The first code I ever wrote, I wrote in Second Life.

The first interface I ever designed was for a HUD I built for the robot avatar I wanted to sell in Second Life.

The first time I ever heard the names Neal Stephenson or Charles Stross, it was in Second Life.

The first time I ever paid my rent based on work I had done entirely for and by myself, it was from selling hundreds of robots in Second Life.

I was 19. It was magic.

There's a substantial part of what I am today that I could not have become without what I learned from Second Life.

Yes, the developer tools are awful and the laggy experience can kill a lot of the fun. But fuck – I was selling killer robots to people and getting paid for it in what could become real money, somehow. Because that's how I wanted to use it. And it let me do all of that? Incredible.