pirates are the next monkey

weather: warm to cool, slight wind.

i had lunch today with a fascinating person who i don't know very well. they were trying to make amends for being a giant pain in my butt a few weeks back. i have to say, his attempts proved successful, as i'm now endeared. i mean really - who else could sit and talk with me about the complexities of our virtual selves and people's online identities over a plate of tasty thai food? who else, but the community manager of a large video game company, that's who! someone who lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps the social functionings of a multi-player universe. someone whose job is to comfort, encourage, befriend, assist, prod, poke, and intrigue a wild band of gamers.

i took a course once, in grad school, that was taught by sherry turkle and mitch resnick. the class was all about the relationships between computation, comprehension, and identity - how we think about and process information and ideas - how these ideas are influenced by objects and experiences. really fascinating stuff. i think about that class a lot. i almost didn't take it, too, that's the strange thing. yet here i sit - one year later with a thesis under my belt that was completely impacted by that course - and now a job that seems to bring up the topics and ideas that we explored time and time again. you should think about it too. here, read one of sherry's books.

while you're at it - here's a really great game for introducing you to the wild world of multi-player universes. you get to be a pirate. yargh! yohoho puzzle pirates (and sorry, it's kind of large download the first time. but well worth the trouble if your internet connection can handle it!)