Thursday, March 04, 2010
SQUAWK!!!
So, I've had a twitter account for a bit of time, now.
I can't remember whether or not I've had a rant about why I'm against twitter/facebook, but in case I haven't, I'll probably be reiterating a fair bit, but if I did rant, it was before I actually had a twitter account, so...my opinion has changed, at least a little, making the subject of this post hopefully less invalid than before. Things have gotten clearer, reasons refined, like white sugar, or some other substance that can cause dietary problems in a large number of people.
Anyway. It's like blogging, which I don't do much as it is - I only see the point in posting when I have something interesting to say, which evidently ain't often. If I don't think that whoever reads it will likely glean at least something of use from it, then what's the point?
The difference is that twittering has a text-limit. If you really get down to the functional differences that makes posts on one platform different to the other, that's it.
There's also the mobile phone thing, which I forgot - a feature I have deliberately not used - all twitters from my PC, thank you. Still, this does make it a very different beast, which I have a few thoughts on that I'll get to...*
Anyway, with the character limitation - What this means is that what the user is intending to say is often stunted. I've had the problem that if I've genuinely wanted to say something with meaning (which I don't feel is that often), then I've had issues with what words I have to select. In the end, once I cut back on things, I realise that what I want to say and what it lets me say are very different things.
So instead, I'll put up a link on twitter to my blog, where I've talked about it in the way I want to.
Easy. Problem solved! :-D
But then comes the temptation. I occasionally read twitter. Some people talk about mundane details in their life and that's fine - often (Lucas, you're a good example), said person will transform it into an amusing anecdote. To use one of Lucas'** examples, the twitter about Magrat confronting the cockroach was hilarious. As it was, I got a laugh out of it, but it could have read like this:
"My cat just ran from a cockroach. lol"
...
*Ted blocks twitter person*
I really hope I'm illustrating the difference between 'just twittering about shit that happens in your life' to 'giving a little something back to the person who read your virtual toilet-cubicle scrawl'.
But most twitterers don't do that - they do it the boring way. And it becomes infectious. I want to start doing it - just talking about something I'm eating now (as though nobody's ever eaten anything before) or writing about being on the train (as though people reading my twitter have only ever known buses or private helicopters made of plankton).
I have to stop myself and ask: Does anyone really care? I know it's a great muffin that I ate***, but does anyone else have to know? What good'll it do them? Can't it just be my private little moment of joy?
If I share it with people, what'll it do? Well, maybe it'll be appreciated - no harm done, right? But what if I tell people this sorta stuff five times per day? Or ten****?
They'll probably take less notice over time. It's like reading junk-mail subjects as you're deleting them.
Dunno about you folk, but when I first set up an email address, I probably***** realised that Certain Shit was unsolicited, so I'd occasionally read the mail for fun (well, if it could have been construed as funny - bad grammar brightens my day) and deleted it.
Now, though? I just delete everything without even looking. I forget what I've read five seconds after I've read it. Literally. I must put myself into a trance if I'm totally incapable of retrieving such a recent memory, but there it is: It's just so horribly trivial that my mind practically has a block on ads.
This is likely the case because those ads don't affect me at all. Neither does how many people are on your bus, nor does the rain that you're walking through as you commute (trust me, I've done it myself once), nor does the show you're watching (watching free-to-air/cable is a bad habit that I proudly kicked years ago - I'd only like to hear if you've done yourself a favour and done the same, thank you, but only if you take the time to share how you feel about it, etc, etc...). So I've become desensitised to it. I've had to delete a few people who I just read with a glazed expression because I just...keep...reading...drivel...and...
...
...
...pull my head away from the screen a minute later and realise that nothing I've just read was worth the time. And won't ever be worth the time.
And I'm conscious that when I do the same, I'm no better than them. I found myself twittering about how I was installing windows 7.
Windows Fucking Seven.
Sure, I'm excited about it - I spend heaps of time in front of my PC. It's where I work. It's where I communicate with people (meaningfully, if possible). It's where I game.
Why should you be excited to hear this momentous news, deer reeder? You don't know how/why I use my compy. It's a bloody operating system change. If I just tell you that I'm changing OSs without at least making you crack a smile in the process, I can't expect you to do anything other than block me.
Maybe it is twitter that's making all of us like those people I love to despise - advertisers. They pump our lives with useless data about things that are useless to us as though they're life-changing, eventually causing our minds to become jaded to shock and awe...
...and now we have an outlet to do it to ourselves. Via our phones, just in case something boring happens when we're away from our PC - or if we have to twitter about installing 7 before it's actually completed, making it impossible to twitter from the PC...******
Meh. Anyway, I'm tired of typing now. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
*I never do, it turns out. Don't hold your breath.
**@lokified, to those playing from home...
***And it was - seriously. It was so fuckin' moist, dude. Just thinking about it makes me want another one right now. And another one. And another one...
***Or even eight? No, really - eight. Think about it.
*****Probably. Can't remember, but Probably.
******Well, I twittered during the install, but I used my lappy.
I can't remember whether or not I've had a rant about why I'm against twitter/facebook, but in case I haven't, I'll probably be reiterating a fair bit, but if I did rant, it was before I actually had a twitter account, so...my opinion has changed, at least a little, making the subject of this post hopefully less invalid than before. Things have gotten clearer, reasons refined, like white sugar, or some other substance that can cause dietary problems in a large number of people.
Anyway. It's like blogging, which I don't do much as it is - I only see the point in posting when I have something interesting to say, which evidently ain't often. If I don't think that whoever reads it will likely glean at least something of use from it, then what's the point?
The difference is that twittering has a text-limit. If you really get down to the functional differences that makes posts on one platform different to the other, that's it.
There's also the mobile phone thing, which I forgot - a feature I have deliberately not used - all twitters from my PC, thank you. Still, this does make it a very different beast, which I have a few thoughts on that I'll get to...*
Anyway, with the character limitation - What this means is that what the user is intending to say is often stunted. I've had the problem that if I've genuinely wanted to say something with meaning (which I don't feel is that often), then I've had issues with what words I have to select. In the end, once I cut back on things, I realise that what I want to say and what it lets me say are very different things.
So instead, I'll put up a link on twitter to my blog, where I've talked about it in the way I want to.
Easy. Problem solved! :-D
But then comes the temptation. I occasionally read twitter. Some people talk about mundane details in their life and that's fine - often (Lucas, you're a good example), said person will transform it into an amusing anecdote. To use one of Lucas'** examples, the twitter about Magrat confronting the cockroach was hilarious. As it was, I got a laugh out of it, but it could have read like this:
"My cat just ran from a cockroach. lol"
...
*Ted blocks twitter person*
I really hope I'm illustrating the difference between 'just twittering about shit that happens in your life' to 'giving a little something back to the person who read your virtual toilet-cubicle scrawl'.
But most twitterers don't do that - they do it the boring way. And it becomes infectious. I want to start doing it - just talking about something I'm eating now (as though nobody's ever eaten anything before) or writing about being on the train (as though people reading my twitter have only ever known buses or private helicopters made of plankton).
I have to stop myself and ask: Does anyone really care? I know it's a great muffin that I ate***, but does anyone else have to know? What good'll it do them? Can't it just be my private little moment of joy?
If I share it with people, what'll it do? Well, maybe it'll be appreciated - no harm done, right? But what if I tell people this sorta stuff five times per day? Or ten****?
They'll probably take less notice over time. It's like reading junk-mail subjects as you're deleting them.
Dunno about you folk, but when I first set up an email address, I probably***** realised that Certain Shit was unsolicited, so I'd occasionally read the mail for fun (well, if it could have been construed as funny - bad grammar brightens my day) and deleted it.
Now, though? I just delete everything without even looking. I forget what I've read five seconds after I've read it. Literally. I must put myself into a trance if I'm totally incapable of retrieving such a recent memory, but there it is: It's just so horribly trivial that my mind practically has a block on ads.
This is likely the case because those ads don't affect me at all. Neither does how many people are on your bus, nor does the rain that you're walking through as you commute (trust me, I've done it myself once), nor does the show you're watching (watching free-to-air/cable is a bad habit that I proudly kicked years ago - I'd only like to hear if you've done yourself a favour and done the same, thank you, but only if you take the time to share how you feel about it, etc, etc...). So I've become desensitised to it. I've had to delete a few people who I just read with a glazed expression because I just...keep...reading...drivel...and...
...
...
...pull my head away from the screen a minute later and realise that nothing I've just read was worth the time. And won't ever be worth the time.
And I'm conscious that when I do the same, I'm no better than them. I found myself twittering about how I was installing windows 7.
Windows Fucking Seven.
Sure, I'm excited about it - I spend heaps of time in front of my PC. It's where I work. It's where I communicate with people (meaningfully, if possible). It's where I game.
Why should you be excited to hear this momentous news, deer reeder? You don't know how/why I use my compy. It's a bloody operating system change. If I just tell you that I'm changing OSs without at least making you crack a smile in the process, I can't expect you to do anything other than block me.
Maybe it is twitter that's making all of us like those people I love to despise - advertisers. They pump our lives with useless data about things that are useless to us as though they're life-changing, eventually causing our minds to become jaded to shock and awe...
...and now we have an outlet to do it to ourselves. Via our phones, just in case something boring happens when we're away from our PC - or if we have to twitter about installing 7 before it's actually completed, making it impossible to twitter from the PC...******
Meh. Anyway, I'm tired of typing now. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
*I never do, it turns out. Don't hold your breath.
**@lokified, to those playing from home...
***And it was - seriously. It was so fuckin' moist, dude. Just thinking about it makes me want another one right now. And another one. And another one...
***Or even eight? No, really - eight. Think about it.
*****Probably. Can't remember, but Probably.
******Well, I twittered during the install, but I used my lappy.
Comments:
As per your muffin, and it's true, I too enjoy a really moist muffin (I can get these apple-and-fig ones near work that make me fall over, but I digress). As to the alue of Twittering about said muffin (which I've also done) there's an economic concept known as a positional good in which an object is only valued by the possessor because it's not possessed by others. The term was coined in 1976 by economist Fred Hirsch to replace the more colloquial, but less precise "neener-neener".
As for Twitter, I do know what you mean. The constant slidge of boring is the very reason my following list is subject to near-constant pruning and occasional adding.
And I was interested at your install of the proper Windows 7 in the same way I was interested in your trial of it when it was in Beta or RC or whatever. We discussed it. I was going to discuss it with you again when I saw you... which segues nicely into part of my point: I see Twitter as a conversation I'm having, both with friend, acquaintances and people I don't know in person, but converse with on a daily basis through Twitter (often people I've chosen as being funny/interesting previously, due to their previous posts or common interests).
If no one's interested, big deal. If someone is, though, especially if it's someone I wouldn't expect to be interested, or, fates forfend, don't know, then it's great! I'm doing something that society seems to have eroded out of face-to-face interaction and replaced with ideas of "rapport": I'm having a conversation with a stranger about something I enjoy, and they want to hear from me.
It's a feeling I don't get much, day-to-day, though I've tried to maintain it; I try to remember anecdotes, jokes from comedians, things I saw in the newspaper or online that were cool or interesting, as ammunition for the dozens of conversations I have each day, to see if any of them get a reaction, which could grow into actual discourse.
As for free-to-air TV, I only watch it for Good News Week and for Spicks and Specks. I mute the ads. Everything else is through downloads or DVDs. And some of the great TV I've found out about is through people I've met on Twitter or other online placed giving recommendations.
Maybe I'm biased, though. I met my wife online, thus crafting the most important relationship of my life after sending out a bunch of banal jokes and comments (forum posts, in this case, not Twitter), and someone messaged me back, and we got talking. Actually, there's a thought. Maybe I see Twitter as a giant forum, where there are many many members. Some trolls, who you ignore and shake your head over and jokes are made about... but many are just people.
Anyway, that's just my opinion. I like your Twitter. You and Rhys seem to have taken to it like ducks to water, which was a surprise after how hard it was to get you started.
I edit my Tweets too, and if editing them down to much changes what I want to say?
I don't say it.
I save it until I see someone.
Maybe that's the answer.
As for Twitter, I do know what you mean. The constant slidge of boring is the very reason my following list is subject to near-constant pruning and occasional adding.
And I was interested at your install of the proper Windows 7 in the same way I was interested in your trial of it when it was in Beta or RC or whatever. We discussed it. I was going to discuss it with you again when I saw you... which segues nicely into part of my point: I see Twitter as a conversation I'm having, both with friend, acquaintances and people I don't know in person, but converse with on a daily basis through Twitter (often people I've chosen as being funny/interesting previously, due to their previous posts or common interests).
If no one's interested, big deal. If someone is, though, especially if it's someone I wouldn't expect to be interested, or, fates forfend, don't know, then it's great! I'm doing something that society seems to have eroded out of face-to-face interaction and replaced with ideas of "rapport": I'm having a conversation with a stranger about something I enjoy, and they want to hear from me.
It's a feeling I don't get much, day-to-day, though I've tried to maintain it; I try to remember anecdotes, jokes from comedians, things I saw in the newspaper or online that were cool or interesting, as ammunition for the dozens of conversations I have each day, to see if any of them get a reaction, which could grow into actual discourse.
As for free-to-air TV, I only watch it for Good News Week and for Spicks and Specks. I mute the ads. Everything else is through downloads or DVDs. And some of the great TV I've found out about is through people I've met on Twitter or other online placed giving recommendations.
Maybe I'm biased, though. I met my wife online, thus crafting the most important relationship of my life after sending out a bunch of banal jokes and comments (forum posts, in this case, not Twitter), and someone messaged me back, and we got talking. Actually, there's a thought. Maybe I see Twitter as a giant forum, where there are many many members. Some trolls, who you ignore and shake your head over and jokes are made about... but many are just people.
Anyway, that's just my opinion. I like your Twitter. You and Rhys seem to have taken to it like ducks to water, which was a surprise after how hard it was to get you started.
I edit my Tweets too, and if editing them down to much changes what I want to say?
I don't say it.
I save it until I see someone.
Maybe that's the answer.
Yes Yes! Listen to the foriegn guy!
(Word Verification: kadenu. Sounds like something Xenu related..)
(Word Verification: kadenu. Sounds like something Xenu related..)
It's interesting that you brought up the positional good factor - I'm very aware of the concept, but I didn't have it in mind when I wrote this. But yes - it totally applies, in a way.
And yeah, I can see why you'd be interested in me installing 7. But it'd only be you, so...I should probably just blog about it or something. I'd need a few characters to talk about it anyway.
But we instead discussed it by pushing vibrations of air through flaps of skin. Even better, although typing about stuff is easier for me than talking about stuff - I don't have a backspace for my stupid mouth.
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And yeah, I can see why you'd be interested in me installing 7. But it'd only be you, so...I should probably just blog about it or something. I'd need a few characters to talk about it anyway.
But we instead discussed it by pushing vibrations of air through flaps of skin. Even better, although typing about stuff is easier for me than talking about stuff - I don't have a backspace for my stupid mouth.
