cheating does not pay

A Week of Kindness Blog has a story about a college student that tried to get someone to write a paper for her over AIM. That someone turned out to be a comedy writer in disguise (Nate), who happens to run a blog. Oh dear, hilarity ensues. The blog posting goes on to chronicle the guy's messing with this girl, and the actual paper he wrote for $75. Now her full name and University affiliation is all over the Internet as a liar and a cheat. Plaigarism does not pay!

Hey acorn...

Hey Acorn, this is what a mocha latte SHOULD look like

A History of Communications 35,000 BC - 1998 AD

Here's a fascinating timeline: A History of Communications 35,000 BC - 1998 AD. He outlines 11 "information revolutions" and when they took place in history.

mailbox clean-up

I've been getting a lot of "Mailbox Full" errors from students this semester. Please clean out your mailboxes.

aol users: take heed

Ted Leung on the air has a nice breakdown of the current debate over the AOL terms of service (TOS). According to the TOS:

"...by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses."

Ted summarizes: "So if AOL decide they wanted to post logs of your AOL AIM/iChat conversations, they could do so at any time." Wow.

Your only recourse is to stop using the product: "If you do not agree with the modified Terms of Service, your only remedy is to discontinue using the AIM Products and cancel your registration."

Italy Open Source Conference

A paper on OSSmole that James Howison, Kevin Crowston and I wrote has been accepted to The First International Conference on Open Source Systems - OSS 2005 in Genova, Italy in July.

Another paper using OSSmole data has also been accepted to the same conference.

Development on OSSmole continues; we released several graphs and new reports within the past week.

virtual worlds demo today

Update from Feb 25 - Today (March 7) at 12 noon in Mooney 202 (mac lab) I'll be giving a demo of Second Life with particular focus on how it can be used in the classroom. Everyone is welcome.

Here are some links to things that I will be referencing in the demo:

• The Everquest economy is the 77th largest in the world:
  "The Gross National Product of EverQuest, measured by how much wealth all the players together created in a single year inside the game. It turned out to be US$2,266 per capita. By World Bank rankings, that made EverQuest richer than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia. It was the 77th richest country in the world. And it didn't even exist." (based on Castronova: ssrn abstract and c|net article)
  
• Lengthy description of SL economy, with more on recent changes in SL economic policy, and historical currency troubles in Second Life.
  
• Gaming Open Market - grey market for currency exchange
  
• Second Life Exchange - real-time Second Life shopping using a standard web browser
  

Blogs covering Second Life:

• New World Notes (embedded journalist, James Au)
  
• Clickable Culture (Tony Walsh)

My own Elon resources:

• The Metaverse blog
  
• The Metaverse wiki
  
• A bunch of links on "Big Issues"
  

Interesting Places:

• The Gates in Briarcliff Manor (Island Sim)
  
• Deeni Native American Tribe in Tavarua (160,78)
  
• Project Brigadoon - a sim for people with Autism & Asperger's Syndrome and Live 2 Give - a sim for people with cerebral palsy and similar disabling conditions
  
• Wilde Cunningham - one avatar controlled by 9 physically disabled adults in a group home
  

Misc:

• Second Life - official corporate site