CLEAR INK ISLAND -- John Gage, chief researcher at Sun Microsystems, Inc., and an executive at Clear Ink, the California-based digital marketing company, are the stars of an original machinima entitled "How to Get a Second Life," which will be shown Wednesday at the Technology Entertainment and Design show, otherwise known as TED.

Gage, the man who twelve years ago created Net Day, an initiative to connect all U.S. schools and libraries to the Internet, will be represented in the machinima by his avatar, along with Steve Nelson, Clear Ink's Executive Vice President (aka Kiwini Oe in Second Life). The first day of the four-day show, which runs March 7 to 10, begins with TED University, described as "a complete semester of 6 courses, offered in two hours." It is during these sessions that attendees will see the presentation. As a bonus, the real life John Gage (who will be in Boston), will answer questions via audio after the machinima's premier.

Clear Ink Island is open to visitors.

The theme for this year's TED conference is Icons, Geniuses and Mavericks. The show organizers chose "fifty remarkable people" to speak and share whatever they are passionate about.

The guests include Lawrence Lessig, best known for his advocacy of reduced legal restrictions on copyright and trademark, and his founding of the "Creative Commons" movement. Lessig was a guest of CNet in Second Life in January. Other Internet-related personalities include Will Wright, creator of The Sims Online, and Alan Kay, the father of object-oriented programming and regarded as the leading architect of the modern graphical user interface first commercialized by the Apple Macintosh.

Household names at the conference include former U.S. president Bill Clinton, musician Paul Simon, and Virgin founder Richard Branson.

For more information, check out the TED Web site . The conference is so popular that next year's conference from Feb. 27 to March 1 is already sold out.

[This story has been updated from it's original post earlier today--Editor]