Have you heard the buzz on virtual money in online games? Some years ago the first virtual millionaire was announced, yet there have also been reports on people being practically enslaved to farm virtual gold. The Chinese government recently announced to limit the use of ‘virtual’ currencies. An essay on the virtuality of money.
By KOERT VAN MENSVOORT
First of all we should realize the term virtual money is a pleonasm, a superfluous expression. Money is, by definition, virtual. And it always has been. Well, perhaps not in the time when people used cows and goats as barter. A cow is a living creature, and useful as well. You can drink its milk and when the creature no longer gives any milk you can always kill it and eat it. We may not think about, but it is actually a miracle that I can now at the butcher on the corner exchange a piece of paper for a rump steak.
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These college students perform a “live-action” skit of the old school Super Mario Brothers video game at a talent show. Virtual for real in a high school musical (hilarious alert!). Thanks Ehsan.
See also: Boomeranged Metaphors, Living with first-person shooter disease, Game on, Everything is Fake, Games become jobs.
By highlighting the geometric and mechanical structure of flowers, computer graphics illustrator Macoto Murayama produced these beautiful renderings. These flowers must not be seen as “just a simulation of old nature”; they are constructional studies, made to inspire (who wouldn’t want to live in a flower-tower?!).
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Meet A.T.R.E.E.M. (acronym for Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine), a device that compares daily activities, energy and products to the growth of a tree.
“From an ecological perspective, CO2 is a byproduct of the living, either directly or indirectly. From the economic perspective, CO2 may become the world’s largest commodity market. What do we consider the price of our own byproducts?
This project aims to criticise the carbon trading system as well as raise awareness of how good we are at destroying the planet.”
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Now how is this for a Boomeranged Metaphor? Gene suffers from first person shooter disease, also known as Duke Nukem’s disease. It is such a sadness.
See also: When Facebook gets Physical, World of World of Warcraft. Thanks Thomas.
For a while now printer ink is probably the most expensive liquid per litre on earth. Still we need our images so badly that we accept this fact. The Human Printer manages to make it even more expensive (although for now it’s free). Watch how it works and view the different printer models.
In response to the Boomeranged Metaphors post of last week, visual wizard Ton Meijdam sent us these foldable icons. Print them, fold them and use them to decorate your 3D desktop (you know that one from the pre-digital age). Should keep the kids busy during the weekend.
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Kevin Kelly — senior maverick at Wired — asks people how they see the internet and if they can, visualize it. Here is how:
“The internet is vast. Bigger than a city, bigger than a country, maybe as big as the universe. It’s expanding by the second. No one has seen its borders. And the internet is intangible, like spirits and angels. The web is an immense ghost land of disembodied places. Who knows if you are even there, there. Yet everyday we navigate through this ethereal realm for hours on end and return alive. We must have some map in our head.
I’ve become very curious about the maps people have in their minds when they enter the internet. So I’ve been asking people to draw me a map of the internet as they see it. That’s all. More than 50 people of all ages and levels of expertise have mapped their geography of online.”
About the project | Download pdf and participate | View more maps; Read the rest of this entry »
