Neighbourhood Information Systems. The Neighbourhood Information System (NIS) was developed by the Cartographic Modeling Lab (CML) at the University of Pennsylvania. The NIS is just one of several successful city-university partnerships designed to distribute administrative data in a user-friendly and Internet-based interface. [ESRI.com: News]

 

3:44:03 PM    comment []

 

Cultural analysis anyone?

Sims the New Dolls?. philgross writes "According to the New York Times, lots of girls and younger teens are abandoning their dolls for the Sims. Says one professor, "We leave most of the social work in our society to women and The Sims lets young girls, in particular, work out their desires and conflicts about those relationships." Says another, "Children generally want to create characters, but with girls we see them wanting to create a friend." Meanwhile, says Will Wright, boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy," (and I wince looking at my vast collection of first-person shooters). The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."" And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

[Slashdot]

 

3:33:12 PM    comment []