The week in your words: Get a Second Life

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 21 Nov 2008 at 16:04

In a week that saw Second Life define an entirely new standard of sad, Microsoft promise jam to-Morro, and BT find its delete button, we take a look back to see what our readers made of it all.

Second Life adultery brings real world divorce

The problem with Second Life is that we're never entirely sure the people using it have mastered the first one. Take Amy Taylor and Dave Pollard who married after meeting in Second Life, and are now getting divorced after his character cheated on her with some pixellated hussy. Not because he's fat, bald and unemployed... obviously.

"If I was getting divorced I would want it to be for a decent reason, like my wife found me with Elisha Cuthbert or someone like that. Not rubbing pixels with some lorry driver from Dallas," says jamesyld, giving us a rather startling insight into his psyche, before continuing.

"Still if you meet someone online who claims to be a gorgeous 25-year-old woman, chances are they aren't. If they were, why would they be stuck indoors playing Second Life?"

We think jamesyld has hit on something here. Clearly, the key to finding love online is to seduce a 25-stone avatar with a face like a bag of spanners called Brian. A plan not without its risks, admittedly.

ProfessorF, however, had sympathy for the unhappy couple: "They might enjoy interaction, but on the terms that something like Second Life offers. In Second Life, you can get on your dragon and fly away from some cretin, whereas in real life you're stuck on the bus listening to the drum-and-bass issuing from their mobile."

You don't like buses, cretins or mobiles. You do like dragons. We sympathise.

"It seems to me that there was problems in the marriage anyway," says Dr paulzolo, who's clearly seen a picture of the two. "If people are that sensitive about what some online avatars appear to be doing, then I have a feeling that it points to something deeper... If you base a marriage on this, then I suggest that you are walking into disaster. Let this be a lesson to us all."

Wise words indeed. Now can we all go back to the good old days of mail-order brides.

Microsoft replaces OneCare with free Morro

Microsoft has licked that pesky malware problem. Hurrah, the champagne's on Steve. Okay, it didn't say that in so many words, but how else can we explain its decision to ditch OneCare, the Chuck Norris of antivirus suites? Well it could be that Microsoft's decided the third world is where the big money... erm, isn't, and is launching a free antivirus package called Morro, instead.

big_d was pleased: "It could be argued that Microsoft has a duty of care to its customers, to ensure that the software it sells is secure and doesn't leave users open to attack from malware. It is the equivalent of Ford selling cars without seatbelts. Originally no cars had seat belts, then they were optional, third-party affairs, then they had to be provided on all cars. I would say we are approaching the point where the OS should have seatbelts built in."

But where would we find the drivers? Sorry. Hopefully rjp2000 can save us from lame joke hell.