This is the twenty-third in a series of mini-interviews with the residents of Second Life. For the most part, I'll try to leave the responses unedited, except where editing will grant greater clarity.

Shockwave Plasma, or Shocky, as I like to call her, is someone with whom I don't get to speak more often, and that's a shame. I've always found her to be intelligent, witty, insightful, and whimsical, frequently all within the space of 3 minutes. I don't know how she was able to slip the Resident Snapshot noose for so long, but I finally nabbed her!

How did you first come to SL?: I was looking for some sort of on-line social, or gaming group, and tried to find one that was more than just blasting people and space ships. The ones I found were rather bland, or rather stifled, until I came across Second Life. It reminded me of Snow Crash, I must have read that in 2000.

How did you choose your name?: I was trying to decide between Plasma and Pixel, and as Plasma is the fourth state of matter, and as we are neither gas, liquid, or solid,
then a Plasma I must be. One of the first Cyberpunk novels was "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, so that was suitable for for my first name in my first
cyber world. Now I find a Shockwave Plasma is also a spectroscope.

What's your favorite thing about SL?: The people and the imagination they display. Touring the Sandboxes can be more like walking in an interactive art gallery, than walking through a building yard. Meeting people from all over the world is my cure for insomnia. Sometimes I would be awake until 2am, but logging in to SL seems to get rid of the thoughts that kept me awake.

What do you like least about SL?: Being in the UK, and most of the parties, weddings, shows are mainly for a USA audience, where most of my friends reside. (That's life). No boolean searches in FIND/Search. Griefers. LL not banning Mime avatars.

Favorite hangout/store?: Shelter/ Shelter in Exile. I don't have a favorite shop, but I like to crash test Cubey Terra's planes.

Name one new feature you'd like to see added to SL: To have the servers spaced around the globe.

Shout outs: Hi Tateru, Mera, Sumar, Pip, Ordinal, Dani, Erbo, Aldo, Misty, and Oni (where ever you are!)

If there is one book that best exemplifies the spirit and future of Second Life and the Metaverse it is Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash. Heck, the term Metaverse is actually first coined in Snow Crash. I read it for the first time in the early 90s and I was transfixed by the virtual world, the skateboarding, and sword play. The first time I logged into Second Life I thought this is Snow Crash (without skateboarding and swords) right down to starting out with the generic character that was embarrassing to be seen in. Of course, mine sadly didn't come with a mind melting virus, or maybe it did. When talking to other people about Second Life the one thing I have found is that it either changes their perspective of what a game or virtual experience can be, or they don't get it at all. I don't know anyone who thinks Second Life is just okay. It is either a life altering experience, or confusing at best and complete garbage at worst. Usually when people are confused I send them to Snow Crash. The cool thing is now I can send them to read Snow Crash inside Second Life, and they can read about the metaverse in the metaverse. As reported by 3pointD, Penguin Publishing (no relation) is releasing a 40 page version of Snow Crash in world. So if you haven't read the book or are interested in a short refresher you can find it in world courtesy of Rivers Run Red.

As an aside, book reading in Second Life looks really cool, but it comes with all the problems that you get with reading a text document on a computer screen and more. Eventually your eyes are going to get tired. On top of that you have to find a quite place and avoid IMs as well. I was really excited when I got my first in world book until it didn't work quite right and I had to spend the rest of the night figuring out why, while all my friends read the book around be taunting me with the sight of them in virtual reading bliss. This one could improve on the format as it displays as a HUD saving you the trouble of positioning everything just right so that you can see it in first person view.