A social scientist’s dream has come true [I am glad, that I am an anthropologist] with parc’s newest groupblog ↑PlayOn—Exploring the social dimensions of virtual worlds. ‘Dimensions’ hits it right home, as it seems to be all about quantification. via entry at digital genres | see also entry at terra nova … Continue reading
It seems like ↵Bruce Sterling’s classic gets ↑a rival. … Continue reading
Tricksterish hoaxing definitely is an integral part of online-culture. At c0x2.de an unidentified individual posing as an electrical engineer and US-citizen ↑reports that he found a keylogging-device similar to the ↑KeyGhost brand inside his Dell-laptop—inserted right between keyboard and ethernet board. The individual wants to have contacted the police, which in turn forwarded him/her to the Department of Homeland Security. He/she wrote to the latter and got the reply: “We have reviewed your Freedom of Information Act request, and have found that the requested records are exempt from being disclosed under FOIA. […]“ Meanwhile I am socialized enough in here … Continue reading
Chris Kelty ↑already warned us, now it’s published. The June 2005 issue of Fortune Small Business carries an article by Richard McGill Murphy called ↑Getting to Know You (↑also here [.pdf | 53KB]). The subtitle says: “Microsoft dispatches anthropologists into the field to study small businesses like yours. Here’s why.” The New York Times commented with ↑Bill Gates as Anthropologist (login required). The gates into the IT-business are wide open for anthropologists. … Continue reading
Today ↑Remedy has released a video of Alan Wake, by far surpassing the ↵teaser-trailer. From comparison to the descriptions in some of the E3-press-reactions I deduce that this is the video which was presented there. The game-engine shows off its strengths by stunning demonstrations of the effects of changing time of day, some of it in fast forward—don’t miss the volumetric shadows. Experience of the physics engine is mediated to the onlooker by means of an avalanche of boulders crashing down a hillside. And we finally see the protagonist’s vehicle and himself in action. But the best thing is the … Continue reading
With the recent hype around ↑Revenge of the Sith hitting the silverscreen I was reminded of the heap of work we had done for the Max Payne 1 total conversion (TC) Lightsaber 4 (LS4), but which never was included into it. Lightsaber 5 (LS5) never was completed, so everything done for it counts as an outtake, I guess. Quite some of this work never saw release, but only was circulated amongst the members of the modding-team. After ↑the ludologist officially having created the new genre of ↵fake computergame-outtakes here now are some real outtakes from a computergame modification—the Lightsaber project … Continue reading
Last saturday I attended a good friend’s felicitous 30th birthday. Geek he is, he had set up some sideshow-amusement for us (the other geeks): A Commodore Amiga, running vintage games, ↑Giana Sisters (see pic, courtesy of ↑fab) being the top of the heap, the evening’s and night’s favourite. To prevent our minds from completely dissolving in the realm of 16 bits, we now and then wandered outside, sat in the garden, had some Vodka and beer, and talked the night away. Not surprisingly we merrily chatted about the games we played in ye olde times. It went: Remember ↑Ports of … Continue reading
The following thoughts are based on a forum entry of mine at ↑PayneReactor (meanwhile the ↑original thread has migrated to ↑MaxPayneForums) dating back to 29 July 2004. The post was an answer to an article dated 28th July 2004 by highly respected modder Maddieman at his website Hell’s Kitchen. Maddie tried to answer the question “why people cling on” although only “such a small percentage of ↵mods come out, less of which are any good; why do people still bother waiting for them? The variable ratio reinforcement schedule is a term that explains why some behaviours or behavioral thinking is … Continue reading
The field I am doing fieldwork in consists of three spaces (or kinds of spaces) at least. First there are the conceptual communication- and interaction spaces made possible by the Internet-infrastructure, respectively by the various Internet-services like www, e-mail, ↵IM, ↵IRC, and ↵ftp running on top of it. Very common, I know; inside academia nearly everything cyber- deals with these spaces. But more often than not they are associated with communicaton, seldomly with interaction. Good examples for the latter’s presence are ftp and IRC’s ↵DCC feature, because exchanging ‘things’ like pictures, movies, demos, program-applications, or code itself undoubtedly is an … Continue reading
The waiting has an end: ↑Mission:Impossible—New Dawn has gone gold and can be ↑downloaded. … Continue reading