SunOS man pages: A womanwriter's Perspective

my life isn't full enough already. I'm one of those folks who is always busy and doing something. My calendar is generally packed. I've got lots of friends, family, and people in my life. I never tire of life's many opportunities and I am always on the lookout for new ones. I'm rarely, if ever, bored.

Perhaps more relevant than that, I've never been a gamer. The only video game that I ever remotely enjoyed was Ms. Pacman. I wasn't even good at it.

Grounded in reality, I don't have much patience or interest in folks who live their lives through fantasies. With undergraduate and graduate training in psychology, I understand the psychological risks and downsides of fantasy worlds and virtual realities better than most.

For these reasons, and then some, I absolutely, positively, shocked friends, co-workers, family, and most of all, my two twenty-something year old daughters with my interest in the virtual, fantasy world called Second Life.

I first learned about Second Life in The Wall Street Journal. Back in August, there was a rather frightening article about a man who was spending many hours a day in Second Life. Never mind the fact that in his real life he was married. In the world of Second Life, where he spent about 14 hours a day, he'd found a new identity, a new job, a new wife, and a new life. His (real life) wife was not amused. Neither was I. I was horrified.

I couldn't understand the draw. Why would anyone want to spend 14+ hours a day in a fantasy world? What was the point of having "relationships" in a virtual world driven and staffed by cartoon characters? Was something missing in a person's real life to cause him/her to spend vast amounts of time creating and interacting in a pretend one? In my quest to understand, I remember going to the Second Life web site at about 2pm on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in August. I discovered that over 28,000 people were logged in. I was stunned.

It was at this point that I asked my daughters about it. My younger daughter explained that she'd studied Second Life in an art history class in college the previous semester. The discussions focused on bodies in contemporary art and the creation of avatars in Second Life. She and her classmates came away feeling that Second Life was rather strange. My older daughter, quite frankly, was so appalled with the whole idea of Second Life that she almost refused to engage in conversations with me about it. It was like this very sensible, smart, New Yorker just didn't believe this topic was worthy of her energy and brainpower. I'd never seen her act that way.

Shortly thereafter, I read about Sun's involvement in Second Life on our internal home page. In this new world of trying to connect with customers and build communities, Sun had made the decision to establish a branch (known as the 'Sun Pavilion') in this virtual reality. I've heard that, among other things, Sun hopes that its Second Life branch will become a destination for people who help write Sun's open-source code. As an Open Solaris writer, could I afford to miss this opportunity to bond with a different kind of customer than I typically interact with from my Menlo Park office? I wondered.

Not like Sun is the only corporate presence in Second Life. Many companies, looking for increased marketing and sales opportunities, have opened virtual branches there. I understand that American Apparel, Wells Fargo Bank, Toyota Scion, Gap, Starwood Hotels, and Adidas have outlets in this virtual world. The American Cancer Society held a version of its Relay For Life in Second Life. Dell sells PCs. IBM held a meeting there. 20th Century Fox hosted a premiere for the movie, X-men.

And the educators have jumped in. Just last week, I read that San Jose State University opened a "virtual campus" in Second Life. Imagine that, all the avatars can take classes! San Jose State joined a group of other colleges and universities in this virtual world, including Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Vassar, Pepperdine, Harvard Law School, Harvard Extension School, and the Stanford School of Education. It's been a long time since I attended Stanford Ed School, could it be that maybe there is something new for me at the virtual campus?

It all sounded so foreign, but I've always had have a high tolerance for the unusual as well as an interest in at least learning about new things. So, with the encouragement of my management at Sun, and the moral and technical support of a couple of oh-so-brave, adventurous, and supportive colleagues, I made the decision to give Second Life a try.