Archives: January 2006
Sat Jan 28, 2006
Hurricane Pam: the eye of the storm
The Senate committee investigating federal management of Hurricane Katrina is looking closely at the simulation, "Hurricane Pam". Except for the death toll, "Pam's" scenario was very realistic, but what does that mean? More...
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Thu Jan 19, 2006
The Gestalt psychology of perception
An interesting piece on Classilog ponders our assumptions about the nature or 'reality' of thing we perceive (or imagine). Gestalt psychology is very interesting in a simulation concept, since it describes ways in which we make assumptions based on limited data. More...
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Sun Jan 08, 2006
The rules of modelling
Thanks to Financial Cryptography for pointing out the Economist's coverage of a research paper by Thomas Griffiths and Joshua Tenenbaum, about the way people think ahead. They argue that humans have internalised Bayesian methods, which allow us to make predictions when which we have insufficient evidence. Seems to me this is critical to the nature of modelling. More...
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Fri Jan 06, 2006
Simulation, psychology and ISVs in financial trading
Interesting blog article on the use of simulation in training financial traders by Dr Brett Steenbarger, a psychologist who is also a trader and is writing a book on trader performance. More...
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Thu Jan 05, 2006
Tax and liability in Second Life?
Terranova has two stories about Second Life: firstly that the US taxman may seek to tax trades within the virtual world (not just outside it, eg selling game currency on EBay), and secondly that Linden Labs may pay compensation to some owners after their virtual real estate lost value. More...
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Wed Jan 04, 2006
Virtual prisons
It had to come; Second Life now has its own prison. Read this in the context of recent academic discussions about virtual worlds and the law, and my earlier discussion about cyberspace and heaven. More...
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Official simulations in Britain
It's fascinating how many "official" simulations take place here these days. There are so many reports on Google Alerts that I've stopped covering them all.
The UK is probably behind the US - again, scarcely a day goes past without a Google Alert that some US local authority is simulating a disaster.
More...
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Roadmapping: A Collaborative Foresight Tool
The Accelerating Studies Foundation has announced a new programme to roadmap the 3D web. More...
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"State of Play III" conference.
There was a State of Play conference at the New York Law School in October 2005, followed immediately by a Second Life Community Convention.
Subjects discussed at both included in-game finance, and how (if) the law ought to apply to the 'netiverse'.
More...
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Tue Jan 03, 2006
The Edge Annual Question: some answers relevant to simulation
Edgehas an amazing post giving 117 answers to the Edge Annual Question: what is your dangerous idea?
If you read only one thing this year, these would be a good start. There's so much here it seems arrogant to try to summarise it, but there are some themes very relevant to the zeitgeist in which simulation takes place today.
More...
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Mon Jan 02, 2006
Total information awareness
I'm being naive about the British Police and their vehicle movements database. It's all an American idea and they are doing it bigger and better. More...
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