Virtually Valuable

While reading the comments on a friend’s blog post about Freebies, I came across the standard comment (and from a Second Life resident no less), which goes along the lines of “it’s all just play clothes on virtual dolls, why do you all give a crap?”. I was going to reply to it but realised [...]

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The Future of News…

“Getting the story out first” often means what you’re getting is improperly researched half-truths. Take the swine-flu for example: Every day the news stories I watched and read would contradict their own announcements the day before, the media built up its own hype until it got to the point that the only real news left [...]

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Of Creation, Trolls and Griefers

It is exceptionally easy to destroy things, it is a lot harder to create. One of the things that used to annoy me about the post-modernist movement I had to study as part of my Arts degree, was how so very ready it was to destroy other theories, and yet provide nothing in its place [...]

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Anxiety and Paranoia in a Virtual World

I have had Second Life friends who frequently suffer anxiety attacks – I can think of four people off the top of my head but there may be more. I always encouraged them to be open about the way they were feeling so I could reassure and comfort them. I did this primarily out of [...]

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Facebook Free Day!

If you’ve been reading my blog regularly you’ll have a good idea of my opinion on social online media like Second Life, Facebook, Twitter etc: Yes they can be entertaining and have a lot to offer some people, but many people are wasting their lives to the tune of very many hours a day doing [...]

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Edison Hour; celebrating humanity and technology

You may be aware of the world-wide trend of Earth Hour, where people turn things “off” to help save the planet from global warming. You may not be aware of the counter-movement though – of the passionate and growing number of people celebrating what has become known as “Edison Hour” (named after the inventor of [...]

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Like trance bunnies..?

Perhaps you already like bunnies who dance to trance music, perhaps you’ve just never thought about it before. Isn’t it about time you found out..? Torley Linden brings you, “We’re Going To Rock Civilization“.

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Today’s two favourite local news headlines – alcohol & porn

I read the news online most days and write here about any virtual world relevant topics that come up. The two stories I’m linking here have nothing to do with virtual worlds (well not directly – unless we get into discussing porn), but they caught my eye and made me go huh and made me [...]

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Quotable

Three weeks out of Second Life, and for the first time I’ve found myself thinking that I wish I had a profile… so I had somewhere to record this piece of conversation from today:
Me: awww man, someone set a million dollar bounty on my head :/
Stoo: woah chocolate is expensive in NZ, [...]

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Being Popular, Being Right, or Being Happy..?

It’s a timeless question: Would you rather be right or be popular? You find examples of the struggle in everyday life and in historical events (for example holding fast to the idea the world is round when everyone else held it was flat). You often get people conflating the two together: Being popular is being [...]

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