I have finally been accepted in the There beta. Oh, it sure is pretty. But, first, it’s hardly usable over a modem (as soon as there are too many people, it keeps jumping all over the place) and, second, I don’t like at all the way this society works. Now, if I don’t want to work in the real world, do you really think I’m gonna go in a virtual world where you have to buy, sell, make, work, earn money and buy virtual dollars with your real dollars?

I understand they need to make a living themselves (and considering how long they’ve been on a free beta basis, they must have eaten through billions of dollars), but I still can’t like that logic. You even have to pay just to change your haircut! I’m frightened by the thought of evading a capitalist world by entering… another capitalist world. But the The Sims’ success seems to indicate I’m alone on that one (except that The Sims—the offline version at least—has cheat codes).

Anyway, at least, it’s pretty. Why doesn’t someone make an ICQ clone with an interface like that? A nice plugin for Miranda, only a hundred megabytes, it wouldn’t be too hard…

P.S. More precision about the idea: the killer feature missing from ICQ clients is designing your avatar (the same way as in There), which will understand the smileys in your messages and react accordingly to display your moods in a natural way. And I’m sure it could be done as a Miranda plugin. In the beginning, we could even do without 3D. (Then, after further development, everyone would design their virtual home, host it on their personal web space, and invite people inside for a chat.)

P.S. As for the problem in crowded places, it may not be due to the modem but a server bug, according to something I just read. You don’t care, but I just specify this for those who’d be interested, and I just can’t leave wrong information without correction, can I?