It's all so seductive, really. Beautiful women, hard-bodied men, luminous oceans, verdant mountains. Villas, castles, lakes, waterfalls populating vast landscapes. Something that only God could create. Yet it's all just a pixelated illusion, courtesy of a hodgepodge of servers, mainframes, disks, and grids run by Second Life (SL). If you haven't heard of SL yet, trust me it's hard not to.

A virtual world that is sometimes lumped together with other massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), SL has been in the news constantly since its inception in 2003. That is because it is a bit more than the other online games in existence, where the main quest is...well...quests. Actually, SL's creators, Linden Research (also known as Linden Labs), as well as its worldwide "residents" quickly dismiss such a simplistic description. They will tell you that SL is an experience that mimics real life in a variety of ways, offering everything from the usual social commerce that began in chat rooms (and is now flourishing in other online venues like MySpace and Facebook) to actual online jobs and currency that can be translated into real dollars. By "jobs," we're talking actual 9 to 5's and businesses where real life people earn income. And where there is money, there is controversy. Several lawsuits have arisen over contractual issues or copyright violations. Residents take their second lives seriously.

It might be too much for the uninitiated to fathom. How can anyone seriously consider a "game" virtual or otherwise another "life?" It's not real. It's just a jumble of currents and flows, a collection of flat pixels, no matter how pretty. They'd be surprised to know that with over 8 million "residents," SL also has a thriving commerce where millions of dollars exchange hands every day and where log-ins can average several hours. SL is quickly earning the dubious honor of becoming an addiction to millions worldwide.

In talking about virtual worlds, it would be lax not to give due credit to one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, Neal Stephenson (the others are William Gibson and Rudy Rucker), and his iconic work, Snow Crash. When Snow Crash was published in 1992, cyperpunk was in its nascent stage, only just gathering its initial following. Snow Crash crystallized the movement with its dystopian vision of a future where mercenary armies reign, governments are decentralized, and privatized entities operate everything. And also where residents hook

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