I only recently became aware of something called Second Life. If you haven’t heard of it either, it’s basically a sims-like virtual universe in which you create an identity and lead a virtual life. You can even create any object you can dream up. The catch is, this place has it’s own economy that you get into by trading in real money for virtual money or property. That’s right, people are actually buying virtual stuff in a virtual world and living virtual lives. In fact, as I’m looking at the page now, they claim people have spent $1.2M (real money) in the last 24 hours alone! And I thought Everquest addictions were bad. This excerpt from entrepreneur.com says it all:

"Indeed, 2007 may prove to be a watershed year for Lokke: He’s quitting his 17-year job as a supermarket manager to make the 50 hours he already spends in Second Life as the owner of Crucial Creations his true, full-time career."

I can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with these people. I barely have time for my real life, let alone a virtual one!

2007 is shaping up to be a good year for gadget lovers everywhere. From Apple’s TV and iPhone to Microsoft’s Home Server and Windows Vista, there seems to something out there for everyone. One of the things that really gets me excited about a lot of these products is the level of integration that is now becoming possible. While convergence (of TV, music, movies and computers) has been happening for a while, I’m really starting to feel like we’re getting somewhere now. You’re not just recording on a Tivo somewhere, now it’s recorded and on your media server and you can get to it from anywhere. This Apple iPhone is pretty exciting too. If the real thing is anywhere near as slick as the demo, I’m going to have to get one! Maybe if we’re lucky, Apple will open it up to more than just Cingular.

Congrats to NASA and the EVA team members for getting a pair of the ISS solar arrays folded and packed in their blanket boxes. It took a lot of shaking by Sunita “sunny” Williams, Christer Fluglesang and some hands-on TLC by Robert “beamer” Curbeam to get the stubborn arrays to fold up properly after several years of use. Thanks to their long hours of hard work, the arrays can now be moved by a future mission team and hopefully reused.