Eric P. Metze

Look closer.

My cousin, Steve Metze, asked me how one could make money selling virtual things. Well, the entire Second Life economy is a lot like the US economy, only it’s based on the Linden (L$), which is their version of the dollar. Now, if it was just play money I wouldn’t be excited about it in the least. But it’s immediately transferable into US dollars, which gives it real world value. Second Life has a dynamic market that dictates the value of the L$ based on how much money is in the system and being exchanged at any given time. Honestly, it’s very complex and there are economists who would have a lot of fun mulling the whole thing over. It’s really a little beyond me, but I’m just learning. The important thing to note is that you can sell your L$ for US$ at any time.

To answer my cousin’s question, there are an almost infinite number of ways to earn money in Second Life. Some people create and sell things, some people perform duties and earn it, and some people just simply ask for it or give it away. From a designer/artist/creative perspective, it’s really cool because you can create just about anything and people will buy it in L$. Then you take your money and do whatever you want with it, including selling them for US$.

For example, a couple days ago I created several virtual framed prints out of pictures that I either made in Photoshop or snapped with my camera. I put them on display and yesterday a guy came through and bought two of them. He can now take them and put them in his virtual home, or a virtual art museum, or take them out and just look at them, or just throw it on the virtual ground…whatever he wants. They’re his prints, so I don’t care what he does with them. For me, the money I made paid for my rent and then some.

You could, for example, create a theater for people to watch a film you created. Charge an entrance fee (just like a real theater), and the user can sit in your theater and watch the movie. Charge L$20 for each person who wants to watch it, and they can watch it at their leisure, and you don’t have to do anything but set it up. The money is earned whether or not you’re there to receive it, and it starts to build up. And eventually, you just sell your L$ for US$. (It’s also important to note that they can’t download your films because they’re streaming through Second Life, not streaming to their hard drive like watching it in a web browser.)

Do you realize that we are mostly empty space? And when I say “mostly” I mean, almost entirely. Not just 75% or 90% or even 99%…we’re something like 99.99999999999999999% completely empty space! Want to see what I mean?

I created a graphic that represents an electron as one pixel, which means that the proton graphic I created had to be one thousand pixels wide and tall. It also meant that the electron, which orbits around the proton, had to be at a distance of 50,000,000 pixels!

The electron is represented by a small red dot just below and the proton is represented by a large blue sphere near the bottom of the page. You can try to scroll down the hard way, but you might end up dying of hunger before you get there. I’d suggest grabbing the slider bar and dragging it down to the bottom. Then again, you might start out the slow way since the point of this is to show you just how vast the distances are between them.

Now, remember the distance from the electron at the top of the page and the proton just above is only half of the size of the entire atom. This is just the radius, not the diameter.

Where does a good story begin? In a dark, wet alleyway of a large city? How about a cotton field in Texas? A business cubicle just before midnight?

No. It starts inside an atom, just inside the electron shell. The hum of the spinning protons, neutrons and electrons create a weird echo in here. We squeeze out of the three shells…1…2…3…ahh.

The fuzzy ball in front of us looks like a gas planet. As we back away we see first a handful similar shapes clustered around. As we pull back even more we now see many more of the fuzzy spheres, all lined up into even lines. Now hundreds…no, thousands…millions…

Strange, beautiful beams zipping silently by us, millions upon millions bouncing off the pattern of circles below. Many of the beams seem to alter their course as they enter and bounce around inside the even larger cluster of circles. Everything begins to glow with an increasing brilliance as those pretty beams begin to blend together.

As we continue our ascent above the pattern below we see the texture of millions of spheres turn into a plane…and now two. An edge is now visible. Higher and higher, more planes appear, brightly glowing now as the full size of the structure below comes into view.

With the full crystal in view now, we begin to see the contrasting mass of jagged black rocks that surround it. The beams now light up the mostly clear boulder as we go even higher.