Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Lab Update: Our new toy !

Scientists are like small boys : they are very happy when you give them a new toy ! Well, here is the new toy we will be buying in the coming days J


A BrĂ¼el & Kjaer Sound Level Meter 2250 ... the top of the top in measurement of acoustical backnoise. This sound level meter will complement our already pretty well equiped lab of bioacoustics. The coming projects are going to be very interesting I think !

On another topic, I am going to be at the PCA/ACA meeting next week in Boston. It is a very "eclectic" conference, but I think it will be highly interesting. I will be specifically presenting results from the virtual role-play communities of Second Life (this time, about the "Hutt Space" of the Second Life Star Wars Role-Play community). We will be discussing as well with some other people about some theoretical aspects of virtual community managements (among other things). Second Life really provides fascinating models to study cyberbehavior. The communities of Second Life are relatively easy to penetrate (open-minded and nice people, willing to share their interests and so on ...), and do represent interesting examples of social dynamics in virtual spaces. So far, we have 3 papers published using Second Life as a model, but I think more will come soon. Doesn't mean we are not looking at other virtual communities or virtual spaces, however J Anyway, something which is interesting with Second Life communities is the management of the so-called "drama" (particularly marked in the "role-play" environments, such as the Gorean community, or the SWRP community). Witnessing it - how people create it, how people deal with it, and how it has long-term effect on a community - is very informative. Still trying to find ways to quantify this phenomenon a bit more seriously ... not sure we will be going there, but well, why not ? Anybody has an idea on that ?

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