The freesheet Metro reports on a demographic shift. People born in 1948 no longer constitute the largest group in the country. Oh no.

Moreover, more people now leave Finland than arrive, according to figures passed to YLE.

If I understand a report in today’s Guardian correctly (and if Benjamin Haas, the Guardian reporter, has outlined the issue correctly) South Korean law does not take geography as its basis, but rather citizenship.

Every other legal jurisdiction that I have heard of bases itself on geography. This difference has immense implications for what we think about the relationship between citizens, the state, and the legal framework that adjudicates between them.

There are at least two possible approaches to exploring virtual worlds, whether as play, or as tools for learning. We can approach them as “ourselves”, trying to extend our day-to-day identity into this new experiential realm, or, like actors, we can create new characters that we will attempt to portray in the virtual space.

This difference is often unremarked, but our experience at Arcada shows that it can have important consequences for how we experience a “place” like Second Life.

The paper was presented at a CAVIC conference held in November 2010 at Stockholm University.