a look at Scott "Dilbert" Adams as a case-study in the effects of giving away free content. In a nutshell: you can’t always expect a free e-book to promote sales of the hardcopy version, at least not if you’re already well-known, but the increased profile it brings should get you more income from other work.
This is an issue close to the hearts of many sf authors, which seems to be the one field of literature that is really running with the "free novels" ball. Cory Doctorow’s career certainly hasn’t been harmed by it … but then he started out by giving it away, and it’s still too early in the game to be entirely sure how effective a strategy it will be in the long run for writers with established careers. Will those established careers be undermined by the new turks and their freebies, or will the industry benefit as a whole from an influx of new readers?
One thing’s for sure, the economics of the writing business is changing fast. Witness the Hollywood writer’s strike … which Techdirt suggests may backfire quite badly. [Image by Jessie Barber]