cleolinda | Entries tagged with bad ideas

Harry Potter is the Biggest Worldwide Debut Ever with $476M. That is to say, nearly half a billion dollars, blowing through the Eclipse midnight record, the New Moon opening day record, and the Dark Knight weekend record. From what I've seen of Comments on the Interwebs, Twilight fans and Batman fans are united in shouting YEAH WELL WAIT TILL OUR LAST MOVIE COMES OUT, and then they realize they're on the same side and run away to wash that icky fanboy/girl off. Whatever helps you sleep at night, kids.

Guillermo Del Toro and Emma Watson for Beauty and the Beast?; David Yates reveals his next project PP (post-Potter) (whoa, The Stand?); How Harry Potter Changed Publishing (three words: midnight release parties); 10 great, and 10 no-so-great, things about Harry Potter. And here's our discussion post, with a--well, not a defense, but an alternate take on the epilogue. Also:

@bestforfilm: We're opening a bar called Harry Shotters. Drinks include Margaritaskeeters, Cedric Daquiris, Mojicho Changs... #harrypotterdrinks

Concoctions include Pinot Gringotts, Episkey Sours, Mudbloody Marys, Blast Ended Skrewtdriver, Hex on the Beach, Ginny and Tonic, Ron and Coke, Creme De Menter, and my favorite, Madame Hooch.

Since y'all have waited ever so patiently, let's skip straight to TheOneRing.net Exclusive: Behold! Thorin Oakenshield and Orcrist! ( BEHOLD! )

I'm not saying I'll be able to keep up a steady stream of linkspam posts; I'm just saying I'm going to try.

( Ah, the hot dwarves. )

Well, this is fantastic.

To recap: I cross-posted test comments to both Twitter and Facebook; screencaps and discussion are over here.

You do have to opt in to cross-post, because if you don't connect your LJ to either of those services, it won't know where to post. People have been seeing banners at the top of their journals mentioning this--but I didn't, maybe because I have a permanent account, and the code is treating the banner like an ad? So I hadn't seen that. But it says that if you've already done the Facebook Connect thing, you're going to have to go back in and reactivate it, which also sounds like an opt-in.

Problem: I connected my Cleolinda Jones account--i.e., a pseudonym with no sensitive personal information, which makes me a better guinea pig than most people. For Science! What LJ did not say anywhere in the FAQs was that it will then announce on your user info page (the page strangers are most likely to see, other than your latest entry), under "External Services," that you, Full Name, are on Facebook. The only reason we even found out was because

maetang just happened to notice.

If I had used my personal Lauren Lastname account, I would have been screwed. If your full name being on the page that Unwelcome People are most likely see is a problem for you, REMOVE FACEBOOK CONNECT NOW.

Guess what? There's also ANOTHER PROBLEM. The pingback thing is automatically turned on, according to that banner. My understanding is that if it's on, it sends you emails that someone has linked to you and emails to someone else that you have linked to them. People link to me a lot. Not unreasonably, they have linked to that last entry with the "Here's what cross-posting looks like" screencaps. So I've gotten a couple dozen in the last twelve hours, as well as--weirdly--two-year-old links to Breaking Dawn recaps and Troy in Fifteen Minutes.

Obviously, it told me who linked to me. But four of them were to locked entries that I wasn't supposed to know existed.

( And then it started sending the text of entries to me )

Yeah. You're probably going to want to turn that off.

And you know why I linked to my own recap up there? Because I'm curious to see if it'll send me a pingback to myself. And if it does: how much of this entry will it quote back at me?

Okay, since I was having a hard time visualizing what the hell you would even want to use this for, the worst issues had to be explained to me. There were a couple of good comments explaining how cross-posting comments from LJ to Facebook or Twitter (even accidentally) could end badly.

So I thought, okay. I have accounts on all of these networks under "Cleolinda Jones," which is not my real name (REALLY?), so I'm a good test case--we can look at what shows up on my Facebook without anyone's alternate username or identity being outed. Except that LJ won't let me connect to Facebook--"Bogus form data." Well, to hell with you too. I disabled AdBlock, NoScript, my firewall--nothing. I hope I can't get in because they're monkeying with the cross-posting code, but I doubt we'd be that lucky. So! I did what I could: I connected to Twitter, set up a dummy entry (filtered to only one other person), and set out to comment on it and see what would show up on Twitter, thereby annoying the piss out of my follower list for a good 30 minutes (start from the bottom): ( You may want to look at this )

But here's the thing: I can't get Facebook to connect so I can try to cross-post there (and neither can a couple of other people who just tried it). I don't know if a Facebook cross-post would give away more information, like the title of the entry or the username of the person who posted it, since it's not limited to 140 characters. It might be even more revealing over there. Has anyone tried it?

ETA: Here's what a Facebook cross-post looks like, including your icon and the original poster's LJ URL. Hope your icon is safe for work/family/life...

ETA 2: It's POLL TIME. "Awful idea" is currently leading with 96.1%, FYI.

Also, Facebook just let me in. Here's what it posted of a comment I left on this entry, to confirm: ( Two more screencaps )

There you are.

ETA 3: If you do connect to Facebook, it will show your full name as listed there on your info page.

And now you see why I offered to be the guinea pig.

Re: the SDCC exclusive Tonner Edward variant: I think my problem here isn't OMG IT'S A TWILIGHT DOLL I MUST HAVE IT; it's that I love incorporating stuff into the Secret Life stories. And "stuff" often gets expensive, although not always--some of the best bits have been small reader gifts (The Littlest Cowboy Hat, for example), or stuff I found around the house (the dessert fork for pitching the ponies' grass), or old toys from my closet (the ponies themselves). I mean, there are dolls I want for myself that I haven't bought because I couldn't justify the cost (even crazy-fantastic bargains) by thinking of a way to incorporate them--but I see something that makes me go HOLY SHIT I HAVE TO PUT THAT IN THE STORY and it's like my brain just shuts down. I mean, I saw Super Special Exclusive Legolas with Cloak on eBay and fought for that thing to the $40 death ~~AND STILL GOT IT FOR HALF WHAT IT USUALLY GOES FOR, SUCKAAAAAS~~. It's kind of my equivalent of "SQUIRREL!"

But I am trying to talk myself down off the Gratuitous Edward Variant ledge because: Alice. I have to have Alice. I can't not have Alice. I have to bring Alice's awesome to The Shelf. I can't blow this kind of money on a character I already have in a slightly different shirt and afford an Alice. So there's that. I... I'll have to see a picture of the variant Edward, I guess. *hangs head*

Oh, by the way, we have a reader question about dolls--where to find good sites for accessories for 4" figures?

Oh, and my mother has found someone who wants to buy the plates. Not the mugs yet, though.

( Linkspam )

Current Mood: a touch sunburnt
Current Music: Joan Jett - I Hate Myself For Loving You

I feel really crappy, probably because the weather's been hideous for several days now, but it's sunny now, so here's an early linkspam so I can go recharge my epidermal solar panels.

(Re: Yesterday's Secret Life: There are a ton of awesome reader-made icons sprinkled through the comments; The Littlest Hat is courtesy of MaggieCat; and TLE is not technically napping [sparklepires don't sleep, if you will recall], so he has actually stopped for a Q-tip snack break, if you look closely. Also: Let's have a big hand for Squeakers the Cat-Toy Stunt Mouse.)

( Linkspam )

New Awesomeness Initiative unresolution: Be less neurotic. I almost think I'm so neurotic (example: being too squeamish to check my own email for an important reply) because I'm accustomed to being neurotic. Like, because I'm used to it, this is a behavioral baseline in my mind. And, well--you know the saying "Fake it till you make it." I'm just going to have to pretend to be someone who has her shit together until maybe I actually do.

Anyway:

The Deathly Hallows of Online Community [LiveJournal], or, Valleywag's poison-pen letter to the "revolting," fanfic-writing LJ userbase and "relentness weirdness that infects the site."

( Quick Golden Globes spam )

( Regular linkspam )