Is marrying one woman in the material world, and another -or at least her avatar – in Second Life cheating or polygamy? That’s the question in this WSJ article on the ‘fuzziness’ of the line between game-life and the outside world.

“…the Internet broadens the field of civic engagement. Young people from across the [US] nation are invited to engage in community and public service and they do so in significant numbers.”

Cutting out the middle person (ie record companies) between bands and fans should make more money for bands and cost less for fans.

Students do Google, but not by any means as much as the backlash against student over-use of search engines would suggest!

Matthew Kirschenbaum looks at the pros and cons of digital composition. “Today nearly all literature is “born digital” in the sense that at some point in its composition, probably very early, the text is entered with a word processor, saved on a hard dri

“Comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, whose programs were once among the most viewed on YouTube, were requested by the video site to give testimony in legal proceedings as it fights a $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom Inc , according to court filings.”

QUT academics John Hookham and Gary MacLennan, suspended over public disparagement of a PhD candidate’s proposal, “argue that QUT punished them because of their political opposition to post-modernism” …

“The social networks mushrooming over the internet are a rich source of information for young people choosing a university. “

“A general method for the generation of natural language narrative is described. It allows the
expression, or narrative discourse, to vary independently of the underlying events and existents
that are the narrative’s content. “

“Cardiff University has reprimanded more than 20 bio-sciences students over comments made on the social networking site Facebook. … making offensive remarks about biosciences lecturer … and using the site to share information about coursework.”

A 13-year old Titantic fan has spotted Russian state TV trying to use footage from the blockbuster as actual footage in a news story. [Via]

Australian Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, now has 5000 Facebook friends, the limit currently allowed. Rudd’s Facebook success is part of his canny “Kevin07” campaign which features substantial online engagement.

Despite the traditional and legally mandatory “cooling off” period in which political parties cannot advertise in mainstream media for 3 days before a national election, online presence and social networks are challenging those boundaries…

Margaret Robertson: “The debate around video games and violence rears its head every few months. But are the right questions being asked?”