Tuesday in Technology
Virtual Microeconomics


Worlds of virtual reality are becoming ‘the’ game of the internet; Second Life, Entropia Universe, EVE and others are providing a life away from reality that are fast mimicking every aspect of real life. A very creative woman, Anshe Chung, has become the first virtual millionaire in Second Life and is now the owner of a pawnshop/bank in Entropia. The difference is that now she is converting her virtual worth into real money.

Millions of people are involved in these virtual worlds. They make virtual friends, visit virtual entertainment venues, create virtual merchandise, even alter their virtual appearance. But step outside the bounds of proscribed behavior and you can be wiped off the face of a virtual earth. All of the worlds go to lengths to protect their inhabitants from predators and bullies. Get too many complaints about not playing nice and your account can be removed, which can be the same thing as being executed for bad language.

The question is: will economists in the real world will be able to apply the lessons taught by the gamer mind in virtual reality? What can we learn by the combined brain power of people across the world who set aside the cultural differences that lead to war in real life to generate a peaceful howbeit frantic and structured virtual life? Does the world of negotiation and strict behavioral regulation make for a world of virtual or real peace? Can we really do this or is it all just a dream?

OK - for those of you who do monitor this blog, I know I've been out a lot - between being sick, my grandson being in a life-threatening accident and the resulting backlog of work, I am slowly digging my way out of this canyon.

Friday at the Movies
Fracture

This was a pleasant surprise. We went to see another movie but missed the start time (don’t you love how theaters forget to post changes to schedules on-line), so we opted to see Fracture instead. Besides the fact that Anthony Hopkins (Oscar winner for The Silence of the Lambs) does his usual superbly evil portrayal, Ryan Gosling (The Notebook) does an apt performance as a lawyer shark as good guy. The story and screenplay was written by Daniel Pyne (The Manchurian Candidate, The Sum of All Fears) and is a real on the edge of your seat thriller and will keep you riveted from the beginning to the roll of the credits. Without giving anything away, there is a murder – you see it happen, you know who did it, you know how it is done. But nothing is as it seems and the police and the D.A. have to prove an impossible case. And there is always that self satisfied smile on the face of Mr. Hopkins that says you aren’t going to be able to figure out how this one was done. “If you look close enough, you'll find everyone has a weak spot.”

Friday at the Movies
Déjà Vu

An excellent handling of time; both as a tool to look back upon and as a means to try to alter the present reality. The movie starts with a terrorist explosion of a ferry in New Orleans after the initial Katrina cleanup – 500 people die, in part to cover up the murder of a woman. ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington – The Bone Collector) is sent in to provide analysis of the explosion without his partner who is on vacation. After establishing that it is a terrorist act, discovering that the dead woman found washed up nearby was killed before the explosion (great line delivered by her father, played by Enrique Castillo, as he gives Carlin a set of pictures: “I want you to care about her”) and after discovering his partner was on the ferry, Carlin is drafted by Special FBI Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer – The Island of Dr. Moreau) to help with a secret government tool: a viewer that can see exactly 4 ½ days back in time; no more, no less. They want Carlin to tell them where to look so they can catch the terrorist. But when you look back in time, can the subject see you too? And what is this tool really – how are they looking back in time? How can they use it to try to prevent the loss of so much life?
Déjà Vu is already on DVD – it’s a must see for mystery and thriller fans.

Writing the Novel

OK, so last night was not so productive - wasn't feeling well and it was an exhausting day. So I stared at the screen, and after determining that my computer must have translated what I wrote into an alien language, I decided not to contribute to the insane scrawlings and hope that in the morning it would look like English again. Silly me.

Ah well, I noticed that I did not include my prior night's work on Chapter 1 - up to 6727 words.

Snippet:

“Great,” he said, “we’ll need to get this taken care of before the house collapses around them.” He turned to Moirrey, “Do you know who they go to when someone dies, to take care of the dead?”

Moirrey looked at him. “We’ll take care of it, Mr. Donahue. It’s the women, don’t ya know, in their society that take care of the dying and the dead.” At his shocked look she quickly added; “Do na worry about anything catching, if it was a sickness he had, it was burned out of him with the fire.”

Writing the Novel

The etymology of the word novel (n.):
"fictitious narrative," 1566, from It. novella "short story," originally "new story," from L. novella "new things" (cf. M.Fr. novelle, Fr. nouvelle), neut. pl. or fem. of novellus (see novel (adj.)). Originally "one of the tales or short stories in a collection" (esp. Boccaccio), later (1643) "long work of fiction," works which had before that been called romances. Novelist "writer of novels" is 1728, infl. by It. novellista.

I think it's kind of neat being called a novellista - makes it sound kind of important, like a lawyer being called a barrister (of course I think the etymology there has something to do with going to bars so much). :)

My output last night was only 700 words, but my total so far is 4300. That's giving me a little room to breathe in case I have to scramble for words this weekend.

Snippet:
It was a hot September wind that blew the burning demon into the path of Moirrey Ince. The demon came with friends, if they could be called friends, for when did a demon ever act friendly toward anyone else, especially those with whom they compete in their endless games, using people and animals and each other as game pieces and currency when betting someone else’s life? But there were other demons present, Moirrey could feel their energy vibrating in the beaded mouse bones dangling from her belt and she saw some of them too.

It was the black dog that Moirrey saw first.

Writing the Novel

OK, so I cheated yesterday, and while the wife was cooking for the troops, and while our son was scrambling to get everything else together, and their kids were tied-up with video games, I wrote. - ala Stephen King (so what if the kid's arm is broken, do I look like a doctor?) - well, I wasn't that bad. I got more done than I expected, I have a prologue done. But you have to understand that I have a ton of background material to work from (I have background material on a bunch of stories), just no story done. Anyway, I'm at 3420. Today I intend to get two uninterrupted hours on it, then I want to measure my productivity - I'm expecting about 750 words an hour which is short of the normal goal, so yesterday was a big help.

Snippet:

“Three is the number of worlds in this universe we call the Earth. There is the lower world, the underworld, the world of demons and evil spirits. There is the world we walk upon, the mundane world, the world of the living. And there is the world above us, the heavens, the world of gods. This trinity of purpose, these three aspects, exists all over the world. We cry, we sing and then we bow silent. There are other places in the void, but we are birthed here, we live here, we die here.”

-from the Diary of Moirrey Ince