In another sign of the arrival of the stupendous, i.e. that the internet is changing our world, Engadget some time ago reported on the SellSmart Knockbox real estate selling dohicky.

What is a KNOCKBOX?
A KNOCKBOX is a sleek, self-contained appliance that is placed unobtrusively inside your home for sale. It contains a photographic tour, custom buyer presentation, and other important details about your home, which potential buyers can access without ever having to enter your home.

…

The KNOCKBOX, however, does not provide direct access to the Internet; the only information they can browse is the information about your home.

Why KNOCKBOX?
Anyone with WiFi capability will be able to obtain a tour on demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Potential buyers are provided additional information about the property, along with agent contact information that they need to go to the next step and become a serious buyer. A potential buyer simply connects to the KNOCKBOX wirelessly and opens their web browser. This all occurs, without interfering with your busy schedule.

In short, the guy sitting in his car across the street with his laptop in hand could either be horking free wifi from you or your neighbors, or he could be quietly clicking through the virtual tour of that house for sale.

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I’m not much of a gamer, but Matt got me following video game law with curious interest. And now, via ArsTechnica, I’ve learned of crazy things going on in role playing game economies.

To some, the only surprise in Jon Jacobs’s US$100,000 purchase of in-game real estate is that nobody thought of it sooner.

The first thing to know is that unlike most other MMORPGs, Project Entropia mixes its virtual economy with the real world. Money can be earned in-game, or “transfered” at a fixed exchange rate of US$1 for PED$10 (PED = Project Entropia Dollars).

The $100,000 purchase netted Jacobs a space station that he plans to develop into “a cross between Jurassic Park and a disco.” Visitors to the station can hunt dinosaur-like monsters and spend time in the stations nightclubs. The AP story quotes Jacob’s saying “I want to operate this thing at the level of a major nightclub in a major city,” and explains that he expects to make $20,000/month on hunting fees and other activities related to the station, though the article doesn’t make clear whether that number is in US$ or PED$. It’s also not clear how he’d extract his game earnings as US$.

He refinanced his house shortly after and considered investing some of the cash in the hot Miami real-estate market, but he realized that if he bought a rental property, it really wouldn’t generate any income beyond what he’d pay for the mortgage and repairs.
So he invested the proceeds in the game.

Interestingly, the article notes that IGE, “the leading MMORPG services company” has handled deals worth more than $100,000, “but would not provide details because of client confidentiality.”

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Knowing that everybody wants a missile silo, bari1001 has posted his for sale on eBay (thanks to DefenseTech for the pointer). Silo World has the skinny on Titan 1 silo design, NPR did a story on missile silo homes a few years ago, though most of the silos are empty, abandoned, and dangerous. Still, there are one or two realtors that specialize in missile silos.