School ended last week and I am posting today! No more exams or grading. Its amazing what a little time and flexibility can accomplish. The Lindenium installment is a nod, an homage, an editorial to the world that Phillip built, Linden Labs, aka Second Life. Yes I do build there from time to time (like a seven-pack-a-day smoker who describes his use as a casual habit.) I do not know if Lindenium actually exists or if it is the secret ingredient to grid stability (or instability). Those people who know that I play always ask who my avatar is? I tell them I have many “alts” but they are as reluctant to talk about me as I am to talk about them. It is a truce that serves us both.

In an episode of The Office (the American version) Dwight explains to Jim: “Second Life is a multi-user virtual environment. It doesn’t have points or scores; it doesn’t have winners or losers.” To which Jim replies. “Oh it has losers.” Yep. We are a proud lot.

Lets see; Second Life, web comic loving, blog posting, tech saavy computer nerd, Whos favorite mail order catalog is ThinkGeek. Sigh. There really is no hope is there?

A number of people have expressed this well thought summation to yesterday’s comic; Huh?

A wise man once said, “if you really want to kill a joke, make sure it has inside elements that only you understand. If you want to drive a stake through the joke’s heart, to make sure it will never rise again … attempt to explain it.”

So here is what I was thinking concerning the Lindenium comic:

I invented Lindenium as a fictional element to explain how everyone on this world flies, floats, and teleports from place to place. Linden Labs created the virtual world Second Life. Although I do not mention Second life by name inside the panel, I allude to some of its major components as a basis for discovery on one of the worlds that Artiste visits. In a sense I am asking the question; what if virtual worlds were real?

Fatalism is a submissive attitude about the events that unfold around us in life. A belief that becasue it is out of your hands, or out of your control, certain things are inevitable. An avatar in real life is just an expression of the the person who created it. In the comic, the floating girl is expressing the fatalistic belief that her life is not her own and that certain things are inevitable or out of her control. The Hmmmm factor is “the devil made me do it” correlation; “I am my creator’s avatar.” What if we are the avatars or expressions of a greater power that controls our destiny?

Of course if this were true that would mean, that our creator has billions of alt accounts and half of the avatars he plays are female. Which upon reflection, makes perfect geeky sense. (Another inside joke for another day.)