Tag Archives: farming

Blog

Gold-farming still big business

World of Warcraft gold vaultVia BoingBoing, here’s a Guardian article on the MMORPG gold-farming phenomenon:

These virtual industries sound surreal, but they are fast entering the mainstream. According to a report by Richard Heeks at Manchester University, an estimated 400,000 Asian workers are now employed in gold farming in a trade worth up to ÂŁ700m a year. With so many gamers now online, these industries are estimated to have a consumer base of five million to 10 million, and numbers are expected to grow with widening internet access.

As I mentioned last time, what interests me most about gold-farming is that it seems to be comparatively immune to the economic slump. WoW gold or weapons are surely luxury items by any economical definition, but for some reason they’re not going the same way as bling and gas-guzzler cars. Is this due to the low ticket price, combined with the fact that gaming is a comparatively recession-friendly pastime? Is it also a recognition that the one thing we value more than our money is the time to achieve what we want (virtual or otherwise)? [image by fernashes]

Looking forward, though, how soon before the market saturates? The collapse of Chinese manufacturing has resulted in an expanded pool of labour, but that just means more competition for the work. If, as some economists have suggested, the recession is a prelude to greater financial parity on a global scale, will gold-farming or its equivalents become an increasingly attractive employment option in the West as the traditional options for blue-collar work erode?

Blog

Spiral skyscrapers for our dystopian future

Thought I’d try my hand at io9-style headlines – just for fun, you understand. 🙂

But with valid reason, too – the perforated biomimic skyscraper-arcology design below has been named Dystopian Farm by its creator, Eric E Vergne.

Eric Vergne's Dystopian Farm skyscraper design

Designed for the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan, Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm aims to provide New York with a sustainable food source while creating a dynamic social space that integrates producers with consumers. Based upon the “material logic of plant mechanics”, the biomorphic skyscraper is modeled after the plant cells of ferns and provides space for farms, residential areas, and markets. These organic structures will harness systems such as airoponic watering, nutrient technology and controlled lighting and CO2 levels to meet the food demands of future populations.

Vergne’s design is one of many entries in this year’s Evolo Skyscraper Competition, so we can probably safely assume that it’ll never actually be built – which will either disappoint you or make you heave a sigh of relief.

But speculative architecture eventually feeds back into the buildings we end up living in, and the need for sustainable urban food sources is pretty unavoidable. I can think of worse things to clutter a skyline with… but Vergne might want to think about giving it a slightly less grim name should it come to erection time.

Blog

Recession-proof industries: gold-farming

World of Warcraft gold vaultWhile meatspace endures lay-offs and plummeting valuations, it seems that there’s still plenty of life left in the virtual currencies business – an MMO gold-farming site has just been snapped up for US$10 million. [image by fernashes]

Gold-farming is an interesting business phenomenon for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it deals in completely intangible goods. But it’s also out on the edge of legality when you consider the exploitative methods used to accrue the gold and items that are traded, and for most MMOs it’s against the rules to trade in in-world items beyond the game’s confines.

But it’s even more interesting to see the gold-farming market riding high while the real-world markets are tumbling, because it implies the two systems are connected but separate. Perhaps in the near-future people will be able to ride out the rough times by shifting their work into the virtual domains?

If we have any economists in the audience, I’d really welcome your input on this story; the interaction between real and virtual economies is as fascinating as it is baffling to me.

Blog

Computing the Cocoa Genome

chocolateroyThe Mars candy company, the U.S. Agricultural Research Service, and the world’s second-fastest supercomputer, IBM’s Blue Gene, are working to sequence the genome of the cocoa tree. The project will identify cocoa plants that are better able to withstand the effects of global warming, including fungal strains and insects. The same tools might be applied to other food staples. There’s no genomic cure for political unrest, which also threatens the world’s cocoa supply.

[Story tip: fark.com. Chocolate portrait inspired by Roy Lichtenstein by emilywjones]

Blog

Meat futures redux – just leave the brains out

3 Comments

BullThe best thing about science is the same as the best thing about science fiction – it’s the lively debates and differing opinions. The vat-grown meat story got some fairly wide coverage beyond science fictional circles, so here’s legendary biology-blogger PZ “Pharyngula” Myers’ angle on the issue:

“The more I think about it, the more I think people are going at it backwards. We shouldn’t be thinking about building muscle from the cells up, to create a purified system to produce meat for the market, we should be going the other way, starting with self-sustaining meat producers and genetically paring away the less commercially viable bits, like the brain. Instead of test-tube meat, we should be working on more efficient organisms that generate muscle tissue with the properties we want.”

OK, now I’m fairly easy with the idea of eating meat that’s just a lump of stuff grown in a petri-dish. But animals engineered to not have a nervous sytem? That really is a pretty queasy thought, even though I can see why (rationally) it shouldn’t be. [image by TwoBlueDay]