Continuing the inconsistent series on digital history...
Facts about files are often written into the files themselves. This
information is called metadata. A common example of this is digital photos.
Most digital cameras will record stuff about the photo, such as the model
camera used, the date and time the picture was taken, camera settings like
f-stop, etc. Newer devices like the iPhone that have built in GPS receivers
will also add lat-long coordinates, which allows for some very cool indexing
after the fact, like listing all photos by location, or by location and
time. (It also leads to some pesky security problems, such as a photo
posted to flickr giving away your location.)
This metadata is referred to as exif, and you can view and edit it with the
appropriate software. See below for more.
http://regex.info/exif.cgi
http://www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif
tags: software, history-digital, privacy, security, links
Showing posts with label history-digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history-digital. Show all posts
26 August 2010
28 November 2009
Mafia Wars
Some math on Mafia Wars...fair warning: Geek alert.
So, Mafia Wars on Facebook. The Reward points you earn in the game can be used to buy other goods, including in-game money. You can also pay real US dollars for reward points, making it possible to develop a conversion factor between the two.
At today's rates:
You can puchase reward points at the rate of 42 for 8 dollars...
42 Reward pts / 8 US Dollars = 5.25 R pts / USD
And you can purchase in-game money as follows...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts
Allowing for a calculation of an exchange rate between in-game money and out of game money...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts = 108150 MF$ / USD
Okay, so, so far we seen some interesting stuff, but I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Damn Dave, you need to get out more." You're probably right, but the point to all this is the following:
Since I can also earn in-game money by playing the game, I can reverse this calculation and find out how much my in game money is worth in real dollars. This means that if I could sell my in-game dollars at the same rate they sell them to us at, I would have...
900,000,000 MF$ * 1 / 108150 USD/MF$ = 8321USD (rounded)
...over 8000 dollars in the real world. Not bad for for the spare time I've put into the game while checking facebook.
You may have heard of this in other games where people really are doing this: Link
So, Mafia Wars on Facebook. The Reward points you earn in the game can be used to buy other goods, including in-game money. You can also pay real US dollars for reward points, making it possible to develop a conversion factor between the two.
At today's rates:
You can puchase reward points at the rate of 42 for 8 dollars...
42 Reward pts / 8 US Dollars = 5.25 R pts / USD
And you can purchase in-game money as follows...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts
Allowing for a calculation of an exchange rate between in-game money and out of game money...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts = 108150 MF$ / USD
Okay, so, so far we seen some interesting stuff, but I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Damn Dave, you need to get out more." You're probably right, but the point to all this is the following:
Since I can also earn in-game money by playing the game, I can reverse this calculation and find out how much my in game money is worth in real dollars. This means that if I could sell my in-game dollars at the same rate they sell them to us at, I would have...
900,000,000 MF$ * 1 / 108150 USD/MF$ = 8321USD (rounded)
...over 8000 dollars in the real world. Not bad for for the spare time I've put into the game while checking facebook.
You may have heard of this in other games where people really are doing this: Link
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