Are u real? (link requires subscription)

Theres a great article on Salon.com today. It got me thinking a lot about who we all really are, and what IS 'real' anyway. I could go on such a rant now, but I just thought i'd post the link. Hope you find it interesting.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/04/14/who_killed_miss_norway/index_np.html

Ope, I was interested in reading the article until I got to this...."Subscribe now, or watch a brief ad"!! Would have been nice if you had mentioned this was a subscription based service. I don't do ads.....sorry.


-TK

huh? i was able to read it without a subscription. hmmm sry folks

uh, i could copy paste if you'd like

It took me five seconds to get through today's ad.

The article itself is worth it, trust me. ^_^

woohoo! glad somebody read it

I read it, and yes it was worth it, thanks for pointing it out

Yeah, very interesting. Not too surprising someone would fake a personality - "role playing" happens all the time. But faking such a dramatic death like that is a bit spooky.
I'm constantly wondering who/what's real out there on SL and internetland in general. It's just so hard to tell sometimes (and I even have a psych background..

Great story. Talk about an idea for a new fiction movie or book. Physical and emotional limitations often hide the true potential of an individual...but these limits vanish online. I remember one player in EQ, amazingly powerful and well spoken, who was in fact seriously challenged by a RL ailment. I don't think anybody would ever have known what was inside this individual without the venue of the MMORG.

Unfortunately that works just as easily in reverse. It's common for people to play a sweet little mostly naked high elf female becuase they know if they hang around a bank long enough and giggle and beg, people will give them things. They then log in the 400 pound onion-eating ogre and transfer the loot.

A few years ago there was a magazine, I can't remember it now something like Esquire or Cosmo or something, that posted a picture of a model on the front cover. There was something amazingly compelling about her, but nobody could really define it. The modelling companies went bonkers trying to hire her from the magazine...who is this woman?

It turns out she was a a composite of winning characteristics from a number of models. A mouth like hers, hips like anothers. Even her name (which I forget) was some kind of hint that she was fictional. Although this model does not exist and no picture of her ever appeared again, the modelling agencies are still looking to find the non-fictional version of this woman. To them, she is a very real idea.

In the movie Mortal Kombat, they used what they called "Vactors", or virtual actors. These characters were entirely computer generated, even their voices. They required no trailers, contracts, furniture for entourage, etc. They showed up for work on bootup and labored tirelessly until shutdown; there are no diva Vactors. Although not entirely serious, the screen actor's guild took notice of this...would technology eventually make flesh and blood actors more a novelty than a necessity? How could they prevent somebody from making a virtual Harrison Ford...and using him? You can't patent a human or their natural appearance. Would star actors be more a matter of talented development...and could you then license that vactor for use? It's been said that the main character in Siphon Filter is just a little too much like George Clooney...

It would seem virtual gaming and avatar technology is beginning to loosen the accepted shrinkwrap definition of "reality".

Very interesting story, glad I kept trying till I got to the full scoop. Though, a bit weird that somone would go to such lengths to leave a game.

Thank you for sharing that with us.