Apple of my Eye

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As part of this dream of mine to grow a lot of, or all of our food, we planted a couple of apple trees and a cherry. Amazing to me the apple trees actually bore fruit. I am going to have to get them off pretty soon before they start attracting bears. They are busy now frantically stuffing as much calories in them as they can before the winter hibernate.

On another completely different note, I recently got a shock when I heard about the practice of Gold Farming. Nothing to do with growing anything you can eat. It's a huge industry that provides virtual items to online gamers. The "Gold Farmers" were mostly Chinese but have now farmed out work to the Vietnamese. Lower costs. Hard to wrap my head around this one. Wait, it all would be in my head.

I sometimes get the feeling that online gaming, virtual reality, is the coming of the "Hollodeck". The down side to that is: if it becomes a "reality" the imaginary would subsume reality. We can buy imaginary clothes for the emperor.

I think I'll go eat an apple. One I can taste.

Comments

Unknown said…
Gold farming came about from Blizzard (the company that makes World of Warcraft) making it against their policy to sell "items" or "characters" in the real world. So to get around this people sell gold so that the gamers can get better items. Pretty much the whole idea of WOW is to keep getting better stuff. It has been happening since the game started about 3 1/2 years ago.

They "farm" items to sell to virtual vendors or at the in game auction house and then sell the gold the make for cents on the dollar.

Anything to make a buck.
4:31 PM
Art Blomquist said…
The whole thing is mind boggling. I saw some economic studies comparing the online virtual "economy" to "real" life. Strangly, and desturbingly, there isn't that much of a difference. Money, itself, is a virtualization.
9:31 AM
Carol Browne said…
Is that kind of like powerleveling? You pay someone to play your character while you're doing other stuff, like working or taking care of the chores or sleeping.

Your apples are awesome! I'm going to pick some apples with my buddies in a couple of weeks.
3:32 PM
Anonymous said…
That's awesome, apples and cherries you planted yourself.
9:10 AM
Art Blomquist said…
Power Leveling?!! OMG. I don't even have to play my virtual game, to win my virtual stuff? How about the other way: I pay some one to do my life so I can do my virtual life? Jeez, that sounds sorta like a job..
10:19 AM
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