bad dreams really do come true

As mentioned on New World Notes, Second Life now has a new feature. Everyone automatically gets their own web page, which can be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

I...guess this is a good thing? Technically, we've had this--barring the sharing feature--for a long while now, but to be honest, it's much easier to use this time around, and the layout is both cleaner and larger (print-wise). Before, it was nearly the equivalent of a computer text file, with line after line of teensy type.

How'ver, the question must be asked--since the Labs recoded the profiles the first time, and broke all picks prize givers, and all group verifications for a while...have they managed to do it a second time? I haven't heard anything, but then, I haven't been in world yet.

Either way, it's yet another puzzling development from the Labs. Fixing Search, fixing group chat, fixing stability and asset server issues: these things are still not priorities. But obviously, everyone was just crying out with the intense burning lack of resident profiles shareable on social networks.

Glad to know that yet again, the Labs go for the least significant fixes first, before tackling the big stuph. (Which is, of course, assuming they ever will.)

To that end, I wanted to briefly mention for new readers: yes, I misspell certain words deliberately. Why? I really couldn't tell you. But I started doing it in high school, and I haven't ditched the habit yet.

For the most part, these are fixed misspellings in my mind. They are:

Stuph. For "stuff", obviously. In a highly indirect and circuitous route, this was inspired by a tale of Harlan Ellison's days in New York (which may be completely apocryphal in the first place). He'd gone to a party, gotten a bit tipsy, had a bit of an argument with the woman staying in said apartment--where he'd also been invited to spend a few weekends. In a fit of pique, he went outside, stamping in the dirty midwinter slush, and came back in, going to the apartment's den. It had a white Flokati rug, and he carefully, with intent, stamped out letters before leaving.

Those letters? P-H-U-Q-U-E. Sound it out. And thus, 'stuph' was born.

Septus. Another dating to high school, and Latin class. At the time, I thought it looked more...Latin-y? So to speak.

Aprille. Why Aprille? We'd been reading Canterbury Tales, and if that's not a variant spelling in there, it was in some literature of the time (we were also going through early English poets). It stuck.

How'ver. This is less a misspelling than it is a contraction, and it's not even that, really, because it's very nearly the same number of syllables sounded out (at least to me). But this was another high school glitch in the programming, that stuck around. (It doesn't even save time typing, because it's the same number of characters. Go figure I'd pick a contraction that isn't, that contains the same number of characters as the original word. That says something about my personality, I think. And it's not necessarily a good thing.)



Click for the larger version. From some unknown manipulator on Worth 1000, and I am now pondering riveted pears. Does the grid have a need for them? More to the point, do they need to be clockwork, or can they simply be metallic? Would they add or detract to a grove of more natural trees?

And would they attract clockwork bees?