MEGAN MCCARTHY — Linden Lab's scarily visionary chief exec has instituted a new system to encourage positive feedback among employees, rather than the passive aggressive tone that suffuses most email communication. Employees of the Benchmark-backed firm — a curious mix of hippie utopia and hype-mongering scam — can allocate love points to their co-workers. At the end of each quarter, the "love machine" calculates bonuses for staff who've received the most love points. Linden boss, Philip Rosedale — the scarily euphoric virtual world visionary pictured here with that weird preacher from Burning Man — chattered on happily about the scheme at last night's South of Market party. Our suggestion: the company should extend the quarterly bonuses to those journalists such as David Kirkpatrick of Fortune. It is their excited profiles of Second Life have persuaded foolish marketers that the customer of the future is an avatar. Not so much a love machine as a PR machine. Photos from last night's party, by Lane Hartwell, in the gallery.