If you can’t make it into Second Life today to donate via avatar, you can donate through the official event site. A programming language and a programming paradigm can shape how we engineer a world. As with our natural languages perhaps there is a cognitive dimension, but without having to even reach that far it is safe to say that engineering practices establish approaches to problem-solving that bias solutions. These practices are hard to ignore in especially high-stakes, risk-adverse software development environments. Thus our first biq question, can game software development as it is now conducted scale in the face of advances in hardware, appetite for content, and capped costs? It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term.

If Code is the Law in our realm, then the modern conceptualization of code (see Footnote [1]) often aspires to be object-based. The craft of software objects is then Object Oriented Programming, even if it is only sometimes realized. By and large, software object-oriented design has been a cultural touchstone for nearly a generation of software developers and designers - objects provide a convenient and intuitive means of partitioning/ decomposing problems and mapping them onto code building blocks. Challenges emerge, however, when one scales interactions from small numbers of objects to large sets of objects. Throw in parallel threads of computation and all hell breaks loose. Why the concern with large numbers of objects? Well, that is arguably where gameplay simulation is heading. It also raises some interesting non-design problems.

In the fact of today, however, such parallelism is a fiction - most games are implemented within a single simulation thread (they just iterate through all the objects quickly but in sequence... "butcher before baker before the cat jumps over the moon..."), but this is likely to change, perhaps very soon. It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term. The truth is World of Warcraft Gold doesn’t HAVE to take a long time to get, especially in the higher levels. Buy WOW Gold here, and then enjoy your excited WoW life! Warhammer Online Gold will keep your high power. On the other hand, if RMTers persuade the courts that people own what their characters own, the whole concept of a purge might be threatened.

This is a bad, bad claim that the Red Cross is making here. It is wrongheaded, and stupid. Part of the problem is the demonization of games and the whole "Jack Thompson and Hilary Clinton and Every Other Politician vs The Games Industry" Punch-and-Judy show. In trademark law this issue gets played out as "tarnishment" and the implication here is that the Red Cross's mark is somehow tarnished by association with a violent videogames. Please. I could maybe buy this if you built a videogame that had Red Cross workers as spawn of Satan, going round killing innocent babies under color of helping them. But the mere use of a Red Cross symbol within the game?

That is, if we recognize a property claim in this red cross, then the only way that I can, for example, have red crosses float over my character when I heal myself is by striking some deal with the property owner. The owner (ie the Red Cross) can stop me from using it otherwise. But how else, exactly, am I supposed to communicate graphically the concept of healing? What about the representation of a hospital within a MMOG? Sure, I could put "The Edward Castronova Memorial Hospital and Treatment Center for MMOG Addiction" on a generic building; but how much more expressive is this same building with a great big red cross on it? As my character races past this building, on his way to committing a foul murder or a random carjacking, I know that this is a representation of a hospital that may come in handy when the cops shoot me and I'm in need of some bandages. It also raises some interesting non-design problems.

A recent, charming article in the Wall Street Journal (Aug 22, "Arabs on Holiday Say, 'Rain, Rain Don't Go Away'") dramatizes the attraction of the environment and its elements to people in the real world. What about the virtual world? It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term. The truth is World of Warcraft Gold doesn’t HAVE to take a long time to get, especially in the higher levels.

The ACS Relay for Life in Second Life is in full swing this weekend. Looks like they’ve raised $2,000 so far, well on their way to the $5,000 goal. The silent auction closes today at 11am Pacific time, with the awards and closing ceremonies following at 11:30am Pacific. It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term. The truth is World of Warcraft Gold doesn’t HAVE to take a long time to get, especially in the higher levels. Buy WOW Gold here, and then enjoy your excited WoW life! Warhammer Online Gold will keep your high power. On the other hand, if RMTers persuade the courts that people own what their characters own, the whole concept of a purge might be threatened.

I'm actually suggesting that they are (largely) incapable of thinking outside the box (to use a well-overworn phrase). This should not be seen, however, as some devastating slam on them -- all people, in all places (though I would suggest particularly those enculturated into heavily technical professions) have trouble looking at things from another point of view, and this group is really not so different. But it was still a bit surprising, especially given, in Eric's and Raph's cases, their stated interest in academic research.

I'm actually suggesting that they are (largely) incapable of thinking outside the box (to use a well-overworn phrase). This should not be seen, however, as some devastating slam on them -- all people, in all places (though I would suggest particularly those enculturated into heavily technical professions) have trouble looking at things from another point of view, and this group is really not so different. But it was still a bit surprising, especially given, in Eric's and Raph's cases, their stated interest in academic research.

I'm actually suggesting that they are (largely) incapable of thinking outside the box (to use a well-overworn phrase). This should not be seen, however, as some devastating slam on them -- all people, in all places (though I would suggest particularly those enculturated into heavily technical professions) have trouble looking at things from another point of view, and this group is really not so different. But it was still a bit surprising, especially given, in Eric's and Raph's cases, their stated interest in academic research.