[█████████]

 

[screamingskull]

my mum just got given £1000 from my dad. She was owed it, but still it's great! she said that i can have some of it too! Alright!

[Hip Priest]

The Bard helps digital experiment
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website

Usually it is only actors that play Shakespeare but now gamers are getting the chance to go adventuring in a virtual world built around the Bard's plays.

Called Arden, the virtual world is the creation of Professor Edward Castronova and colleagues in the Synthetic Worlds Institute at the University of Indiana.

An economist by training, Prof Castronova has led attempts to quantify the economic activity and impact of virtual worlds - be that in the games themselves or in the real world when people pay cold cash for virtual goods.

Arden, said Prof Castronova, was an attempt to go much further than this after the fact analysis. It will give social scientists an entire populated world on which to perform experiments - something always lacking in the real world.

"We're interested in social dynamics and economics," he said.

Pocket world

Social scientists would perform experiments on the thriving world by fiddling with its defining characteristics. Some of the changes could be obvious, such as the rate of inflation, or more subtle. But, said Prof Castronova, the results should be instructive - even for the real world.

"I have seen nothing in virtual worlds that violates any social theory I know about," he added. "A market is a market whether it is in ancient Athens, Shakespeare's London or Azeroth."

"If you have a theory about human society and it does not survive the transition across the membrane to a virtual world then it's not a very interesting theory," he said.

Screengrab of Arden, University of Indiana
Familiar characters appear in the Arden world
Social theorists such as Karl Marx might have reached very different conclusions if they had been given a pocket society to experiment on, said Prof Castronova.

The first public version of Arden is now available for anyone to visit - provided they have an up to date copy of the NeverWinter Nights game and have installed the Arden add-on produced by Mr Castronova and his colleagues.

Anyone expecting a gritty recreation of Elizabethan life might be surprised by what they find in Arden, said Dr Castronova.

"Shakespeare has a very rich lore and fantasy environment second only to Tolkien," he said. "Both have elves."

"We felt that it should not be historical but like Shakespeare's dream so you could have Rome next to Bohemia or the Forest of Arden," he said.

Adventuring in the world involves carrying out quests for familiar Shakespearian characters such as John Falstaff.

While the characters in the game speak authentic Shakespeare something else vital, admits Dr Castronova, got lost while it was being created.

"We were so focused on making it accurate for Shakespeare that we didn't really think about the fun part of it, the monsters and puzzles," he said.

"Most people that play will go in and poke around and if they are not immediately engaged they will just quit," he added. "The over-arching objective is to make a social lab and we cannot do that without having people in it."

Dr Castronova and his colleagues are now working on Arden II which will be set in London and will emphasise the fun that can be had playing Shakespeare and, by the by, learn something about him and his works.

Victorian tales

London is also the setting for a virtual world under development by Lee Sheldon - a game designer and lecturer at Indiana.

Set in Victorian times the London Town virtual world will meld together the fictional, such as Dracula, with real world figures such as Jack the Ripper. It will be a timeless place, said Mr Sheldon, where Queen Victoria never dies.

The idea behind the setting, said Mr Sheldon, was to let people discover the period by playing and being entertained.

London Town turns the city into a Victorian-themed game
Quests in the game will vary depending on which social class someone decides to be. They could help Dickens find a lost watch, travel with Professor Challenger to South America to search for dinosaurs on a hidden plateau or help Moriarty wrest control of the underworld from Dracula.

"It's an idealised society so it's as much fun to play the lower classes as the upper," said Mr Sheldon.

To prove the concept a prototype is being built of the Crystal Palace and Hyde Park to show people what it might look like. Mr Sheldon is now looking for help to fund the creation of London Town.

The impetus for the Victorian game also has a pedagogical element, said Mr Sheldon, but he added this would be concealed beneath a thick layer of fun.

"It's all about letting people experience some rich story telling," he said, "to re-introduce them to the whole period."

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

oh man, h-u-n-g-o-v-e-r-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

so, i'm making a playlist for my ipod
we're about to eat some mushrooms in 2-3 hours
it's been a while, quite excited

[SYRFox]

Let's go back to the original subject of the thread, please.

[✌➬]

Originally Posted by SYRFox

Let's go back to the original subject of the thread, please.

The most ironic statement of the thread.

[Rene Gades]

can someone give recomendations for some good can-style headphones at a decent price?

[Cantankerous]

 

i laughed for a bit

[davenotdead]

why do i always feel fatigued?
also, i need a job...i will seriously look for one after the holiday

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

tonight was the first time i've ever used my tennis court
got mad wasted and kicked everyones ass

[✌➬]

I love your sig crypto.

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

me too

[_slavo_]

ass lickin, ass lickin

[EMMAh]

I was called a granola cruncher today haha. Yeah, apparently I'm a hippy. Two weeks ago someone called me a hick, but I think they were kind of oblivious to a lot of things.

[Cantankerous]

wii injuries are the coolest. i got a chunk knocked out of my tooth and my friend got whacked in the nose and bled all over my wiimote.

[Norma J]

haha. How did that happen?

[Cantankerous]

18, 19, and 20 year olds in a room flailing their arms around is bound to result in injury

[king_buzzo]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

wii injuries are the coolest. i got a chunk knocked out of my tooth and my friend got whacked in the nose and bled all over my wiimote.

hahaha.

[Tokolosh]

Quite retarded don't you think?

 

Parades, a guitar craftsman in Colombia, has turned weapons into guitars. Parades has branched out from the traditional electric guitar making methods & has turned shotguns and AK 47 rifles into guitars.

The craftsman stated, “They used to hit a target at 800 meters (yards). Now the target will just depend on the concert stage.”

Cute and yet still a little scary.

Via: Reuters

 

Street musician Cesar Lopez was playing his guitar in front of a Bogota country club and noticed an army guard carrying his rifle the same way Lopez plays his guitar.So in this way he got an idea from AK 47 and decided to create a guitar that looks similar to AK47.

The newly introduced instrument made from fusion of two different devices is named Escopetarras, a combination of escopeta and guitarra, the Spanish words for rifle and guitar that plays pretty nice and is itself a different thing that can change a destructive thing into an object of constructiveness.

 

More photos.