Yes, somewhere, a small sapling is crying because I murdered its mother by printing out these things. It’s like Bambi, but with trees.
For those not in the know, Julian Dibbell wrote one of the most important books on the economies of virtual worlds, Play Money (which the lab owns both real and virtual autographed copies of), as well as “A Rape in Cyberspace,” which is a seminal article about the nature and administration of early virtual worlds.
Steven Poole also wrote a fascinating book called “Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality,” which is essentially a book about how people attempt to say things without actually saying it by using linguistic framing techniques. Also a great read (but you folks are going to have to pay for that one).
Enjoy the free books and drop a donation to these excellent authors if you get the chance.