Reading Edanna’s blog, I bumped into an interesting post (Spanish only) about social networks in the virtual world and how the have an effect on us. In some way, what happens in the virtual worlds have an impact on this one.

Castanova is an economist and sociologist which entered the Everquest online role playing game. He observed very some interesting patterns: Not only it seems there’s an economy with virtual objects and treasures trading achieved by players, but also, since some of those objects are sold in the internet (e.g. at eBay) the have a value in the real world.

Starting from this point he goes deeper into his research and in the end he reaches very interesting conclusions, like, for example the platinum coin (Everquest money) value compared to dollars, or how people does not like egalitarian worlds (like agent Smith said in The Matrix: we like suffering).

In my humble opinion, the value of objects in virtual worlds are based on desire and speculation, but they don’t have a real value. They don’t make real wealth.

Posted by Boriel as Internet, Sociology at 10.37 am

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I realized almost by chance, 2 days ago: It seems my web content is not being indexed by Google, nor Technorati, nor MSN Search not Yahoo search. I’ve got a bit alarmed because these last 18 days (since May 20th) this web has not been indexed for the most of search engines…

Since I don’t use robots.txt I only could think either it’s because of a plugin I’ve recently installed or the cause is beyond my control (not directly related to me), but it’s affecting me anyway. I’m suspecting of WP-HashCash plugin I installed the same day I wrote Bye Bye, Captcha!. It was just this day my site stop being indexed (the mentioned post was written just after installing this plugin and has not been indexed either). In fact, WP-HashCash is in charge of getting spam bots away using JavaScript, and I suspect such javascript might be interferring other spider bots in some way.

The other suspected plugin is Kramer which I also installed by that time, though it’s less likely it is the one cousing troubles. I’ve momentarily disabled both to see what happens.

If someone has a clue, please don’t hesitate to tell.

Update: (12:07 - Jun 09th) I’ve disabled almost every plugin in my system and then pinged Technorati (its support service told me their web spiders couldn’t access my site for some reason). It seems I’m now indexed! The problem now is I don’t know thich plugin was causing troubles (supposing it was one of them). :(Will keep investigating…

Posted by Boriel as Internet, Wordpress, Blogosphere at 6.24 pm

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When I was a child, there was a TV advertisement that strongly attracted my attention: It was a microwave commercial. I can’t recall the brand, but vaguely remember what they said. It was something like this:

“Defrosting chicken, 4 minutes. Heating food: 2 minutes. Boiling water: 15 seconds”

Time durations are invented, I can’t remember them exactly.

“Wow! How fast!“, I told myself. In those times, latest ’80s, microwaves were not very known, at least in the Canaries, and were more considered luxury stuff. But it wasn’t that what I found hard to believe. I rememeber my mother putting the chicken to defrost on the kitchen sink in the early morning, to start cooking it at midday; if I were to boil water for an infusion it took me at least 3 or 4 minutes in our gas cooker. So, was the advertisement telling the true? How could it be so fast?

Unfortunately, that was a bad omen: Not only cooking would speed up (with the arrival of microwaves): Everything did. People want to do everything quicker. And among this hustle and bustle, one asks oneself why: to save more time? more time to do more things quicker? It’s supposed that, in the end, you’ll have more spare time, but I’ve seen many people having fun in a hurry during their spare time, not knowing very well why, putting the foot on the accelerator all the time…

We live in a microwave society, a more and more vibrating one, of which symptoms are now moving into the blogosphere. If something requires time, few people take the trouble to try it.

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Posted by Boriel as Internet, Blogosphere at 9.27 pm

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With the overhelming arrival of the Blog Fashion, hundred of netizens from being passive news readers, have become active the publishers and authors. This, as first glance, it’s rather positive: In principle, anyone can post whatever they one inmediately (there are exceptions, like censorship in other countries, but I will write on that topic in a future post). Browsing sites like Sifry’s Alerts, we can see thet blogs are a plague, and it doubles almost every five month. We’re living an age of freedom of speech (well, not everywhere…, but almost) as never seen before. But… ¿Does it really creates more information? ¿Have the people actually so much to tell?

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Posted by Boriel as Internet, Blogosphere at 11.28 am

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After a long waiting, Enya official web site has updated to get ready for her new album release, in which it’s supposed the polemic song Sumiregusa will be included.

This song was used for a commercial advertisement of a TV in Japan (I think). However, it was said this song was also an advance of her new album release almost finished. This was inmediately denied in the Enya’s site, even by Enya herself.

The web design has changed, and now shows new and interesting details for the unconditional fans. All in flash.
The map after the intros was the thing that really got my attention. It looks like a castle map, with some interesting rooms:

• The Music Room, where you can enter and listen some of her most known songs.
• At The Watch Tower you can watch this 4 video clips: May it be (included on The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack), Orinocco Flow, Caribbean Blue and Only Time
• At the Studio you will take a nice virtual visit. Have you seen the technology they use? Astonishing!!!
• And the most intriguing: A Secret Room, to which you can enter only after typing in the password. You have to guess the key from a riddle you will find in a book of the library

The album is planned to be released on November 21st, and will be entitled Amarantine.

 
Update! Album cover.

Posted by Boriel as Internet, Music at 8.02 pm

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