Second Life for Those Who are Not Busy Enough with Their First

When the issue of who has gone to the Texas State Island in Second Life came up not many people seem to know what was up. Maybe I'm just a bit more geekier than most but I personally have been there. I then started think "Maybe no one really knows what Second Life is?" To start, Second Life is somewhat named aptly, but I think that "Second World" is more accurate. This is not as much a video game as it is a visual-online community/networking/discourse/advertising/ etc. Pretty much most anything you can do in the real world (and something you can't), you can do here.

To give a little background, Second Life is based off of an idea by Neil Stefenson that he included in his cyber-punk sci-fi novel Snow Crash.

Snow Crash features a virtual world called the "Metaverse", which is also the name of the world in Second Life (Note: the program is called Second Life, the world in which Second Life takes you too is called the Metaverse.) I could let you know the entire storyline of Snow Crash, but I would be spoiling one of the best books ever. Trust me, go buy it at Half-Priced books for like $5, you will not be disappoint. But I digress.

The first thing that most people do in second life is create or buy an avatar. For those that don't know, avatars are visual representations of your virtual self. You can create and modify your own avatars, or you can purchase your own from someone else in the Metaverse that is more well acquainted on how to code and design avatars and clothing. Realize that your avatar does not have to look anything like you, or it can look exactly like you, the choice is yours. The one above is probably a self designed avatar. This person sat down and created all the different shapes and textures to their avatar so that they can have a sense of individuality. The more individual and unique the avatar, the cooler you are.

You maybe wondering, "Wait, wait, wait... How do I create an avatar? Aren't I usually just given a choice of substandard generics that the site choses?" Simple answer is Primatives, or Prims. These are basic shapes... circle, triangle, and squares (FunFact: Take a look at the nearest USB cable, these are the same shapes on the cable connector and port. Theoretically, any shape can be created with only circles, squares, and triangles. Thus the name Universal Serial Bus, and the universal shapes associated with USB) Each one of the strands of hair on the avatar above are a primative, so you can see how you combine many shapes to create one object. This same system is used to create any object in the Metaverse. The buildings of the picture at the top are all made from prims and textures.

Okay, so you know you can make avatars, but what about buying them? Well there is actually a micro economy in Second Life. They use the currency of Linden Dollars, Linden Research Inc. being the company that created second life. These Linden Dollars are actually exchangeable for real currency and vice versa. You could actually make a living in Second Life, the richest resident has a net worth of $1 million, yes real dollars not L$ (Liden Dollars) and all of this worth is held in a virtual world.
I could go on and on telling you about Second Life and how complex it is, but I'm sure that others would want to see other posts on this same page. If you would like to know more or to join go to secondlife.com

For anyone that joins my SN is P17ch8l4ck Kira, yes you get first and last names when you sign up. Hit me up anytime you catch me on ( which I'm sorry to say is not very often, but I will be friendly non the less).


P17ch8l4ck
A.K.A
A.J.