This is the 15th in a series of largely demographic interviews that are conducted with established residents, to find out more about them and their involvement with Second Life, and to contrast the differences between their views and experiences and those of the newer residents. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

Otenth's typist came into Second Life out of boredom but was totally charmed by the creative potential. Otenth founded the First Friends Church of Second Life (Quakers) and owns the residential sim Wyre.

This is the 14th in a series of largely demographic interviews that are conducted with established residents, to find out more about them and their involvement with Second Life, and to contrast the differences between their views and experiences and those of the newer residents. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

Pavig Lok is a charming individual with a fascinating turn of phrase.

This is the eighth in a series of largely demographic interviews that are conducted with established residents, to find out more about them and their involvement with Second Life, and to contrast the differences between their views and experiences and those of the newer residents. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

I've known Lienna for some time - life kind of threw us together in Second Life. She's a fascinating and engaging person. We'd spoken for some time before we actually met inworld and I took her skin shopping. Lienna writes for the excellent Pixel Pulse magazine, and has her own blog - which you may be warned, is not safe for work.

About forty five minutes after our last update about the grid issues, Linden Lab finally made an announcement about today's trouble, indicating that they were beginning to investigate. An hour later, after the Second Life website also failed they posted to say there was no further information. 45 minutes later (now at 11pm), everyone is asked to avoid 'asset related activities'.

For clarification, that would be: Accessing or updating notecards, dressing/undressing, shopping, giving gifts, building or scripting, rezzing objects or picking things up. Ordinal Malaprop's resigned frustration is echoed in many places around the grid.

We expect to see an announcement sometime soon saying that the problem has been isolated to network routing or capacity between the colocation facilities, as the symptoms almost exactly match the last several times that was an issue.

Trust betrayed. How could this happen?

I logged out to head to the store and get groceries. I come back, check my messages, see yet more press about the First Life website, and log back on to Second Life ... Only to catch my avatar in the act! There she was, logged into First Life!

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!)

Wired reports on Second Life's must-have stuff. Hah! Sorry I am going to insist you go read it and then point and laugh like a schoolyard bully at the attempt. Obviously the drawing up of a top ten may lead to a few fist fights between bloggers, but I would say there are some significant omissions from the list -- which cheats anyway by trying to encompass "freebies" as one all-encompassing category. Freebies are a must-have? Hmmmm.

The fact is, no must-have list is complete without Starax's wand, which is no longer available since his precipitous exit from Second Life after the changes to temp on rez affected his product so badly. No one can pretend to know why he left in the way he did, but I think that had he left feeling good about the world, he'd have left his things on sale in SL. As it is, there is a flourishing second hand market in Starax statues and transferable stuff. They are the new antiques of the virtual world, with art galleries offering to buy them up from the lucky owners. The most coveted item is the wand, which is not available to anyone who doesn't have one already, as it is not transferable. Anyone who wants to see it is welcome to contact me, and we'll have a wand party, as I was fortunate enough to find one in my Christmas stocking last year.

Drum roll, please: the date and time of the registration of the millionth user was October 18th, 2006, at 08:05:45 AM, SL Time. The one millionth resident's name is Farley Atlantis, and I'll be contacting him/her soon for an interview (if he/she will have me!), but I know that you're all waiting for the name of the winning resident.

Interestingly enough, only 3 people guessed the date correctly. With a prediction of 8:30 AM, the winner is ...

*bated breath*

Mystra Hyde!

Mystra, congratulations! I'll be contacting you soon with your winnings, and an offer to have an interview up on the site, which you may of course decline. If any of you know Mystra, let him/her know he/she's won!

I'd like to thank Torley, Robin, and Jim Linden for providing the precise date and time, and all of our wonderful prize suppliers: Coal Nelson, Six Kennedy, Jakkal Dingo, Trinity Serpentine, Mistress Midnight, and Ordinal Malaprop! Please patronize these artists; they make wonderful things! Thank you all for your entries, you made this contest fun! *tail madly wagging*

Okay, I know everyone's excited to know who's donating prizes, and what they are. As it stands, here is the list:

• Coal Nelson donates a 'Personal Comet' head orbiter (if you haven't seen one of these, they're really cute! Come find me in-world for a look)
• Mistress Midnight donates something from her personal line of clothing (details to be determined by Mistress)
  
• Six Kennedy donates a 400L gift certificate to Gurl6 (her fashion and hairstyle store)
• Our own Aimee donates both a 1000L credit voucher to Preen and a few unreleased Preen items (to be determined by Aimee)
  
• Jakkal Dingo donates 2 800L gift certificates to The Werehouse (Like my werewolf av? I got it from Jakkal!)
  
• Tippy Fizz donates a portrait session in her photography studio (She does fine work, no lie)
  
• Trinity Serpentine donates a 2 hour set from the Radio Radio DJ of the winner's choice (though the DJ requested must either be off-schedule or this can take place during their scheduled set)
• Ordinal Malaprop donates a new object of her design (she's keeping it a secret!)

And, again, I'll offer to interview the winner if they're interested. So there you have it, a drool-worthy list of prizes if ever I've seen one. And I've never seen one, so I'm proud to be the first! Thank you to everyone who's graciously donated these prizes and for being so generous with their time! If you would like to donate a prize to this contest, you may either IM me in-world, or send me mail at akelatal@gmail.com. Good luck to the winner!

Many of the wonderful things I have discovered in SL have happened serendipitously, and this is one of them. In the course of my explorations yesterday I met Ordinal Malaprop. In order to find the URL for the tram map, I returned to Caledon today, to Ordinal Malaprop's shop, which is full of wonderful things! You must go there, and take your friends ....

She has gadgets and gizmos which are free to copy, including one which is going to be really useful as it logs slurls. There are such interesting products as the flying bicycle and the duelling pistols. Even though I have a hatred of guns, I was almost tempted by these. She has a green bottle crate which rezzes bottles which shatter when hit by a gun.

There are landmarks and interesting notecards, a steel pigeon projector, it's home to the Ordinal Dirigible, there is breaking glass ... and it has to be visited. So go, go. Oh and she writes a great blog too ....

Had a very busy day yesterday. First thing in the morning, Oclee was building a tree on the offchance that we get a plot on Burning Life. We know exactly what we want to do ... it would be brilliant if we get plots next to each other, but there were 14 pages of applications by the end of yesterday so there is only about a 1 in 4 chance that we will. I went to Serenity Falls ... can't remember how I got there, but I bought some of the flowers, seen in the picture, which I loved.

There was an unplanned meeting of our team, with Ratt Foo turning up on Nemesis, Cierrah and Oclee and myself. I got out the Starax wand and started playing -- I set it to listen to everybody and Cierrah's friend Losenger did his best to crash the sim by firing out pieces of fruit, objects and animals. Ratt did crash -- we watched him typing and typing and typing and then vanish without a word, and he was gone for some time, there having been a lightning flash and a bang somewhere near his home, which triggered everything to go off.

Then Oclee crashed -- and disaster. His photoshop insisted he reinstall the program. This is such a pain. It means a phone call to the company to reactivate, and they always treat Oclee as though he is a criminal. I have had PSP installed on my computer since I first installed it, it's never required me to reinstall after a crash.