I just got me one of them Twitter things that the kids are so crazy about.
I have a serious, serious problem with turning things I'm writing into very lengthy projects, so Twitter actually looks like a good idea to me. I understand why a lot of people view it as pure granulated pointlessness, but it gives me a chance to toss off the occasional bon mot without any real time investment, and perhaps some of you will enjoy the result.
(In the unlikely event that anybody reading this doesn't get the title joke: La.)
(Pennypacker also found this when I searched for "Twitter". I don't know why, but it's another good one, so what the heck.)
24 February 2009 at 2:14 am
Welcome aboard.
24 February 2009 at 3:27 am
Ok, so now I've to check THREE websites to keep up with your ramblings. When will this stop?
24 February 2009 at 9:04 am
Yay for Penny Packer. Also, because I've thought about it several times but never gone all the way and looked:
Google results for twitter.com:
Alright, poop time: 39
Okay poop is coming out: 100
I'm a twitter shitter: 138
24 February 2009 at 10:40 am
I'm refusing to get a Twatter, just like I refused to get a Facecrack. And now I've got a Facecrack.
24 February 2009 at 10:46 am
I believe the term is 'twat'.
24 February 2009 at 11:03 am
I think that'd be the pluperfect subjunctive.
24 February 2009 at 3:11 pm
I totally agree with you on the Sausage Roll thing.
Tip for casual Tweeters: There's an excellent plugin available for Vista's Sidebar that will let you keep a casual eye on Twitter without forcing you to check it every 5 minutes.
24 February 2009 at 3:50 pm
First thing I'd say is to hook your sites RSS feeds up to your twitter. I use twitterfeed.
Also I like twitterfox as my tweet reader, because it's unobtrusive, but still useful.
Finally, just tweet whatever you like that's interesting or funny, but not worth writing a blog post about.
24 February 2009 at 5:51 pm
So this twitter thing you set up cause the following. I was sitting awake at 1:45 am in Chicago. I saw this post. I clicked on the twitter link and read some stuff you had there. I went back and read the post. In those two or three minutes you posted some more stuff on twitter.
This has made me acutely aware that theres an entire world out there still buzzing with activity while I sit awake on a quiet night for no real reason.
Thanks. That was kinda cool.
24 February 2009 at 7:49 pm
Hooking up an RSS feed to twitter is really just going too far. I don't mind the occasional self-promotion in my twitter feed, but if everyone starts doing it, then Twitter is just going to be a mirror of my actual RSS feed. It's all redundant information. Near as makes no difference to spamming.
'Sif anyone would read your twitter without reading your blog anyway.
24 February 2009 at 9:50 pm
So much French today Dan. What's the go?
24 February 2009 at 11:11 pm
I feel very inadequate. All sorts of people I like and respect are into this Twitter thing (Stephen Fry, you,..... and hey how often do you get mentioned alongside Mr Fry, eh??) yet however much I try and convince myself I should do it too I just fail.
Come on, give me a clue: what's the attraction? No, I'm not being a sarky sod. I really mean it. I just don't get it. :-(
25 February 2009 at 1:06 am
As I suggested previously, Power Twitter is a great Firefox add-on. Copypasta:
Power Twitter adds features to the Twitter Web interface including:
-search
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates
-inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic
-url expansion
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping
25 February 2009 at 8:37 am
@ 12
I agree...I just can't get into it, too much information is becoming a chore. If I spent even a small amount of time with every forum/feed/email list that I'm subscribed to I'd never have any time left in my day to actually, you know, do something useful. (...and both Face Space and MyBook are just plain annoying...)
Probably an indication I need to do some agressive trimming to limit my online activities.
25 February 2009 at 9:40 am
Well, a lot of people spend a lot of time on Twitter. I did when I started but now I post when I'm at the computer, knocking back a few brews or both. (Mostly both.) I think it's fascinating to catch little bits of different people's day to day lives, famous or not so.
I don't have a Facebook or MySpace account and don't intend to. To each their own.
25 February 2009 at 10:08 am
I agree that hooking feeds up to Twitter is a bit redundant, and it'd definitely be pointless for sites that have lots of updates per day. But I don't update very often, so even if it's pointless, it's only slightly pointless from time to time :-).
25 February 2009 at 11:32 am
But does hooking your feed up to Twitter really answer Twitter's great Question; What are you doing? Or is it just a perversion of the technology for the purposes of advertising? Is twitter going to be just another marketing tool we all grow to hate?
Oh Dan, say it ain't so!
(I've just come out of a 3 hour Marketing lecture and have decided that marketing is, in fact, entirely evil. And teachers of it are, to a first approximation, wankers.)
25 February 2009 at 11:42 am
Quoth Bill Hicks:
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.
No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do.
Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."
Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."
God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.
"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?
"What didya do today honey?"
"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?
25 February 2009 at 12:03 pm
Back in the 70-80's my dad was in marketing for a then-Australian food company for about 15 years. It seemed to be all about how to deal with angry customers who got a tin of gravel, or dirt, or horse dung, or dead rats, or worse instead of peas or creamed corn, all because some minimum-wage bogan on the canning line had a bad day. The usual response was "Here's a year's supply of food, and please sign this NDA."
They also organised competitions, which is what companies do to get marketing research for free. That's what competitions are. You fill in all your demographic details and personal info, then mail it off to - MARKETING people. Even worse is if the ad agency is running it, they're like the coke dealers to marketing types, and usually literally are, too.
All that 'we won't use your details' fine print? BS, baby, those demographics are worth a LOT of money, and your data gets passed around quicker than the blow does.
All that was back in the 80's, pre-internet, back when a fax was a novelty and you had to have the boss' permission to use it. These days it must be something like hard-core personal-data rape by comparison.
My dad now designs Air-defense Frigates, a much more wholesome career if you ask me.
25 February 2009 at 3:44 pm
What, I wonder, is the easiest way to respond to a twitter post (a twit?)?
I ask because http://twitter.com/dansdata/statuses/1247579833 linked to a picture of "Dominique the Cat Man" from Mallory Square in Key West, Fl, USA. I used to go down there every year in my youth during the winter, and I remember quite fondly all of the street performers. You can actually find the cat man on the web: http://www.catmankeywest.com/
Those street performers are fantastic, really, and great with audience participation. I believe I still have a dollar bill I was given for being an underwire in one of Will Soto's performances there.
There are a whole host of very interesting folks who used to do the rounds there but have since moved on, or passed on, including "Love 22" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_22) who used to hand out 22 dollar bills and teach you how to fold them into a ring.
That picture just helped to bring back a good number of memories, thanks! Sadly, most of Key West has gone way south since those days, and those days are well after the heyday of Navy Sailors and Shrimp Fishermen in the Keys...
25 February 2009 at 7:27 pm
Heya Dan. If you use bit.ly for your short URLs instead of tinyurl.com, you can get some clickthrough tracking. You might find that useful, particularly as you've just started using Twitter. I'm @PenLlawen if you want to say hi.
Also, stop posting so much awesome. Won't someone please think of my productivity? That Skeletor link was astounding.
26 February 2009 at 1:16 pm
I love the atmospherics, do you ever listen to Ultima Thule?
Ultima Thule
Also 2mbsfm 102.5 here in Sydney