Must take a look at Gamespy'sDeveloper Diaries, especially those chronicling the creation of Atriarch.
posted by Lisbeth at 14:28

The Dmoz.org List of MMORPGsis pretty good too.
posted by Lisbeth at 14:12

Current Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game Lists (via colleague Simon):
http://www.mmorpg.net
http://www.multiplayer.com
http://www.mpogd.com
posted by Lisbeth at 13:57

Mixed Reality competition
Lion, a snack bar producer, has opened a competition where you have to collect "codes" consisting of 6 letters, and then submit them via sms or website in order to participate in competition where you can win a number of prices - one code equals one lottery-lot. The "codes" can be found on various websites, but also at gas stations, supermarkets, kiosks and other snackbar vendors. Interesting concept, and I think we will see much more of this kind of pervasive and low bandwidth add-campaigns-competitions in the future.
posted by Lisbeth at 13:20

Been reading Emily Dickinson on the side lately. It is healthy to be reminded that good old-fashioned non-virtual texts still have a virtue of their own ;), that the power of poetic language still holds reign. This poem could be about a solid writer's block. Or about the various worlds, we experience unto ourselves...

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -
read more

//note: this is not meant to represent my current state of mind. I'm doing fine :) - I just like the poem...//
posted by Lisbeth at 10:27

BBC NEWS: Jedi 'religion' grows in Australia. This was also a story in the Danish newspapers yesterday. Someone satirically commented in the lunchbreak today: since Christianity is based on piece of fiction, why shouldn't the Jedi-religion achieve official status as religion too, based on a fiction film as it is? Well, what my colleague forgot is, that whether religions is formally outlined in a "piece of fiction", it is grounded in living history, in geography, culture and local mythology. We have yet to live in the Star Wars Galaxy before we can truly believe in Jedis. But perhaps the day when that will happen is not that far away....
Is it completely unimaginable that, as people start spending more and more time living in "virtual worlds", what started out as a virtual religion, will one day gain foothold in reality too?
posted by Lisbeth at 16:28

Daypop Top 40 Links - listing most popular links from weblogs around the world. Don't know how many weblogs they index on basis of, though.
posted by Lisbeth at 16:18

By the way, I promised myself to mention that cykelkokken - the bicycle chef - has actually finished building his bike and is now touring Copenhagen and vicinity doing mobile cooking for the Copenhageners:) He can serve up to 12 people; one should count on paying kr. 550 for a full dinner....I´m saving for it!
posted by Lisbeth at 15:26

The WorldForge Project - a complete gaming system for massively multiplayer roleplaying games. Wonder what the people behind think of Neverwinter Nights?
posted by Lisbeth at 14:15

And Terrarium is another example of a bot-world. Looks much like Technosphere.
posted by Lisbeth at 14:06

RoboCode Rumble another example of player-controlled/created bots who go on to live a life of their own, just like in Technosphere.org. Robocode is also designed to learn you Java. The original page is here: http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com/home/home.html.
posted by Lisbeth at 14:04

Simulation, pretense play. Must take a closer look at this: Virtual Play: Baudrillard Online
posted by Lisbeth at 12:44

Computergames on the political agenda
Interesting things are happening in Denmark at the moment as our Minister of Culture seems to have realised that computergames is a worthwhile focus area. Apart from putting financial support for computergame production on the EU agenda and looking into how to enhance the computergame studies!, the government will now look into the Danish computergame production scene as well. This according to article in Danish newspaper Politiken today.
The article mentions a report on 'Interaktive kulturprodukter som fokusområde' (Interactive products of culture as focusarea), which can be found here.
posted by Lisbeth at 12:23

Talking about Politiken: in their Book Review section of the printed paper, last week they had a review of Manovich's "The Language of New Media". The review is ok, but nothing special, more interesting is the fact that they placed the review under the heading "Digital Theory". It is a positive development that a good old-fashioned culturally oriented newspaper like Politiken is doing reviews of book about "new media", but calling it "Digital Theory"? Then they should start heading reviews of everything related to the print media as "Letter Theory"!
posted by Lisbeth at 18:46

Mail on paper - according to this article in Politiken it wont be long before the Danes can subscribe to a service where you can write down your e-mail on intelligent paper, then send it via mobile phone. Brave new world, that is if you have the 8000 d. kr, it costs to invest in the equipment...

I wonder what will happen to the concept of literature if you start writing your novels on intelligent paper and then have it processed by digital equipment. Then it should be called "digital literature" too, shouldn't it?
posted by Lisbeth at 12:06

Star Wars Galaxies - you can still become betatester in this online multiplayer game.
posted by Lisbeth at 18:15

Been AFK at the beach for some days. Meanwhile, thoughts on these future blogposts have been cooking:
Plot literacy and replayable plots
The representation of Researchers
Computer games as metaphor for life in modern fiction
- now I just need to write them out as soon as I have written some pages of my thesis...
posted by Lisbeth at 14:43

Sorry for the sporadic updates here. Part of the problem is that the servers at ITU seem to be down quite frequently these days. Our systems administration is doing the usual overhaul of our system before term start. Please check back later, if you get a 404.
posted by Lisbeth at 11:05

Family Matters...
Researchers prefer ....researchers. A Danish inquiry into the co-habiting habits of 20.000 researchers shows that 8 of 10 researchers actually live with another researcher, quite often within their own area (especially if you are a veterinarian for some reason). And a bit of uplifting news for the singles amongst us: whereas 4 out of 10 "normal" Danes are single, only 3 of 10 researchers live as singles. In order words: we are apparently better at finding partners...
The entire report on the geographical and social mobility of Danish researchers employed by the state, can be found here. It is published by the Danish Research Institute of Research Analysis. Sic.
posted by Lisbeth at 11:03

Another test for those bored on Sundays:What's Your Personality Type? (via Torill)
posted by Lisbeth at 14:21

KKUNST - a dj/art project by dj360 who used to teach at the IT University as Morten Remmer. Site is also designed by a guy who just finished his degree at ITU.
posted by Lisbeth at 14:12

I was just interviewed by a journalist from Information who wanted to know more about ....weblogs. I always get these anxiety attacks when journalists probe me for facts and figures and historical facts and stuff, so here is some of the links I want to refer him to, and check out myself for the right numbers. Further suggestions welcome!
Rebecca Blogs Weblog History and Dave Winers account of how they came into being.

Laurel C. Clyde has 2 articles (this and this) with loads of links and facts etc on weblogs in a online journal called Freepint.

This article, "News By the People, For the People" by Paul Andrews at the Online Journalism Review estimates the number of worldwide blogs to be more than 500.000 (May 2002). Judging from the success of Blogger.com, I'd estimated there is more than a million worldwide, but of those several hundred thousands of them are most likely already "deceased". Blogdex only keeps track of 13359 blogs. You got any more recent numbers?
ISSN for weblogs
Armarium now has a list of approx 170 Danish weblogs (as of July 6th).
And the Henry Jenkins article on the weblogging phenomena in Technology Review.
posted by Lisbeth at 16:05

Re previous post: believe me, it was! (a lesson :))
posted by Lisbeth at 21:42

Weekend-mum, AFK
Will spend all weekend looking after a small child, while her parents is away at a wedding in opposite part of the country. Think it will be a healthy exercise in how it is to live a life where you cannot check mail, surf, blog or just mess with your computer whenever you feel like it ;-).
posted by Lisbeth at 23:41

There is a review of the US Army Game America´s Army: Operations in Politiken. The US Army are now using free game to make people join to fight for Uncle Sam....But no American parents taking offense of that, I guess??
posted by Lisbeth at 20:28

Over at Mark's place, he has made a neat little list of non-linear movies which could inspire hyperfiction. I suggested a few, too - others I need to go check out.
posted by Lisbeth at 13:55

The blognovel discussion continues at Slashdot.org where the writer announced his idea and got a lot of good comments.Slashdot | Narrative and Weblogs: the Blognovel. This comment is close to mine.
posted by Lisbeth at 13:49