My pal Tony just invited me to join his "Fantasy Congress" league. I was a bit dubious about this effort to make the US legislative process into a game, but it seems actually quite well thought out. From the FAQ: Fantasy Congress™ offers you the power to "play politics." As in other fantasy sports, you…
“Real Life Places in SL” HUD
I just finished playing with the new open-sourced TourHUD created by the Electric Sheep Company for the GSD&M ad agency. The Tour HUD ("heads up display") is a very easy-to-use tool for creating your own custom tours of various spots in Second Life. There are already two — one for newbie-friendly areas and another of…
iCommons lists CC-licensed free music sites
iCommons posts a great list of CC-licensed music from around the world, including Mexico, Finland and Portugal. (Hmmm, wonder where Brazil is?) Can’t wait to explore the free music goodness. Oh, and Torley’s free techno still kicks ass.
Ohio Attorney General goes after The Gift Assistant
Just got word from Aaron Forge that the wheels of justice are finally grinding their way towards the Gift Assistant company. The Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro just announced that he wants the Ohio-based Gift Assistant to refund the money to all of its defrauded customers and to pay a fine of $25,000 for each…
Every Time You Vote against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf
Hilariously titled "Every Time You Vote against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf" an article by Tony Greenberg and Alex Veytsel of Ramprate argues that online massively-multiplayer online games will be the first to get the knife if Net Neutrality provisions go out the window. They contend that online video will survive in…
My post on “Our Common Humanity” blog
I was invited to contribute to a new blog associated with a UN-affiliated meeting on "Our Common Humanity" taking place from November 28-29 in New York. I decided to do a general "best practices" post pointing to innovative uses of ICTs to promote positive social change, including some of my favorites like WITNESS, Global Voices…
Buy a virtual car — defend freedom on the Net!
Motarati announces that all the proceeds of the sales of the virtual Pontiac Solstice GXP will go to benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit that has been defending freedom in cyberspace for as long as there has been a cyberspace. Suu-weeeet!
Vote for Hypno & Tiny Love in Yahoo Talent Show
Popping / locking funk-style dancers Hypno and Tiny Love have entered one of their recent performances in the Yahoo video talent contest. Check out their video, and vote for it if you like it. Good luck, Hypno and Tiny Love!
Joi Ito talks to CNET (transcript)
The always interesting and cool venture capitalist / gamer Joi Ito gave an interview to Daniel Terdiman of CNET at their in-world headquarters yesterday. Joi touched on such subjects as copyright and IP in Second Life, Creative Commons, the game industry, and work and World of Warcraft. Daniel will be posting a fuller interview shortly. …
Returning to the virtual Camp Darfur
During the talk that In Kenzo and I gave at RootsCamp on SL political organizing last week, In Kenzo brought up that she and a team of other volunteers had been working very hard over the past months to create the virtual Camp Darfur as an awareness raising and politicizing tool. I realized that I…