A little while ago, I signed up for two magazine subscriptions. One for the wine magazine Decanter for Skip, the other for Popular Science for Michelle and myself. We’d borrowing Popular Science from Walt a couple of times and enjoyed reading through it.

In this months edition of Popular Science, I learned about the 3D virtual world Second Life and I thought it was quite intriguing. Apparently, in addition to a “next generation” online community, you’re also able to actually make real-world money from virtual endeavours. I signed myself up just now, although I haven’t had a chance to actually run the interface and take a look at things.

You’re not able to use your own name. You pick a first name of your own, then have to pick a last name from a list of those currently available. This put a bit of a damper on what I might have chosen, but I muddled through. (Actually, I quite like the end result.) I ended up going with “Syzygy Sin”. Syzygy is a word I’ve liked since reading a science fiction book by Michael C. Coney of that title. (A quick look on Amazon shows me that he’s not the only one to have written a book with that title.) I’ve always liked the way it sounds (“sizz-i-gee”), and its meaning is an astronomical term for 3 or more planetary objects coming into alignment – which I’ve always thought, in “real life”, was a good analogy for things coming together or working out as you’d like. When we first investigated getting a vanity license plate for our car I was disappointed to discover that this word was already taken by somebody in Ontario. (Michelle and I ended up just going with our last name instead.) As for “Sin”, I picked it because it’s a one syllable word (I have an ear for verbal cadence), also started with “s”, and because of the unusual pairing of the two.

I have no idea if I’ll really get into Second Life, or make money from it, but it’s going to be interesting to find out. It certainly sounds like one of those technological things that would make for good party conversation…