Rolling Stone has a sprawling article about Second Life that focuses on its creator, Philip Rosedale, and it's pretty eye-opening. Rosedale equates Second Life to Burning Man, rants and raves about virtual reality, and says, "Once we have enough computing power, we can remake the world using simulation."

It's pretty obvious that without Rosedale's fanaticism for the project, Second Life never would have been born, but reading this article makes him seem a bit driven to the point of megalomania. Kushner compares Rosedale's "Rig" that he built to start the virtual experience a "Lawnmower Man-like contraption," and you probably remember how crazy that guy got.

Give the article a spin and find out a little bit behind the man who built Second Life, the problems they face, and where it'll all go from here.

Of course, since there isn't an actual Sweden within the world of Second Life, the plans for opening a virtual Swedish embassy (not to be mistaken for the ABBA Club, which is virtually a Swedish embassy) are really part of an effort to increase tourism to the Nordic country. Illustriously dubbed, "The House of Sweden," the polygonal building will is expected to open its digital doors within the next few weeks and is said to modeled on the newly erected embassy in Washington -- not Sweden's considerably more impressive Turning Torso skyscraper (as seen to the right).

"It will have answers to questions on all aspects of Sweden," explains the Swedish Institute's Olle Wastberg. Indeed, the virtual embassy will likely serve as an enthusiastic and interactive knowledge hub, hoping to lure Second Life users into visiting Sweden in their first lives.

[Via Aeropause]

Blogger Darren Barefoot has published a clever Second Life parody at Get A First Life dot com. The community boast over 6.5 billion residents (not inflated), free membership, and is the first 3D analog world sans server lag. Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, even sent the site a "Proceed and Permitted" letter (the opposite of a "Cease and Desist"). Nice to see the company appreciates a sense of humor. Now go outside and enjoy the beauty that is First Life.

[via Boing Boing]

Second Life was attacked over the weekend by a worm that created self-replicating rings, similar to the ones from Sonic games. When users touched them, the rings multiplied, clogging the game world with what Linden Labs called "grey goo." The service was closed briefly to clean up the rings and their nefarious code.

While we don't play much Second Life, we're fascinated by its culture. We think that that a big part of general society will eventually meet in an MMO world; these interfaces may turn into the next generation of the internet. And the attack reminds us that pranksters -- or worse -- will always be present.

Second Life is still a miniscule scale of what MMOs could become. Will these sorts of hacks prevent MMOs from reaching the general population?

[Via Slashdot]

Hackers broke into the Second Life user databases on Thursday, according to this post on the official blog of Second Life parent company Linden Labs. Intruders gained access to Second Life account names, real life names, contact information, encrypted account passwords and encrypted payment information.

So what?

Well, there's something scarier about this theft. Name, address and credit card information is stolen daily from various inept ecommerce sites. We're kind of accustomed to that level of theft. But how many of us are really comfortable with data stolen from the place where we spend our leisure time?

To put a finer point on it, what happens when archived MMOG chat logs are breached? It's going to be ugly, like AOL ugly: "I swear honey, that Furry meant nothing to me. It was totally just research for my new book. I'll sell the teledildonics equipment on eBay first thing tomorrow."

Gamers haven't been paying much attention to privacy of in-game communications. Given how intimate some of those communications have become, maybe it's time for more scrutiny of privacy protection measures taken by MMOG providers.

[Via Techcrunch]

[Image via furry.wikia.com]

Second Life Insider reports that Linden Labs is working to release a new technology into Second Life dubbed, "Expressive Puppeteering." With EP, Second Lifers will be able to manipulate their avatars in real time, resulting in unique movements and gestures. These animations can be easily "learned" by avatars and presumably accessed with ease for repeated use. And, as Second Life Insider points out, EP could potentially crown Second Life the preferred medium for machinima artists.

Spend too much time in Second Life, away from real life? That's cool but, as part of any healthy, SL regimen, Joystiq recommends you log off every 16 hours to rest your eyes checking blogs about Second Life. To assist you in this endeavor, we've assembled a stellar troupe of Second Lifers to serve as tour guides to your virtual home away from home, including Aimee Weber, Akela Talamasca, Caliandris Pendragon, and our very own Jennie Lees Local Jezebel. They've been at it for some time, pre-launch, so head over to Second Life Insider and check out what's been happening.