Tomorrow Second Life will celebrate its 3rd birthday as an official product (“official” meaning people were paying for access – we actually are more than 4 years old if you count alpha and beta access). Congrats to the Second Life residents and Linden Lab team on getting to this milestone. The world is bigger than Boston, with a GDP and US dollar exchange rate rivaling an Eastern European country.

I recall two main memories of our launch: i was tired and unfortunately correct.

Tired: Didn’t sleep for the two nights prior to launch and I was on the verge of hallucinating. It was less about work (although there was lots to be done) and more nerves. I just was too nervous to sleep. We had a celebratory BBQ at Robin Harper’s house and all i could do was sip lemonade and try to stay awake. It was still fun thought – i mean, it was my first chance to meet Char Linden who came in for the event.

Correct: The Lindens set up a contest as to how many beta residents would give us a credit card and start paying. I think we threw in some small amount like $5/each. The guesses were all over the board – Cory and Philip were characteristically optimistic, suggesting the majority of our beta testers converting.

I was the low number. It wasn’t that I thought Second Life was doomed but rather our growth would be incremental and it wouldn’t happen all at once. And I was right, taking home the $80 or so from our betting pool. Philip was kinda bummed at the low resident numbers but again, always looking ahead, said “Well, I guess it’s good that our business guy was the one who could actually forecast our growth.”

As summer vacation season begins I find that more people are heading to remote destinations involving a week of mountain climbing, hiking in uninhabited lands or going off the grid for ten days of work in a Bhutan temple. Is this some shift where a generation is getting in touch with the earth and the world around them? Did i miss the memo about everyone deciding that extreme travel was the path to happiness and rejuvenation?

Nah, i think it all has to do with one fact – you need to be in the middle of nowhere in order to get out of cell and blackberry range. And to be able to defend to your colleagues that you’re unreachable. It’s another by-product of 24/7 information culture.

If you’re going to Katmandu you can set the auto-reply “OOO until July 5th. Unavailable by cell phone. Email blah@blah.com for emergencies.”

But if you’re going to Ft. Lauderdale, sorry, you can still get five bars of coverage and your message is going to look like “Returning to office on June 28th, will be checking email in the morning and evenings. Available at #### for emergencies.”

In the face of these choices is it any wonder that American Samoa starts to look pretty good?

In an awesome display of synergy, massive buyout fund the Carlyle Group has purchased the Oriental Trading Company. Now not only will this shadowy group make money from the war in Iraq, they’ll profit from its reconstruction as well because I know novelty plastic monkeys and cocktail weiner American Flags will be popular at the Shiite Sunni parties.

As much as simultaneous activity interests me (e.g. the urban legend re: municipal plumbing infrastructure being overwhelmed by Super Bowl halftime flushing), simultaneous stillness is even more fascinating. By my definition, simultaneous stillness is when mass amounts of people stop whatever activity they’re engaged in and do nothing. (Contrasted with simultaneous activity when folks engage in one specific activity). It’s a fairly rare occurrence – it’s not every day that you can get people to do nothing.

The best example of simultaneous stillness was exhibited in October 2005 with the OJ trial verdict. Regardless of age, race or profession, you paused to watch/listen to whether he was guilty. Personally, I was gathered among a cluster of fellow management consultants, eyes perched skyward at the television set wall-mounted in the corner of an admin’s office. The more intent their attention, the more I noticed that nothing else was happening. Eyes fixed, mouths gaped, silence from the office and the street below.

“What an excellent time for a caper!” I imagined. And that’s where my simultaneous stillness fascination began — an opportunity for crime. A crime of magnificent proportions committed right under the nose of a nation fixated elsewhere. But I had nothing planned, nothing which could be initiated right at that moment. I vowed that next time I’d be prepared.

But I’m not talking about a smash and grab, stick the diamonds in my pocket kinda thing. No, more like a Die Hard “put the bearer bonds in the basket or she gets the hose” act. You see, most financial markets these days are dominated by computerized trading, leading to near perfectly efficient exchanges and buy/sell orders that are executed without the instigation of humans. If we all dropped dead tomorrow, the algorithms would march on, finding an equilibrium among buyer and seller (no matter they’re corpses).

But somewhere there must be a relatively illiquid exchanges anachronistically managed by people, by true market makers. Accepting and clearing bids by hand. Responsible for tracking and maintaining the regulations of their market. But what happened if that individual and all the market participants were locked in a moment of simultaneous stillness? Could there be some action I’d be able to push through that would transfer millions of dollars into my hands? Some momentary arbitrage or imbalance caused by the fact our market maker was in the middle of clearing a trade when he, and the rest of the nation, paused? I resolved to find one.

And now I wait to set my plan in motion. Wait for the next instance of simultaneous stillness to see if it works. Or, if I grow impatient, I might just try to create my own moment.

Turns out my friend Andy Ballard and I were both in New York City this week. Andy was there on Monday night, and I arrived late Tuesday night.

Andy and I both stayed at the Hudson Hotel.

And Andy and I both got bumped up to The Apartment, this ridiculously swanky and spacious suite.

Andy had the better time though. He had two messages on his answering machine from Corey Feldman looking for the person who stayed in The Apartment the previous evening.

Had the chance this week to pay tribute to Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner at a NYC cocktail party celebrating the success of their book Freakonomics. Levitt and Dubner are friends of mine and I helped bring them to Google last summer.

Wednesday’s party was held at the Gansevoort Hotel, a hangout trendy enough to attract Fabio (who was spotted at the bar). Neat venue, but cramped given the rain which confined us to a single room instead of the full roof deck.

The publisher of Harper Collins, John Stossel, the editor of the New York Times magazine and I all spoke for a few minutes before the Stev(ph)ens did their thing. Of interesting note – the first print run for Freakonomics was 37,000 copies. Now there are over 1.5 million in print. Whew.

Among the attendees were my friends Nick Haines and the lovely Jesse Marmon (who has excellent posture). Because of the overcrowding, Nick and Jesse were delayed at the door which lead to this amusing exchange:

Nick: Why’d you let him in? [after being held back but another guest was allowed to enter]
Bouncer [with disgust]: Sir, that’s a five year old disabled boy in a wheelchair. Do you care to reconsider what you just said?