#whuffie

[bonusdragons]

April 11, 2021:

Cinnamon Tertiary, Bogsneak, Python.

CapnKronk of Whuffie's clan!

[cherieofthedragons]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Another fic rec! punwolf‘s Inquisitor has it out with Blackwall after his personal quest. There are a lot of fics addressing this, but this one handles it in a way that feels realistic and still manages to be funny while dealing with Very Serious Issues.

[whuffie-blog]

Free Consumer Credit Monitoring Company Credit Karma Raises $75M, Now Valued At Over $1 Billion | TechCrunch

A consumer-facing credit monitoring startup, Credit Karma, is now worth more than a billion dollars following a new round of funding. The company announced..

[flightrisingbeware]

Positive Review - Whuffie #81839

Who: Whuffie user id #81839

What: Dragon Leveling Service, Dragon Sales

Why: Excellent experience, recommend! 

When: 18/9/14 - 20/9/14

Explain: After being told that the dragon I wanted was already sold to the first buyer (being a CR deal, not AH), I asked Whuffie about her leveling service that she offers. I was given a time range for when she would be able to level my dragon and was very timely about it once the CR was sent. She was also very flexible about payments, which is always a plus! Each night she sent me a little update on how my dragon was, and also let him babysit one of her familiars while he was in her lair.

[flightrisingbeware]

Positive Review- Whuffie #81839

Who: Whuffie (user id: 81839)

What: Coli leveling

Why: Very good experience!

When: 9-9/9-11

Explain: Shockingly affordable, quick service, very communicative. Took the time to talk about stat builds and sent an update at the end of the first night to let me know what level the dragon was at. Extremely polite and friendly, absolutely would recommend.

[flightrisingbeware]

Positive Review - Whuffie #81839

Who: Whuffie, #81839

What: Leveling Service

Why: An absolutely wonderful experience

When: 09/05/2014-09/07/2014 and 09/07/2014-09/08/2014

Explain: I used Whuffie to level two of my dragons from 1-25. I couldn’t have been more pleased. She was friendly, communicative, and extremely helpful throughout—including suggested builds and linking to a tutorial she made about optimizing leveled dragons in coli. She was also prompt and reliable, turning each of my dragons around in fewer than 48 hours. My two favorite dragons were in excellent hands, and I’d gladly use her services again.

[lessig]

the rare soul in business

Each year I try to take a chunk of time away with my family, off-the-grid, as an imperfect balance to the 100+ days away that defines the rest f the year. This year, we're going to be near my parents, who are getting too old to visit, and so who we don't see enough. They live near Hilton Head, SC, so we got a house on the Island, sort of near the beach.

Last night I rented bikes for the month online from Hilton Head Bicycle Co. My parents had warned me about island prices, but ok, it's vacation.

This morning, I got an email from the owner: "I don't feel good about the rate that came up for you," he or she wrote. So they preemptively lowered the price by 25%.

When I was growing up, my dad (who ran a steel fabricating firm) would always explain behavior like this with a phrase like, "it's the right thing to do, and it's good for business." That always puzzled me because it couldn't always be both, or else why would we need to call it "right" (as opposed to "wrong"). 

But it strikes me the ether that are the Nets could help the second part a bit, so more did the first bit. So here, Nets, please notice: there was plenty of whuffie earned here. 

(And BTW: please excuse the silence after July 17.)

[memeengine]

I think, (to balance out the recent "capitalization on information" posts:-P), you should also check out (and maybe post excerpts from?) Eric S. Raymond's "Homesteading the Noosphere." (Freely available online, of course) Which explores the ways information seems well suited for Gift Economies. Not that I think the matter is too pressing, considering an information economy can only last for the short time span between now and the era of General AI.

Hmmm, okay.  Bookmark’d.  But wait, are you trying to trick me into deciding on this issue by reading a free online version?  That’s sneaky.

But actually, even as I grow fairly interested in what Jaron Lanier has to say about making an old-fashioned money economy out of our new-fashioned information-rich world, I can already think of somebody I’ve posted lots about that would totally disagree… Don Tapscott.

I’ve posted lots on Tapscott, though not specifically on this issue.  But, having listened to many of his lectures (which are a bit repetative after a while), I can guess pretty well what he would think.  He’s said that a key role for Government going forward will be to collect data on the public and then release it for use.

An example: he suggests that a city releasing it’s information on bicycle accidents would pretty quickly result in avid volunteers making maps of accident hotspots, and spreading cautionary information to cyclists.

I think he may be right, but that doesn’t really address the economic concerns Lanier is talking about.  Tapscott gives many examples of leveraging the internet’s “network intelligence” to turn small investments into large ones.  Though, he’s usually talking about initial investments in the millions - not really relevant for us mediocre hordes.

My favorite economic shake-up solution is still Cory Doctorow’s “Whuffie” (“wuffie”?) economy (basically a respect economy) that he used in his novel “Down and out in the magic kingdom”.  I talk a little about that in this post if you’re curious, or there’s a wikipedia page on it.