Kids steal to feed gaming habits (link)
Wed, Feb 03, 2010 by Sia Ling Xin
"MORE children are stealing credit cards and cash from their parents to secretly purchase virtual items for computer games."
"In the past year, he has seen a shift towards stealing for gaming – from hardly any cases, to two out of 10."
The term virtual is like a wolf in sheep's clothing, people unknowingly fall into it, causing much social problems. Not just kids, adults do can become a victim of addiction such as online gambling.
We're not ready for Google Wave (link)
30th September by Adam Griffiths
"Because it is too different to what is available now, many people will go onto Wave and dislike the interface, or dislike the features or dislike the way things are done, and then revert back to Facebook or whatever social network they prefer."
"Google Wave is being billed as it’s what email would be if it had been invented today. But my argument is that it could be too advanced for today. People could use it and find out it’s just too much for them now."
Quite true. Cos with the small "survey" (by asking them if they know of this) I did with my fellow SoC schoolmates, they either have an account by don't use it or don't know about it. Even Computing people don't "support" the latest technology, not to say non-Computing ppl would "dare" to try it out.
Having used Google Wave for my project discussion for Facebook Assignment and Facebook Seminar... I found that it is quite a useful alternative discussion if any of the teammates are not online. MSN or Google talk what so ever requires teammates all to be online to initiate a group chat, but Wave don't need. Wave is not like email, rather rigid, it is more flexible, better than Instant messaging. Then when the teammates are online, they can look thru the wave and see what's happening. But the problem with it is it hangs quite a lot.
Another thing is real time messaging. Pros and cons. It speeds up the conversation but may be a bit awkward to let ppl see all your thoughts. Draft (the small box) shld be implemented quickly for users to have alternative.
Cloud Computing Plain and Simple
Cute presentation that simplifies "Cloud Computing". The metaphor of a car at the back is quite innovative.
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Oh my! You're like doing FYP! =p
ReplyDeleteI like them but I especially like the first article you linked to. =) I used to, and still, to a certain extent, think that micro-payments are evil. Maybe it's because I was a small kid and I couldn't afford anything.
People who play online games and use 'micro-payments' to gain in-game advantages felt like cheating to me back then. It felt kind of like bribery. It's something rich kids do.
To a certain extent, I feel that micro-payments are a product of greed, i.e. screwing customers for a quick buck. I believe it's a quick way to make a lot of money. For example, if 1% of your users decided to pay you $1 today and you have 1 million users, that's $10000. Then, there's actually little to no cost to you in giving this privileges to them. For example, to give them double the experience per unit time would probably be a one-line code change. You could have given it to them for free or given them more, like three times the experience.
From another perspective, I recognize that developers are humans too and after all the work that they've done, they need to be paid and they need to feed their families. Oh well, such is life. =)
I also thought that these social issues will inevitably happen and worsen. I guess it's hard to be a good person and still make lots of profits. That is not to say it could not happen, but we really need to do something extra-ordinary to get there.
FYP?! haha...
ReplyDeleteThe first article was actually found on the bilingual newspaper mypaper, it was published on the day of the FB seminar. I thought it was useful, so i searched online and posted a link to share with all of you. Hmmm... then the date is wrong, shld be 01 Feb!
I guess it's hard to be a good person and still make lots of profits.
It is hard to be a good person in general too:)
Yeah, that seems like doing literature reviews and building references list.
ReplyDeleteActually I agree with you too. I think there's this Chinese saying that goes, "It takes 3 days to learn to be bad but it takes 3 years to learn to be good."
Actually what I meant as being a good person is difficult is even if you want to be good you may accidentally end up doing bad.
ReplyDeleteSeven deadly sins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins
It's true that being a good person is hard, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying to be good!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I love Wave. The in-line commenting feature is super awesome.
and yes, the car analogy on Cloud Computing is really awesome.
haha, looking forward to work with u in Google Wave. Although it may be a long shot before anything happens with it, its good that we have an opportunity here to start early, and assess for ourselves whether Wave will turn out to be something big in the end. :)
ReplyDeleteWave is not like email, rather rigid, it is more flexible, better than Instant messaging.
ReplyDelete@joshuatj: What I was refering to was the inline text and it's ability to add gadgets!
@Bernard S.: Looking forward to working together with u too! :)