Author: Jeff Milner

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Dibbell on Chinese Gold Farms

Julian Dibbell has an interesting article in the New York Times about China’s growth industry: gold farming.

Gold farming is the term used to describe playing Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMO’s) to collect gold and other valuables and then sell them for real world currency. Though it’s not a lot to any individual worker, the amount of cash involved may surprise you.

In 2001, Edward Castronova, an economist at the University of Indiana and at the time an EverQuest player, published a paper in which he documented the rate at which his fellow players accumulated virtual goods, then used the current R.M.T. prices of those goods to calculate the total annual wealth generated by all that in-game activity. The figure he arrived at, $135 million, was roughly 25 times the size of EverQuest’s R.M.T. market at the time. Updated and more broadly applied, Castronova’s results suggest an aggregate gross domestic product for today’s virtual economies of anywhere from $7 billion to $12 billion, a range that puts the economic output of the online gamer population in the company of Bolivia’s, Albania’s and Nepal’s.

Previously: Play Money is Now Out and Professional Game Playing Conclusion.

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SiCKO

I just finished watching Michael Moore’s new movie, SiCKO.

A lady in Utah once broke into conversation about the differences in superiority between the health care system in the United States and the one in Canada. It took me a moment to process her argument that the United States system was far superior because it allowed anyone to pay for any treatment they needed without delay.

I asked her, well isn’t it better that people in Canada who couldn’t afford health care in the States can go to a hospital and not be refused treatment? Her rebuttal, though with no apparent reason for saying so, was that, “no, the American system is much better.”

And now you can make your own decision as Michael Moore takes a look at health care around the world, and in the good ol’ US of A.

Hit play or watch SiCKO fullscreen at Google Video. The video is down, but you can still see it in theatres when it comes out June 29th.

Universal health care, just one more reason I’m glad to be a Canadian.

Oh and for you conspiracy theorists out there, check out what appears to be a secret handshake 38 minutes and 04 seconds into the movie.

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Science vs. Religion in the United States

A recently released Gallup Poll indicates that more Americans accept theory of creationism than the science of evolution.

I have to ask myself, is it because those pesky scientists have been wrong about so many things or because religion has been so particularly good at teaching us about the way the world is?

The data from several recent Gallup studies suggest that Americans’ religious behavior is highly correlated with beliefs about evolution. Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend.

I’d be interested if there is also a correlation between those that finish high school and those that trust the science behind the theory of evolution, and again between those that go on to University and if they believe in so called “intelligent design” or evolution.

The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution’s explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago.

Quite frankly, no matter which side of the debate you take, you have to admit the data indicate that about a quarter of Americans are stupid.

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TED Talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas

What you are about to watch is truly remarkable, and it just gets better as it goes.

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from [Flickr], Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.

See more on Seadragon and Photosynth.

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Buzz Marketing Interview with Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell at World Innovation Forum

Paul Dunay, of Buzz Marketing for Technology has a recap of Malcolm Gladwell’s recent speech at the World Innovation Forum about, what else, innovation.

Paul found an opportunity to speak with Gladwell during the conference and recorded his interview.

Gladwell illustrates some of his points from his book, The Tipping Point, and what I found to be quite interesting, how the “last mile problem of marketing” is still trouble for marketers.

“The last mile in word of mouth marketing is personal relationships. At the end of the day I’m most powerfully influenced by those I know, respect and love,” explains Gladwell. The most complicated marketing scheme in the world won’t have a very strong affect on any given individual if the people that that individual trusts aren’t moved by the product.

Gladwell also talks a little bit about his new book. He says it’s about exceptional performers and high achievers, how they got there, and what we can learn from them.

Listen to the “Buzz Marketing for Technology’s” interview with Malcolm Gladwell.

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Fermat’s Last Theorem

As a follow-up to the recent Malcolm Gladwell speech at the New Yorker 2012 conference, here is a documentary all about Fermat’s Last Theorem (wikipedia) and its proof by Andrew Wiles in 1994.

BBC Horizon – Fermat's Last Theorem from mmenchu on Vimeo.

Even if math isn’t your thing, there is something intriguing about following Wiles’ seven year struggle to solve the mystery. In general I get a bit of a rush out of the beauty of mathematics but watching Wiles create a proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem was just magical.

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Typographics

Ryan Uhrich, an artist living in Edmonton, AB has created a wonderful motion graphics piece called Typographics (19mb Quicktime).

Typography Motion Graphics

I love watching this kind of thing and wish I was more experienced with compositing.