210 - Stairs of horror

Dim Sum got tired of being chased by mad scientists and giant spiders and dismembered torsos. Obviously, this manor's staff needs lessons on how to make guests feel welcome!


At this rate, I think I'll get my 365th done by the end of the year 2014.

Anyway, I'm starting a new challenge based on the 6-word memoir project by Smith Magazine:



For any picture in the "Where's Dim Sum?" series, give it a six-word caption. Go to the page for details.

And, finally, scroll down for Strawberry's Google meme mashup with SLTimeWellWasted.

location: DarkDharma Haunted Manor

Technical notes

windlight: [TOR] SCIFI - Bridge opera 2 (modified)

Strawberry's memes - Google meme mashup

Strawberry suggested a mashup of her meme and Emily's (SLTimeWellWasted). Strawberry's instructions were "Google your SL name and answer the following questions." Emily's instructions were "First, measure your digital footprint.  Google yourself … under both your real life name and your second life name and look over what comes up."

I Googled three names: "opal lei" (SL name), "lea tesoro" (RL author name / RL nickname), "eleanor tesoro" (RL legal name). I figured that Googling "dim sum" and "treasure box" would be practically useless.

All three names are actually linked to each other now. It seems Google doesn't return very old pages, because I had done this exercise in the past, and the "eleanor" search pretty much returns mostly SL-related hits now, instead of artifacts from my previous life like it used to.

A number of the hits were about other people with the same name as my RL names. My name is not that common, but it's not unique either. A long time ago, I discovered an "opallei" in Twitter (she's not me and she apparently had that Twitter account before I created Opal Lei in SL) and an "opal-lei" in deviantART (I suspect this one was someone trying to spoof me). The rest of the hits were mostly me, except the sites that trick you by dynamically adding your search string into the page and the data mining sites that collect information about you from all over the web.

So, here are the questions from Strawberry:

1. Google your Second Life name in “quotations” and share your results. About 9,840 results.

2. What is the first link that comes up? My domain opallei.com, which is the portal to all my SL or kinda like my virtual world CV.

3. Which link were you surprised to see? A slideshow with one of my Flickr images of an exhibit at the International Spaceflight Museum on slide #47. The presenter used it to illustrate some concept about design. I think it's about software architecture. I can't tell for sure; it's in Japanese. I wasn't asked for permission to use that image, but at least the presenter attributed it to Opal properly.

4. Click on the “Image” tab and tell us where the first 5 pictures listed are from. wildopallei.blogspot.com, twitter.com, and blogs.exploratorium.edu.

5. Click on the “more” tab and then click “news” and share your results. No results found for "opal lei". :)

And the questions from Emily:

1. How did the two digital footprints compare, and did that surprise you?
Opal: About 9,840 results
Lea: About 5,370 results
Eleanor: About 1,630 results
Nope, it's not really surprising, because I did more as Opal in the past 7 years than as my RL personas.

2. Does anyone interesting share your name? Not particularly.

3. Are you happy with the size of your digital footprint, or do you wish either one was larger/smaller? I'm not sure. Because I'm not anonymous anymore, I worry about what leaks back and forth between my public SL personas and my RL personas. Because Opal used to be anonymous, I was less careful about what information was online about my activities. But now that Opal is outed, I'm still figuring out how my SL life has affected and is affecting my RL reputation. Not that I've done anything bad; it's just that my personal life and my professional life have blended after I published my book.

4. If you woke up/ logged in one morning to discover over night you had suddenly gained rock-star status, and everybody knew who you were and wanted to know what you were doing… what would you do? Create another anonymous alt. :D  Oh, wait, I already did that. Several times. Without even being a rock star. :D