:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Thursday, February 06, 2003 ::

Increase your Whuffie rating and get some respect: article about an interesting looking book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Its a novel about a possible future where the world operates in a star trek style no money, no hunger, blah, blah sort of utopia but keeps the whole thing interesting with the concept of "Whuffie". The general idea seems strangely similar to Eric Raymond's explanation of the hacker culture in The Cathedral and the Bazaar: "Your personal Whuffie rating is constantly updated online so everyone can view it. The more you have, the higher the esteem in which you're held. ... if you've contributed a lot of unpaid programming to an open source project such as Linux, then appreciative users will buy you drinks wherever you go." You can download the whole book in a number of formats here.

:: Dan 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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