Reactions to story from WorldChanging

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  Gold farming and virtual weapons

  http://ubiwar.com/2008/05/11/gold-farming-and-virtual-weapon...
  5 days ago in ubiwar.com · Authority: 24

  This is one of the better articles I’ve read about gold farming: Gold Farmers are young people who earn their living by playing MMORPG [massively multiplayer online role-playing games]. They acquire (”farm”) items of value within a game, usually by carrying out in-game actions repeatedly to maximize gains, sometimes by using a program such as a bot or automatic clicker. They sell the artificial gold coins and other virtual goods they’ve harvested to players and/or farming organizations and get “real” money in return. Players from around the world will then use the golden coins to buy better armor, magic spells and other equipments to climb to higher levels or create more powerful characters. This is a well-established practice in China, as well as the Philippines, Mexico and elsewhere, and is another example of how people are earning real money through the use of virtual worlds. And lest anyone think that the real life effects are negligible or insignificant, people have been murdered in disputes over virtual gaming assets.
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  Links for 11-05-2008

  http://www.velcro-city.co.uk/links-for-11-05-2008/
  6 days ago in Velcro City Tourist Board - the science fictional ramblings of Paul Graham Raven · Authority: 78

  Suburbia redux; urban redevelopment in NYC; iron snow on Mercury, gold-farmers; BASH commands reference … 1 - The Suburban Question “Encouraging people to move from the suburbs closer to their place of work in the city because it’s actually cheaper … only works when nobody else does it.” (tags: housing gentrification redevelopment suburbia living city urban) 2 - The Second Battle of Bushwick The true cost of urban redevelopment in New York. Depressing, but worth reading anyway. (tags: legal debt usury change living urban housing) 3 - Plasma-powered flying saucer “With a span of less than 15 centimetres, his aircraft qualifies as a micro air vehicle (MAV), but it has an unconventional design to say the least. It is a saucer shape covered with electrodes that ionise air to create a plasma.” (tags: platform technology surveillance aircraft saucer flying power plasma vehicle air MAV) 4 - Iron ’snow’ may explain Mercury’s magnetic field “Flakes of iron snow could be falling inside the planet Mercury, according to a new experiment. This hot metal snowfall might help generate Mercury’s puzzling magnetic field.” (tags: field magnetic science space Mercury) 5 - Gold farmers “Ge Jin, a 30-year-old Shanghai native and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego, has shot a Gold Farmers, a documentary that delve into the background and lives of Chinese gold farmers.” (tags: metaverse worlds synthetic industry documentary farming gold MMORPG economics internet gaming) 6 - Bang, Bucks, and Delivery in Recompense “… as we go down the length scale towards flash fiction, we find we have to leave out more and more aspects of general fiction, and focus on that which is important.” (tags: sf development character novels length fiction writing Stross) 7 - Linux bash commands - MAN Pages Reference-tastic! (tags: syntax manual reference shell commands bash Linux) Tags: links
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  Links for 2008-05-10

  http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2008/05/links-for-2008-0...
  6 days ago in Sentient Developments · Authority: 28

  Where Is My Uterine Replicator (AKA Artificial Womb)? (io9) Given the risk - and many months of what can charitably be termed "inconvenience" - what are the alternatives to signing up for nine months of incubator duty? Let's find out.Gold Farmers (WorldChanging) Gold Farmers are young people who earn their living by playing MMORPG games.Iceberg dead ahead! (Globe & Mail) Canadian and U.S. spotters are being kept busy this year by hundreds of the frozen chunks in Atlantic shipping lanes.Hunger is the best spice (Practical Ethics) Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach that appears to stimulate appetite. Chefs want to start using it as a food ingredient. The Naked Generation: Twitter, Facebook and cultural reaction to transparency (BlogSchmog) We write about everything. We capture it in photos and on video, and we share the links with online acquaintances known only by their login handle. It is too early in the social networking phenomenon to declare whether this practice is beneficial or not.
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  links for 2008-05-09

  http://www.klintron.com/brain/archives/2008/05/09/links-for-...
  7 days ago in Klintron’s Brain > thoughts on media, technology, and culture · Authority: 16

  Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal (tags: food liberty) Ron Paul Un-endorses White Supremacist How did I miss this latest Ron Paul racism mini-scandal? I must be slipping in my old age… (tags: politics ronpaul 2008 race) How the average person spends their money (tags: class culture economics finance life) Douglas Rushkoff on credit crisis “Think small. Buy local. Make friends. Print money. Grow food. Teach children. Learn nutrition. And if you do have money to invest, put it into whatever lets you and your friends do those things.” (tags: economics finance politics) Obama is a muslim e-mails still tricking voters (tags: politics 2008 obama clinton race religion) Documentary about young people earning their living “farming” gold in MMORPG (tags: gamesaswork games)
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  Gold Farmers?? Change the medium & humans are still the same

  http://hunterergatherer.net/?p=12
  7 days ago in hunterergatherer.net · Authority: 1

  Gold Farmers?? Change the medium & humans are still the same May 9th, 2008 Fascinating Article on Gold Farmers in Asia: People collecting virtual gold for roleplaying games, and selling it in real life. The powerful need an army of cheap labor to stay powerful. No matter the world, we find a way to stick to our instincts. I wonder if the rules of the game were changed? In this world and the next. Article From WorldChanging Gold Farmers Regine Debatty May 9, 2008 9:33 AM The documentary i was dying to see at the Homo Ludens Ludens exhibition at LABoral in Gijon was Gold Farmers, by Ge Jin. Image courtesy of Ge Jin Gold Farmers are young people who earn their living by playing MMORPG games. They acquire (”farm”) items of value within a game, usually by carrying out in-game actions repeatedly to maximize gains, sometimes by using a program such as a bot or automatic clicker. They sell the artificial gold coins and other virtual goods they’ve harvested to players and/or farming organizations and get “real” money in return. Players from around the world will then use the golden coins to buy better armor, magic spells and other equipments to climb to higher levels or create more powerful characters. World of Warcraft, image gameslander Many companies have attempted to block the use of gold-farming services by specifically stating in their End User License Agreements and Terms of Service that any and all game assets (from the player’s characters themselves, to any items that they may be carrying) remain the sole property of the company itself, and taking aggressive action to close the accounts of any that are found to be using gold-farming (or similar) services. Although there are gold farmers or gold farms in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico, Chinese are by far the most dynamic. There, young players typically work twelve hour shifts, with just a lunch break somewhere in the middle. There are gold farmers or gold farms in other countries as well, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico. However, they do not approach the scope and scale of the Chinese farm industry. Image courtesy of Ge Jin Ge Jin, a 30-year-old Shanghai native and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego, has shot a Gold Farmers, a documentary that delve into the background and lives of Chinese gold farmers. Gold farming puts down the mechanisms that govern a universe in which everyone starts at the same level, no matter how rich their parents are, no matter how many degrees they’ve collected at the university. Players trying to work their way up according to the rules and in all fairness are the ones who get hit hardest by the practice of gold farming. Watching the documentary, you can’t help but feel some compassion for the gold farmers: they have very little free time, they are paid quite poorly to feed the whims of the Western consumer, they have to deal with the ire of a family who doesn’t approve of what they do for a living, they must face the hostility of other players as soon as these realize that gold farmers are on their turf, their english is not good enough to enable them to communicate with other players, and they work hard. Don’t be fooled, they don’t sit there for hours just for the fun, most of their activity is extremely repetitive. In fact they would sometimes end their day at the “factory” by playing a real game in WoW. Just for the fun. Read the rest of the article here Posted in wideworld

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