I had the pleasure of meeting Hamlet Au of New World Notes today over burritos at Papalote’s on Valencia Street in San Francisco. It was cool chatting with him about Hamlet’s forthcoming book with Harper Collins that I can’t wait to read. We also discussed political action in SL, whether in-world voice chat is a…
UN Spam of the Week: UNICEF has a job for you!
It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten a spammish e-mail from someone purporting to be working for the United Nations. So I was delighted to find this "job offer" in the mail yesterday from Mr. "Patrick Evans": United Nation International Children and Educational Fund (UNICEF), a humanitarian organization under United Nation Organization (UNO) urgently needs you…
Hanging in SF for a few days
sliced sf skyline Originally uploaded by on2wheelz. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few days, to get my lasik-ed eyes looked at by my optomitrist and spend some long-past-due family time. I was actually expecting to go under the laser again today, but my doctor told me yesterday that he didn’t think…
“Step Up”: a much better dance movie than it deserves to be
Cindy and I were bored the other night so we rented the dance movie “Step Up” which came out a few months ago. I’m kind of a sucker for these formula dance movies which always seem to have the same basic plotline: Uncouth street dancer meets prissy “professional” dancer through some contrived scenario (community service,…
Awesome new net neutrality video from SavetheInternet.com
Gotta love this new video from the SavetheInternet.com folks. It clearly and cogently describes the issue and what you can do to defend freedom of expression on the internet. Awesome stuff.
Pictures from the New York Comic Con
I had a beautiful day at the New York Comic Con hanging with my buddy Frank and thousands of other comic lovers. Despite the teeming hordes, I actually ended up running into several people I knew, which was fun, including scifi author David Mack, who had a couple of his books for sale at the…
Off to ComicCon New York!
So I’m off to New York Comic Con in just a few minutes! Zillions of comic, manga, graphic novel, action figure, and gaming exhibitors crammed into the Jacob Javitz Cetner. I’m so excited about all the nerdy goodness! W00T!
Easy Skanking: learning literacy through reggae music and computer gaming in Jamaica
Speaking of games to educate about the UN Millennium Development Goals, here’s an example of a Jamaican game that relates to Goal 2 "Achieve Universal Primary School Education." UNESCO sends out news about an innovative computer program in Jamaica called "Easy Skanking" that combines computer gaming and reggae music to teach literacy to young people…
Don’t stand so close to me: Thoughts on gendered behavior in virtual worlds
I just finished reading the fascinating study "The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments" led by Nick Yee of Stanford University, with Jeremy N. Bailenson, Mark Urbanek, Francis Chang, and Dan Merget. Yee et al. were interested in examining if norms about social space in the…
The Millennium Development Games
I got an interesting email the other day from Amil Husain of the UN Millennium Campaign regarding a new series of educational games they wish to produce to run on Negroponte’s $100 laptop: My agency at the United Nations is entering into a partnership with the NGO, One Laptop Per Child who have produced a…