by Grania
It’s the birthday of Twitter (2006).
I love and hate it, sometimes at the same time. Depending on who you choose to follow – sometimes as a pure voyeur – it can be an echo chamber or a place of discovery or a place of facepalming frustration. It also is far from balanced in how it doles out Internet Justice, and much like Facebook has a real problem on its hands in trying to balance free speech without becoming a platform for genuine abuse as may prove to be the case with Kurt Eichenwald.
One of Twitter’s strong points is you often get to see the news before the major media outlets get to it.
11/ Finally, I've written TONS about this case. Part 5 is here, links to previous 4 entries. https://t.co/pVnorJCywZ Fin/
— Keith Lee (@associatesmind) March 20, 2017
But it can be a bewildering place. For example, although I don’t know whether this was a real or spoof account, this can pretty much summarise the Twitter experience in under 24 hours.
Twitter also pokes advertising at you, which is fair enough, they’ve got to pay the rent too. But their algorithms need some tweaking. This advert was aimed at me in spite of the fact that my bio clearly says atheist. (You don’t have to state your religion, or lack thereof. I’m just obnoxious*.) Maybe they’re just that desperate.
Then there are moments of comedy. I first noticed this floating by and wondered what on earth Wikileaks was whining about as it clearly has the Verified blue tick.
Being verified is not a big deal – there are some users with fewer than 2000 followers who get verified accounts, so the bar is not particularly high. Then it became clear who the tweet was really about. Evidently he operates both accounts. Why does he need TWO blue ticks?
Of course, once you show injury you are pretty much a bleeding lamb cutlet in a piranha tank. Still, it couldn’t happen to a nicer cutlet.
Anyways, happy birthday Twitter.
Its also the UN International Day of Forests, which is a far more important thing and one can only hope that forests outlive us, Twitter and humanity in general.
In Poland, Hili is suffering from a common felid affliction. Fortunately it is rarely fatal, although some cat staff have had to resort to tags to ensure that the household god in their midst does not go the way of Six Dinner Sid.
Hili: I can’t remember?
A: Remember what?
Hili: Whether I already had my breakfast.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie mogę sobie przypomnieć.
Ja: Czego?
Hili: Czy ja już jadłam śniadanie.
Bonus tweet, offered by Jerry (of course). Jerry is doing well and en route to Nelson.
Here's #Space Cat, published in 1952 by poet and #Blake scholar Ruthven Todd! pic.twitter.com/PJ9nouC4Kz
— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) March 19, 2017
We have a bonus appearance from Gus.
___________________________________________________________________
*Actually, I put it in back in the day when I was with Atheist Ireland, and I just never really got around to changing it.
What a coincidence. It is the eighth anniversary of me NOT having a Twitter account and not caring.
#Meh
Me neither.
Don’t worry. Twitter isn’t going to be around forever.
Gus is one of the most photogenic felids I have EVER seen! Gus, you are a handsome critter…!
😀
21 March y1925: the Butler Act signed by then Governor Austin Peay in to Tennesee law outlawing the teaching in schools … … evolution.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Act, this outrage as stated: “AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof”
Blue
… … and in y2017, this deal, too today, apparently: http://www.agday.org.
Blue
How on Earth (or not …) does Space Cat get his/ her tail into that armour-plated suit-tail?
Using the vacuum of space, of course!
Hili does look puzzled. Concerning Twitter or Face book – no thanks.
“listen to over 40 years of Christian rock music”
Not even the damned souls in Hell could experience torment like that.
Place of discovery? I just tweeted this –
Experimental evidence that parasites drive eco-evolutionary feedbacks
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/03/15/1619147114.abstract.html?etoc
Happy birthday Twitter.
All in all, more to love than hate, Jerry?
– Carl Kruse
Six dinner Sid ,reminds me of the looney tunes cartoon “Chow Hound” ,Every night a D*g graps hold of a poor cat when its owner puts him out for the night ,and takes him found the neighbourhood so he can steal the cats food ,does anyone remember it?.
“This time we didn’t forget the gravy!”
My favourite cartoon- “What, no gravy?”.
Oh I don,t know, used to ignore it , now I find it a good place to vent in 140 characters or less. Also it teaches you to be more precise with your rants.
Yes, I can see Trump has learned so much.
He still put two “p”s on tapp – what a waste of characters! 😀
“Christian rock” is an oxymoron.
Why 2 blue ticks? Because one is the organization Wikileaks, and one is the person Julian Assange. Imagine WEIT got a blue tick. Would you have to give up yours?
Bad example, because
1. I don’t have a blue tick (or any other kind of tick).
2. The WEIT twitter account is Jerry’s one and only twitter account.
3. If WEIT got a blue tick, Jerry would have a blue tick. Neither he nor I would give up any ticks of any description.
In any case, Assange uses both of his accounts to tweet identical messages as the mood takes him, so clearly even he thinks there is a a significant identity overlap between the two accounts.
Bad argument, because the principle is the same whether you have or someone else does. Is the difference between an organization and its officers really that abstruse? And why wouldn’t there be a separate verification of identity for each? That’s waht the blue tick is: “we checked that this account is who it says it is.”
I’ve had ads in Korean, for reasons that remain a mystery to me.
In fact, the more Twitter has tried to monetise itself (and failed) through trying to manipulate what you see, the worse the user experience has gotten, and they even bought out alternative clients and let them stagnate too.
The abuse and bigotry is indeed terrible, but there is little you wouldn’t have found in a Yahoo chatroom 20 years ago, you can hardly fault Twitter for Greater Internet F@@kwad Theory.
The space cat thing reminds me:
Does anyone else remember a science fiction series of children’s novels, called something like “Star Ka’at”? I remember getting the first as a child.
(Spoiler: the ending of the first, while open to a sequel, is a bit of a downer – or it was to me.)
They were by Andre (actually Alice Mary) Norton, who put cats in lots of her books and stories. The Solar Queen & Zero Stone novels all had prominent cat characters and there was a memorable short story titled All Cats Are Grey. As far as I know, there were three Star Ka’at novels.
Grania, is it possible that Twitter algorithms mistakenly recommended that you follow the wrong X, and really meant me (X that not only rocks but is also an atheist and a follower of this blog?). That would be @listofx, Christian music-free for over 40 years.
The tweet abut Space Cat actually came from Matthew. –jac
I agree that Twitter is a colossal waste of time and I rarely look at it. It would take my time away from important stuff like the John Cena debate over on /www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/