I got a place where all my dreams are dead

Punxatawney Phil apparently saw his shadow. So six more weeks of winter, at least off the grid. (On the grid, well, when I left Caledon and Winterfell, both were saying winter was soon to end. Since I haven't been back to either place yet, I truly don't know.)

In other news off the grid, mutant chickens are growing toothlike nubs. But mostly, I like this story for the very first line of it:

Working late in the developmental biology lab one night, Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off.

Errrr. What does a thinking being say to that?

The rest of the story goes a little bit into why this mutant chicken began growing teeth, but the first three questions that popped into my mind were

• Wait. You're mutating chickens for educational reasons now?
• The beak fell off? The hell? How do beaks just fall off??
• So chickens can't grow teeth normally, but you've managed to reinvent the chicken so successfully they can grow teeth on their own? What's next, the pocket shark?

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the grid...

[19:57] [Fxxxxx Axxxx]: There are two MLP ponies inside the elevator at Doomed.
[19:57] [Fxxxxx Axxxx]: One's titler is "My dad just died in RL let me be PLX"

Man, that would be a hard call. On the one hand, you want to support people...ponies...people in ponies...wau, that sounded bad...in their hour of whatever.

On the other hand, My Little Pony avatars DO NOT BELONG ON DOOMED, so...yeah. There's that fine line, painted in bright, sparkly neon, and likely glowing in the dark.

Lofty Pursuits' long-sought-after goal of acquisition and restoration of Victorian-era candy-making equipment will be funded! That's just amazing. Do read the whole story, it's inspirational, and yes, feel free to fund if you can--they set a low fund limit, because they're doing most of the restoration work in-house, but absolutely anything would help. (Oh, and this just in--there's a Girl Genius link, in more than one way. So yes, anyone steampunk-inclined or Girl Genius fan, give to the project! Or spread the word! And remember that website--bookmark it so in six months to a year, when the Victorian equipment is fully restored and in use, you can order authentic Victorian candy! Woot!)

Unfortunately, Mother Henriot's Absinthe Elixir is not doing so well. I and eighteen other individuals are backers, but that's only raised $980 of their stated $10,000 goal. It ould be a shame for that one to fail.

Meanwhile, there's a new form of visual "muting" on the grid. It's not an actual mute, as all it does is count the number of attachments, or the surface area on which those attachments are used, and then render anyone above your chosen figures as a grey ghost in the world.

Of course, my mind immediately leaps to two places: furs, and the catgirls with the big stompy feet and the fluffy tails with the prim-everything wrapped around the base. I can see either category easily falling off the radar with either debug setting.

But we'll see how it goes. I still have trouble seeing this as actual discrimination because you're still able to see their name, interact with them, have them interact with you--there's no actual "muting", per se. But, if they're wearing too many attachments, or there are more attachments covering their avatar than system layers...these settings would remove them from rezzing in for you.

Ever.

This is going to make crowd photography problematic, I think...