Thing 15

Puzzle Pirates didn't sound interesting, so I was going to try Kingdom Of Loathing. A few of my friends play that, and after reading the wiki and some interviews with the game developer, I can see why! It sounds like a hoot. It's played with stick-figure avatars and the currency of the realm is meat. You can gain power by drinking booze, although drinking too much gets you a time-out. I really think my destiny in life is to become an Accordion Thief.

If I ever get Much More Time, I'm definitely going to start that.

In the end, I watched the Second Life vid, read the debunking of video game myths, scanned the Info Island blog, and listened to the YALSA podcast.

Mainly, I want to know how much it cost the library to buy the island, or if Second Life gave it to them for free.


I was amused that the kids think adults spend way too much time on Second Life and highly interested to read an article about "banking" on SL.

With people making actual cash money doing various things on SL, and "banking" concerns inside the virtual world promising to invest their money at a high rate of return, it's no wonder that some people transferred their cash into these unregulated and ultimately spurious "banks," losing their money when the "banks" simply vanished. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "play money."

Most SL financial transactions take place in the real world -- you have to link outside of SL to buy products and services over the internet.

The Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County puts out a lot of programming on Info Island. I imagine these programs are done concurrently with RL programming in the library buildings . . . or they have way more money than I can imagine. Setting up on SL seems like a fine idea. It's a terrific outreach project, if a library has enough staff who are already players. The learning curve for serious involvement in this game must be something like World of Warcraft's. It's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle.

I am curious to know how many people they reach who live in their own service area -- of course, there's no easy way to find out -- and how they justify the expense of staff time.