Pardon my yapping at the Virtuality category, but I’m still stuck in a moment when it comes to writing about virtual environments.  When you write a thesis, it gets tattooed on your mind, so to speak.  For now, let’s (by the collective term I mean “I”) talk about “personal technology.”

   Steve Jobs talks about “revolution” a lot: not that he’s the Karl Marx or the Salvador Allende of technology, but there is something “revolutionary” about the iPod (or for that matter, anything “i” that will surface in the next few years until he decides to use “j”).  Jobs’ project is a classic example of what I call “waves of personalization.”

   I’ve been watching a documentary on Roman engineering awhile ago: it’s been a while since my last World History class, but I was reminded of public baths.  Bathing, to us in modern times, is a strictly private activity: unless you’re a prostitute in a back-alley strip club floor show getting soaped up with a laundry bar by old perverts, you won’t bathe in public.  Given this example, it is easy to see the transitions that have taken place in terms of space.  While these changes and transitions have been dramatic, I’m not saying that we have effectively ditched the marketplace in favor of online groceries.

   This is at the risk of being called an “evolutionist,” but using the term loosely, life is “evolving” from public space to personal space.  However, this is not universal in virtual environments: while there is evidence of this “evolution” in chatrooms, there is a case against it in cybersex, which is articulated over long distances but still done in the relative privacy of one’s own room (or one’s own rented terminal in an Internet shop, at the very back row where there are cubicles).

   To invoke Karl Marx, the transition from communal property to private property has made significant changes not only in the economy, but in life itself.  In the 1950s to the 1970s, jukeboxes were centers of social activity.  Even before that, listening to the phonograph was social.  Nowadays, music has become more personal with the iPod and other portable MP3 players (like Microsoft’s Zune and China’s Artech), and way before in the 1970s with the original Sony Walkman.

   Or take photography: before, it took a studio to create a portrait.  Nowadays, digital cameras have become so small that you can fit the entire thing inside a really small phone.  Now, you can literally take a picture of yourself.

   In my random “theorizing,” I thought of at least four possible “waves of personalization” that come in no particular order:

• The availability of personal technologies in the market (capitalism);
• The increasing public perception of the necessity of personal technologies to everyday life (although that is debatable);
• The shift from the shared sense of community to the shared sense of individualism (Gemeinschaft/Gessellschaft, for you sociologists);
• The resurgence of wealth and the proportional resurgence of leisure (I think that a study could graph that).

   Waxing on this matter makes me think if technology has sort of become a “shell” that keeps human beings from interacting socially.  Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to hear of people who die from excessive gaming or cellphone theft.  Television text chatrooms become social venues, but “eyeball” becomes ever more rare these days.  Social interaction is no longer confined to physical space, but virtual space as well.

   But is it even personal?  Are one’s earphones Marxian chains, or is a smartphone the new “opium of the people?”

   More on that tomorrow.

   In my 11-year career in the campus press, and in my three years in blogging, I’ve never been that far from libel.  Back in high school, I came close to being suspended for stopping short of calling the Principal “corrupt” in a series of ironical statements in my columns and editorials back then.  In college, not only did I face libel threats from my schoolmates and some of my teachers, but also from my own colleagues.  Not only was I wrongfully accused of slander in a wall statement, but I was also accused of outright libel in an article I wrote that was never published (never mind that they almost received a libel charge in an article they published to “replace” my “libelous” article.)

   In Original TMX, there are many entries that are, admittedly, treading the line between satire and libel.  Shari Cruz of Misteryosa.com, an avid reader of my blog (and arguably one of the best bloggers in the Philippines today), apparently got in a bit of trouble when she “put herself in my shoes” in “Manny Pacquiao’s Asshole” (dated 19 November 2006).  In PinoyBlogosphere.com, I was supposed to be the first to write about the word “Slut” scrawled on a picture of Cory Aquino in “The Daily Show,” until I pulled out the entry 15 seconds later, wrote a sort of “public apology,” and subsequently wrote “I Can’t Believe I’m Editing” (dated 05 October 2007).

   Libel is now making headlines in national broadsheets: Joey de Venecia III, Lolit Solis versus Piolo Pascual and Sam Milby, and GMA-7 versus ABS-CBN.  Malu Fernandez made headlines in her “defamatory statements” against OFW’s in her Manila Standard column (and in her blog), which subsequently forced her to publicly apologize, and otherwise destroyed her reputation.

   For all that short history lesson is worth, libel is a very dangerous thing.  Now for a law lesson: in Justice Garcia’s opinion in GMA Network, Inc. and Vidal vs. Bustos et. al (GR 146848, 17 October 2006, sourced from http://www.chanrobles.com/cralawgrno146848october172006.html), the Supreme Court of the Philippines defined “libel” as:

…the public and malicious imputation to another of a discreditable act or condition tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person (Article 353, Revised Penal Code).

   As such, the Supreme Court set four elements for libel, where the following constitute a liability for libel:

1.  
   1. An allegation or imputation of a discreditable act or condition concerning another;
   2. Publication of the imputation;
   3. Identity of the person defamed, and;
   4. Existence of malice (Daez vs. Court of Appeals, GR 47971, 31 October 1990, 191 SCRA 61).

   I’m not a lawyer: it is not clear to me if electronic publishing falls well within libel laws.  Enlighten me.

   One of the reasons why I’m very tentative about cutting my hair is because I don’t want to be mistakenly labeled as “emo.”  Because everything you see and read in the Internet is true, I took an “emo test” in a Friendster survey and found out that I’m 90% emo.  Consider the evidence weighed against me:

• I love the color black.
• I always sit at the corner.
• I like listening to metal rock (sic) music.
• I have a lot of problems with my life.
• I’m not much of a loud person.
• I don’t talk much.
• I don’t have that much (sic) friends.
• I barely have fun.
• I barely go out with my folks or friends.

   Save for a single “emo-defining” characteristic - that one side of my hair does not cover one of my eyes - I am, by virtue of this very scientific survey, 90% emo.  Hmmm… is this the kind of defaming survey that could have me sue somebody for P15-million, and make me run 60-second TV ads demanding “the truth?”

   I can dispute “emo” claims leveled against me just fine.  For one, I don’t listen to emo music any more than I should: I’m through with my Lifehouse phase.  In fact, I have memorized many of Willie Revillame’s songs in “Wowowee,” and I sing along to it.  No self-respecting self-mutilator will ever sing “Sayaw Darling,” let alone dance to it with all the bravado of a lower ape with pronounced prognathism (my Anthropology training suddenly paid off).

   For two, if I ever cut my hair emo-style and wore checkered clothing, I would look more like Senator Ping Lacson.  Now that I wear urban cowboy boots, I’d fit more in the general category of a longtime Baguio resident sans the betel-nut chewing (pardon the stereotype).

   Trust me, I’m not emo.  I eat emo people for breakfast.

   My brother’s job is something to kill for: he’s a game programmer.  We both grew up around computer games, and it’s hard to think of new games nowadays.  Especially if the bulk of games nowadays demand so much in the way of commitment and skill, like PerfectWorld and Lineage.  SecondLife is not a game, it’s a lifestyle choice.  As a (former) gamer, I think that what the gaming industry needs right now is a game that you can play on the fly: something that does not demand extreme system requirements, extremely fast Internet access, and extreme commitments that would put many romances on the rocks.

   It’s not that I’m clamoring for another Ultima game (although it would be nice to see it) or that I’m looking for a thinly-disguised copy of EverQuest.  I used to play Magic: The Gathering, but as much as I’d like to see a rendition of it that is not based on cards, Magic demands a lot of commitment.  This got me thinking about Online POG.

   Where girls played jacks, we boys played POG.  While “tatsing” has been around ever since tansan (bottle caps) was around, POG is essentally the same: only that instead of using tansan, you used round cardboard chips and turned them over by “slamming” them with either a coin, another chip, or a Slammer.  Back then, Coca-Cola was more gallant with its promotions: we used to keep a store, and the cases we returned earned us kids a canister of POG chips.  Slammers were particularly coveted: it had to be just the right weight to turn chips, and it had to look cool.  Although as a former POG player, I preferred using those old dodecahedral two-peso coins (back when we still valued Andres Bonifacio enough to give him his own coin).

   The success of Audition and O2 Jam among casual players nowadays means the perfect market for making a Web-based POG game.  I envision a rather simple interface akin to computer-based pool games: the power of your POG-slamming is defined not only by a power meter (how long you keep the left mouse button down), but the way you drag your mouse also plays a significant factor in the game.  POG chips can be bought online, or taken for keeps at POG games where one’s chips are on the line.

   That’s a good game idea…