There’s been some mixed reporting on this news today. Apparently, in a move that is likely to be as effective as their attempt to curb copyright infringement, China has moved to ban gold farming in virtual worlds. For those of you who don’t know, gold farming is the trading of virtual currency for real currency (the ban does not include trading real currency to purchase virtual goods). The article I read cites that several billion yuan (1 billion yuan = 146 million US dollars) was traded last year. Apparently, 80-85% of gold farmers originate from China, and generates “jobs” for hundreds of thousands of people.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 12:12 PM. Filed under: Games •
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
I was reading an interview over at CNN with a former ex-con, who was being asked about what Bernie Madoff is going to expect behind bars. This guy’s job is to be a consultant to white-collar criminals on what to expect in jail (now there’s an interesting job advertisement). Basically, he was telling CNN that Madoff is not going to enjoy himself, given the lifestyle he’s used to and that he’s going to a medium-security prison with no chance of getting out.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 11:26 AM. Filed under: Society •
Monday, June 29, 2009
I’ve been reading this book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, who is a behavioral economist at MIT. His field is relatively new, and brings together the disciplines of behavioral psychology and economics. In general, he is critical of the assumption that traditional economists hold - that humans are essentially rational beings who work to maximize their profit (or well-being). By using a series of small experiments, he tries to show that people are, in fact, irrational, but predictably so (hence the title).
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 12:22 PM. Filed under: Books •
Sunday, June 28, 2009
I was searching for minimalist web designs, and came across something called Expression Engine, which is a content management system (CMS). EE seems to be a happy marriage for people who don’t want to deal too much with code but are given the chance to play with it if they want.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 07:22 PM. Filed under: Blogging •
Despite the growing number of studies on video games, there are still gaps in video game research, especially when it comes to describing the situated (in situ) actions of gameplay. The study explores the locally-produced meaning-making practices of video game players, and analyzes gameplay as it occurs, not as a post hoc, reconstructed event, but as a situated event that unfolds in time. The participants of this study are Asian adolescents in New York City who play video games after school. The study is guided by ethnomethodology, an approach that has been applied to studies involving human-machine interactions, and has been increasingly important in helping us understand how people make sense of environments that involve different interfaces and equipment.
Posted by Aaron Chia Yuan Hung at 04:24 PM. Filed under: Research •
Recommended Reading
Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
Interesting Stuff
In my spare time, I’ve been trying to educate myself through reading classical Greek literature, history and philosophy. I’ve also tried to reflect on how the learning is happening, and how one might approach a complex subject matter such as this without going through schooling.Some of the work can be seen at StudyPlace, a wiki maintained by Teachers College.
I’ve been helping Dr. Varenne on his work with Dr. Lin and Dr. McDermott regarding NCLB. Specifically, they are interested in mapping the relationship between the government, schools, personnel and groups such as Kaplan and Princeton Review who help “failing” schools. Specifically, I’ve been using a comic book creating program that lets you easily put together a story.