# Snow Crash  Author:: Neal Stephenson  ## AI-Generated Summary None ## Highlights > So Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. ([Location 519](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=519)) > The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it. ([Location 666](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=666)) > But “snow crash” is computer lingo. It means a system crash—a bug—at such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls the electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen, turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. ([Location 822](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=822)) > I don’t know how my face conveyed that information, or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother’s mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance.” ([Location 1109](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=1109)) > no matter how good it is, the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other, ([Location 1178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=1178)) > Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people’s minds.” ([Location 1249](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=1249)) > Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all of the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time. ([Location 2158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=2158)) > This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?” Juanita shrugs. “What’s the difference?” ([Location 3461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B000FBJCJE&location=3461))