Thursday, May 24, 2007

not immigration blogging

Chris Borgen at Opinio Juris brings us word of a new online venture:

Anshe Chung Studios is preparing to launch a virtual financial market, financial products and a set of services that are going to, for the first time, allow direct capital flow and investment across virtual world boundaries. This step will be the first of many in the creation of an open, cross platform Metaverse economy that transcends individual virtual worlds.

. . .

The new financial market will allow Second Life residents to invest their Linden DOLLARS (L$) directly in ventures such as banks, malls or biospheres in Entropia Universe while those who earned their fortunes in Entropia dollars will be able to easily diversify their investments into assets such as Second Life virtual land funds, virtual game development businesses or the IMVU fashion design industry.

Wow, that is cool. If I had another 20 hours of leisure time in my week, I’d join Second Life. But I think monitoring online investments would fall fairly low on my hierarchy of virtual activities. (Although somewhere above choreographing classic dance routines in machinima.) Then again, 15 years ago, I thought this was a great way to spend my weekends.



In other news, once again we turn to the BBC to find out about crucial happenings in our own back yard:
An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps.

The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park.

The key passage appears in the ninth paragraph:
"Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," Prof Mazzotti said.

Yet another reason to move to Florida. They have Burmese pythons!

No comments: