blog.spathis.com

Random musings & skepsis…

Entries Comments



Month: May, 2006

Martin Fowler on Ruby…

17 May, 2006 (22:20) | programming, general | By: Constantine

Anything by Martin Fowler has long been a must read for me. He has been a big fan of Ruby. Now he asks if Ruby is ready for the enterprise.

Read it over at http://martinfowler.com/bliki/EvaluatingRuby.html

He really nails the politics behind technology choices in enterprise business perfectly. Ruby is getting very interesting…

Speaking on structured blogging at Syndicate…

17 May, 2006 (13:24) | work, blogging | By: Constantine

Attending syndicate this week. I had an opportunity to speak on a panel on structured blogging, it was alot of fun. Somewhat Frank has the details along with pictures at this post.

Lisp

15 May, 2006 (15:10) | programming | By: Constantine

More fascinating lispism over at http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060118%2ehtml

Powered by Qumana

Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad letter to President Bush….

10 May, 2006 (09:01) | currentaffairs, politics | By: Constantine

SecondLife….

9 May, 2006 (22:21) | gaming, law | By: Constantine

Fascinating stuff in the virtual gaming world, SecondLife. Its becoming apparent that SecondLife can no longer be considered just a game. Something more is happening there. Its a rough raw experience but its getting better all the time.

 It seems that Marc Bragg is suing SecondLife because he discovered a flaw in their system. Over at the SecondLife forums Nimrod Yaffle posts what may be the method used:

What he did was look at the auction ID and put it at the end of the regular auction URL, so he got access to the auction before it was actually started by LL. It was not on the main auction page because a linden had not set it up yet, so it was 0.00 min price.

Clearly Marc discovered and exploited a bug. The case may get thrown out quickly because it is clearly spelled out in the TOS that Linden Labs can terminate any account for any reason. Hopefully, though, the courts will use this case to start taking up the question of virtual worlds and the law.

Marc's actions resulted in the termination of his SL account. But should that be allowed? Virtual worlds present some very interesting legal questions. As virtual worlds become more and more part of people's lives will the ultimate punishment of banishment for life be allowed without the courts stepping in? Should a user be completely cut-off from close friends and even loved ones? The company hosting the virtual world?

There is significant opportunity for an enterprising judge to really move the legal world into the 21st century. Lets see who rises to the challenge.