what is the function secondlife_timer() made for ?

hello
i can see in the code that you are using a function called : secondlife_timer()

here is the code :

function secondlife_timer() {
  $timer = variable_get('secondlife_timer', '');
  if ($timer) {
    return TRUE;
  }
  return FALSE;
}

then later, you are using this function with :

if (secondlife_timer()) { .....

why don't you use directly ? :

if (variable_get('secondlife_timer', 0)) { .....