Pastafarian CTO resigns from Second Life

SECOND LIFE CTO and prominent Pastafarian Cory Ondrejka quit his job Tuesday and will leave Linden Labs by year end, the Associated Press reports.

Second Life is an Internet based virtual world that appears three-dimensional. In it, members create their own virtual characters, or avatars, who inhabit an archipelago of fantasy islands. Players create and trade imaginary real estate, cars, clothes and other goods in a vigorous virtual economy, using real money.

It's said to be quite addictive, especially for punters who don't have a real life. Some sad cases have even been accused of neglecting their real life spouses in favour of virtual partners there.

Ondrejka was hired as employee number four at Linden Labs, the proprietor of Second Life, in November 2000. He is a US Naval Academy graduate who had previously worked in computing for the DoD and NSA before developing video games for Pacific Coast Power and Light.

Permitting Second Life users to own the rights to their virtual creations was Ondrejka's idea, and he helped write the code that operates the fantasy world.

Second Life has had some technical problems. Graphics rendering is slow on older computers and avatars have at times unintentionally appeared unclothed.

Philip Rosedale, the CEO of Linden Labs, said Ondrejka wanted to "pursue new professional challenges" and that he and Ondrejka differed over Second Life's strategic direction. "The needs of our company are changing, and the role of CTO, or technical lead, has also evolved," he said. Ondrejka hasn't commented.

Ondrejka has reportedly appeared in Second Life in the guise of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the spaghetti and meatballs "diety" of the tongue-in-cheek religion "Pastafarianism" invented in 2005 by a physics graduate student at Oregon State University.

Pastafarians, many of whom are scientists and technologists, say that if bible thumping fundamentalists want schools to teach "intelligent design" alongside evolution, then they should also allow the teaching of Pastafarianism and other equally implausible systems of belief. µ

L'INQ
New York Times