Just because you don’t “Tweet”? Doesn’t mean you can’t read what people are writing about you on Twitter.
— Which, it’s as if someone rewrote Heathers, only all the Heathers were replaced by middle-aged white dudes who think affecting ironic bemusement hides the fact that they download Star Trek porn and “have a little tiny crush” on Trixie from “Speed Racer.”
The little anime slut.
Wow….just wow.
Can I have some of what you’re drinking?
Trixie? What about that #$%&ing monkey…?!
I don’t “tweet” personally, and don’t really get why folks would need everyone else to know, constantly and immediately, what they’re up to…
I mean, I can see how it could be useful work tool. I guess it’s kinda like nextel, immediate communication and all, except that everyone talks at the same time. And, much like texting, it can provide communication when one couldn’t otherwise speak on the phone…
Me? I just let the machine take a message. But I’m old school that way. As my brothers and I often muse at our younger family members, “It’s a phone, just call them!”…
I just don’t know much about tweetin’ no bodies massa, suh…
Didn’t Kirk always get to lay up with the green broads on Trek..?
In my younger days, I liked to think all the young ladies were “twittering” about me…
These days? Well let’s just say the wife don’t play that!
Chim-chim. The ORIGINAL Trunk Monkey, folks. Speed was way far ahead of his time.
Even if he was kinda stupid.
(Yo, Speed – Racer X is your brother, Rex Racer! Ya big dummy.)
Well just fuck my gently with a chainsaw…
Well just fuck me gently with a chainsaw…
Trixie didn’t look all that bright to me. And she moved kind of funny, like a 12 frames per second or something. Sometimes she would talk and not move at all.
Weird.
cranky-d, some guys like their chicks that way. David Letterman likes to boff the baby sitter with his trixie.
This is funny and sad at the same time…
Our love is God, let’s go get a Slushie.
Oh, man, this isn’t going to devolve into random Heathers quotes, is it?
“I thought the cafeteriathis blog had a ‘no fags’ rule.”
“They seem to have an open-door policy on assholes, though.”
And is “crush on Trixie from speed racer” a euphemism for “penis”?
I really thought I had that strikethrough tag down – wrong again.
Joe – I have done much with a chainsaw and none of it was gentle.
Come on scooter, the best thing about Heathers was the quotes.
I personally think Twitter kills brain cells.
Scooter, I use &l;strike>, which works in Firefox on my Windows computer but for some reason not in Firefox on my Linux netbook.
And the Firefox HTML toolbar add-on uses a tag that doesn’t work for me on either machine.
Wow, that worked, not.
<strike>
Eskimo.
I think calling oneself nishi kills brain cells.
One of the things I like about this place is that you all have as much contempt and mockery for Twitter as I do. Blogging (which I do) is self indulgent enough but twitter is the height of narcissism, the ultimate expression of Naughties ego given technological form. Everyone is fascinated with my every thought the instant I have them about the most mundane subjects. Behold the glory of me
Ummm. Okay. I don’t twit. Or tweet. Or whatever it is.
Commenting on blogs is enough for me.
And no, I haven’t adopted a cartoon character as my alternate personality either. Just one person in my head (i.e., me) is more than enough, I think.
Everyone is fascinated with my every thought the instant I have them about the most mundane subjects. Behold the glory of me. Frisky!
It is interesting how knowing that the internet’s pink phone in the bubblebath is tapped doesn’t much change how anyone who talks on it talks on it.
Also interesting– that Heathers has become the standard metonymic stand-in for shit like Mean Girls or whatever, when it’s a different kind of thing entirely. Why not The Children’s Hour? Look smart, no?
It’s like Heathers is so profound and psyche-piercing (which it is (seriously)) that the reality of it has to be represssed.
Freud!
While technology has provided some useful tools and toys, it does have its own problems. Such as a party to a case filing an emergency motion at the last minute on Friday via e-filing/e-mail, which says to me ‘good-bye weekend’.
Have I said how much I dislike electric (or any other) rate cases? Saturday is USCGAux with the airplane races – Sunday is dealing with a stupid motion for Monday. Thank you, Mr. Intervenor-at-the-last-minute. I really appreciate that I can’t say how I appreciate that.
No – I mean that I can’t say how I appreciate that.
Actually psycho, I replaced the Heathers in Heathers. I didn’t comment on Winona or Christian or even My Dead Gay Son.
Look smart, indeed.
So, moving on, how about we arrange a Northeast Protein Wisdom Gathering at the same place and time?
i’ve got the full force of snacky’s law. and i’m prepared to use it. if it comes to that. =P
I have news for all of you and this may come as a great shock…… Olive Oyl, moved to Japan and changed her name to Trixie.
It’s true. Popeye is pissed, and Speed Racer is going to pay.
As for Capt. Priceline layin w’Green chix. He can have Nancy Pelosi.
Yumura Kirika would kick Trixie’s ass.
Then she’d shoot Speed.
Heathers: everyone but psycho :: Bristol Palin : Letterman
Full circle we come.
A little more contemporary but Katara or Suki from the Avatar series are both kind of, um, er, animehot.
Jeff. I love it when I have no idea what you are talking about. I feel so culturally clueless. Anyway, I’ve been atwitter at times, you know in anticipation of a cold beer after work or sex or something but I try not to ever tweet. At least, if I can help it.
OI, I love Noir.
On Steven denBeste’s recommendation.
So you’re saying I need to see Heathers?
Because I refuse to tweet. I do like Jim Treacher’s tweets. I admit it. But I read Megan McCain’s tripe and it made me want to kill myself. So, that can’t be a good medium.
Twitter is the ultimate in “I don’t care about my audience” writing. It makes dadaism look like haiku.
So is Jeff J.D.? Becareful or you might be accused of something…
I thought pretty much everybody had a crush on Trixie.
Thisused to work for me for strike-out…See here.
I am not a vain enough twat to tweet on twitter.
Haven’t seen that one, yet. I loved “Cowboy Bebop” and many things from farther back but anime has so many genre that recommending things is like recommending a book or a movie without knowing the likes or dislikes of the other person. Hit and miss.
A lot of people have been raving to me about Avatar.
dan, that link was funny, in an early National Lampoon way.
uh oh
I have a twitter account, and I’ve attempted it. Alas (that word again) I’m a total failure at the genre.
I wouldn’t describe myself as “anti-twitter” nor “pro.” I’m … what’s the word (the kids are fighting while I’m trying to thinks) … INDIFFERENT. Yea. that’s it.
I always wanted to see Snake Oiler slip it to Trixie, myself. Maybe a threesome with Splint Femur.
Twitter made some changes that altered it’s character a little, I’d say it functions like a chatty RSS feed, something I never got around to setting up. Links to new posts, including the ones here, trending topics, breaking news. I got to like it. Might be because I’m anemic, but I like the pith of the format.
Yeah, that link was funny. Keeps with the narrative of Jeff as a tyrannical taskmaster who demands lock-step thought out of his (completely voluntary) “employees”. The ABUSE I heap on people who get nothing at all in return — it’s goddawful.
Read more about the latest Jeff BURN — and an insider’s account of what it was like to work for protein wisdom at the end of its run — on Twitter!
Just promise us a few days notice if you ever feel like becoming Charles in Charge.
you know, i know i can’t stop this tsunami of stupid and mean and dudgeon and wankery. but as a proud, hardworking slut (retired, and i always preferred the term trollop myself) it really chaps my ass to see all these nice girls who didn’t work hard to earn it being bestowed with that title.
also, i don’t really like heathers, because the fat chick ‘wins.’ even if she does get hurt pretty badly. because i hate that kind of maudlin, precious, ‘feel good’ shit.
I don’t think Jeff be all like that.
That wasn’t the original ending, louchette.
Another that was materially changed? Risky Business.
Moral: always by the Special Edition DVD.
I think your best sluts these days are metaphorical, really.
Maybe Martha will get run over by a bus in the sequel or something.
really???? *runs off to stick that puppy on the netflix wish list*
and thank you. i’m looking forward to seeing that now.
Did I hear correctly that they are talking about doing a sequel to Heathers?
Except this time the in crowd will be the Obamabots and the fat kid will be right wing federalists.
BECAUSE OF THE EXTREMITY!!!!
You know, if I Twittered, I would -right now- come up with some pithy comment about Chastity Bono’s sex reassignment surgery.
Alas, I’m not pithy.
It’s like Heathers is so profound and psyche-piercing (which it is (seriously)) that the reality of it has to be represssed.
I’m working on it.
Anime Trixie? Not so much. Live action-Trixie. HELLS YES.
Also, on the subject of Anime: Mai Hime (AKA: My Hime). Or RahXephon.
I’m pithy and yeth I can’t help it. Chastity Bono is becoming something and some straight chick would allow “him” to boink (her)? Yer kidding, right?
That one left me kind of speechless, Carin.
I used to be so jealous of her little bob mackie sashes.
I find the whole thing confusing, duck. I’m thinking Chastity never was a lesbian. She/he was a heterosexual male, trapped in a woman’s body.
But, now “He” can’t date lesbians anymore, right?
And, what woman wants a man who isn’t a real man?
Confusing.
It think they all get blowed up and go to prom heaven on the DVD extras disk. But I’m not really sure.
And, more, if you were a woman who wanted a girlish man, well certainly there are plenty of those to pick from.
And, more, if you were a woman who wanted a girlish man, well certainly there are plenty of those to pick from.
So, while becoming he was Bono simultaneously an un-becoming she?
Ahh, anime chicks………….. A subject near and dear to my heart.
Not to demean Chaz’ new/adjested outlook on life, but it would have the advantage of making it possible for her/him to marry? Its that true?
I Tweet, therefore I am.
“Comment by Carin on 6/12 @ 4:21 pm #
I find the whole thing confusing, duck. I’m thinking Chastity never was a lesbian. She/he was a heterosexual male, trapped in a woman’s body.”
I’m a lesbian trapped in a male’s body.
“and an insider’s account of what it was like to work for protein wisdom at the end of its run”
Geez, PW ended and I missed the whole thing?! Jeff, you never tell me anything!
Gender Studies: Where the “Lesbian trapped in a man’s body” isn’t a joke punchline, it’s a thesis topic!
It’s like the end of the universe, LTC.
The entire universe will collapse into a black hole, but how could you tell?
Also, people worked for PW? I always knew that Jeff had to be paying the trolls to get the comments section up to the 100+ posts range, but man, I could have used some of that sweet Paypal succor.
She/he was a heterosexual male, trapped in a woman’s body.â€
Doesn’t that work better if you want to Twitter yourself?
OT, but speaking of disturbing celebrities… i assume everyone’s seen this? which i find most disturbing. because it means that horrible afro he was sporting for the trial was a willful fashion choice, and not him having a bad hair day. yipes.
this is wrong in several different ways
just… make him stop
I use technologies that I find useful. I use the web and e-mail, and a cell phone. I use SMS because it’s kind of like e-mail.
I’m on Facebook but I hardly go there anymore — I don’t need “social networking,” I need anti-social networking.
I tried Instant Messaging and don’t see the point; if I need to interact with somebody in real time that’s what the phone is for.
Twitter? Really?
HF,
whowhat is that?Well, whaddaya know. Now the strike tag does work in Firefox on my Linux netbook.
It’s the personification of vapid I think, McGehee.
louchette, I don’t find you to be “noisy” or “obnoxious” but then I didn’t see Lum that way either. Nice comment name.
I liked IM best way back, say 10 or more years ago. It was a convenient and cheap way to have a conference between far flung friends. My 14.4k and 28.8k days.
you know what IM is good for mcgehee? gaming. cuz when you’re down in the bowels of some stinky dungeon and griefer PKs have looted all your armor and departed cuz they’re all ADD’ed out and bored of taunting you already and there’s some bigass dragon blocking the way out and none of your dipshit guildies are ingame then IM is handy for getting someone to come loggon for 5 minutes to help you escape and get back to town to re-equip. that’s what it’s good for.
thank you geoffb. ~_^
#76, 77, That look was also to be found on some guys in my High school yearbooks.
communication tools what you can’t order pizza with are proliferating
HF you can order a pizza from ingame in eq2. i’ve never done it, but sony has some kind of dealio with one of the pizza companies (domino’s maybe?) and so they put in a keystroke macro for that. i don’t know how well it works, or how it works (whether they snag your credit card info and street addy from your game account automatically or if you have to fill something out or what.) but there is an order pizza command built into the game. i closed my SWG account years ago, but that’s sony/SOE too. so they probably have the pizza thinger as well.
keystroke pizza macros are the future. Also, there’s a new chicken and waffles place down the street. That definitely part of my future.
*That’s* … jeez with the typing being so difficult today
Dance virus snowballing or we are thinking apes after all.
(via MaggiesFarm)
That Zac Efron stuff was what I was thinking about why a woman would want a woman who turned herself into a man. You could just get a “dud” like Zac.
He’s prettier than Chastity. Plus, she/he could prolly squash him like a bug.
carin, i do love me some pretty men. (shut up about my obsession. you think i don’t know?) but that zac efron person is just gay, in the sense HF means it when he uses that word.
STAMPED and DENOUNCED
Wow Jeff, you are a Yglesias Award Nominee today.
Sullivan like this, of course, because he was making a similar political point (as opposed to a joke) with Trig Trutherism. It was not about Trig, but the meme that Palin was incapable of telling the truth and would say anything.
Well, looking at the positive, Louchette, we could be best friends. Neither of us is particularly found of other women, and we would DEFINITELY have no issues fighting over men.
well i already like that you’re a gym rat. =D and i dunno, but i’d guess you’re like me and sort of guylike behaviorally. like, if i have a problem or i’m upset the last thing i want to do is sit around talking about it, or sitting around in sweats being emo and eating ice cream. usually i want to go hit something, like a punching bag or a ball with some kind of whacking stick. or i’ll do a repair project around the house. but it has to be action, not talking. tho, i’ll happilly yack all day about ideas stuff.
anyway, you can have all the macho looking ones, sure. (tho i reserve the rights to the late klaus kinski and bob mitchum when he got older and barrelly. those we can share, but you can’t have them to yourself.) and don’t underestimate G till you see him in action. he looks all girly pretty, but he’s a tough badass SOB and a totally dudely dude under all that pretty.
In regards to Sullivan’s obsession, I thought this post was worthy of an award.
That’s one way of interpreting it, I guess, Jeff. Except that my message to those people is GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
Plus, if Yglesias is bent about your post, I just want to add: I’m sorry, you must have been right.
I tweet, but I don’t think anybody gives a crap about my posts. I do find some great info via the people I follow, so different strokes for different folks.
tiny turtle plans
to beat that fast bunny man..
he drugged his carrot…..zzzzz
/me sympathizes with louchette’s “… tsunami of stupid and mean and dudgeon and wankery …” and wonders when he can take her out for a drink so they can gripe about those mean girls at school.
Providencetown Popsicles?
Twitter is profound. Like really a lot profound. I want to explain further but I’m laying here waiting for my son to fall asleep while reading this thread and typing this comment on my phone. More when I get to a real keyboard.
I don’t know what an Yglesias Award is.
Somebody Tweet me!
Mal the Ter – Long time, no see!
I tweet a lot when I’ve had beans and cabbage.
Provincetown, Joe. Provincetown. We in the Greater Providence area would appreciate the distinction being made. Especially Mayor Vasillinni.
‘feet:
In a harrowing moment today, while building a fence, I rescued a medium sized painted turtle from a golden retriever bent upon its destruction.
I thought of you.
Sorry Pablo!
Sullivan is right now tieing himself in knots over his slam of the Bushie Mormon he is blaming for Obama’s brief of DOMA. This is of course the classic behavorial observation taught in Charles Johnson approved science classes and diagramed so well in Time Life books. If an animal is challenged by a larger member of its own species, it will generally pick on a smaller member in response. He can’t face the obvious, that Obama is basically screwing the gay community…so blame it some civil servant attorney and call him a Bush appointee. It is a lie, but fuck it, facing the fact that Obama lies fucks up everything.
don’t fence me in!
u can fence me out/ i’d encourage
you to
dig faster.just don’t be a so fence-ey
i would take offence
burning man mud person!
Howdy JD! We still need to do that steak or Italian dinner thing next time you’re in town.
Here’s my social media exegesis: Mass communications tools, since Gutenberg, have shared a fundamental and foundational commonality; they’re all top-down hierarchies that necessarily result in a unidirectional, linear, deterministic flow of information. The information promulgated through those tools is just that: promulgated. There can be no realistic expectation that the audience can participate. Letters to the editor, for example, are strictly moderated and therefore inauthentic replacements for the kind of communication that typifies natural human interactions.
And these tools have long since jumped the shark. Ask any advertiser and they’ll tell you about the waning effectiveness of TV. @themediaisdying is a twitter user documenting the death of traditional media organizations. Witness the RIAA and MPAA thrashing about in a futile effort to maintain the apparatus of their top-down, breadth-first information promulgating structures.
This isn’t, IMHO, merely the death of a media paradigm we’re witnessing; it’s the end of the road for the Enlightenment paradigm. Stephen Wolfram suggests that the new science won’t be predicated on model-making (which amounts to the institutionalization of a single hunch), it will be predicated on exploration of possibility space. Does anyone really think that Deep Blue—the chess-playing, super-computer apotheosis of the Enlightenment paradigm—really represents an accurate portrait of human cognition? Of organic innovation? No living thing—indeed no naturally occurring phenomenon—looks like a deterministic, rationalistic system. Why do the social sciences or the humanities exist if everything can be explained within the rubric of the Enlightenment? What is the magic of the market itself, if not it’s unique defiance of everything the Enlightenment represents? (Indeed, when socialist economists suggest that the market can be managed “exactly the way an enterprise can be managed” they’re operating within the confines of the Enlightenment paradigm. More on this in a bit.)
Social media, which is merely the most sophisticated permutation of the possibility suggested by computer networks generally, is everything the enlightenment paradigm is not. It is non-deterministic. It is non-linear. It is multivalent. It enfranchises participants instead of marginalizing an audience. It generates knowledge where enlightenment systems index and calcify knowledge. Social media is synonymous with learning. It is no coincidence that the ascension of a new c-level position has developed concomitantly with the rise of social media; that of the Chief Learning Officer. We are undergoing a paradigm shift on the order of the Enlightenment and the Agricultural revolution and social media is one of the clearest signals of this shift. Knowledge is becoming liberalized (in the classical liberal sense).
I think there is a very dangerous potential contained within this shift, the avoidance of which depends heavily, I believe, on those whose political predispositions typify the readership here coming to terms with this shift and helping to shape the narrative that will be created, in large part, through the use of these tools. We can not cede the power of these tools and the characterization of what they represent to the left. I want to paint a clear picture of what I mean, but before I do that, I want to quickly describe the value of twitter in a way that should make it extraordinarily clear.
In very short order, twitter will, in my estimation, eclipse Google. Let me offer an example. I arrive in Los Angeles and find myself with time to explore. I consult Google, which tells me about restaurants, museums, and so forth, replete with descriptions, ratings, photos and other static media. It’s the algorithm that makes it possible. Technology delivers this information. It is arms-length information. I don’t know who created this information and I have little in the way of intimacy with those content creators to aid determining their intentions. The information has very possibly been spun by media professionals: publicists, crisis management professionals, marketing copywriters and strategists.
Right now there are around 30 million twitter users. Twitter adoption is growing logarithmically. Just six months ago, there were 6 million twitter users. In six months there could be over 200 million (like facebook, which could qualify it among the top six largest industrial countries in the world). Revisiting my hypothetical, I arrive in Los Angeles and I go to twitter search and now I get suggestions about where to dine and what to see from actual people. I could even tweet a request for suggestions and get an avalanche of answers. I can evaluate those responses the way I would evaluate suggestions from any actual person. I can read their tweets. I can get a sense, quickly, for the their authenticity. Happyfeet could warn me about what joints have the highest prevalence of dirty socialists.
That’s just the most facile and yet useful example. Twitter has directed me to untold number of exceptionally interesting articles, blog posts and people. I’ve met profoundly interesting people like Todd Gailun and I’ve had the chance to talk back to Karl Rove (who authors his own tweets). I’ve been afforded this access by merit of my participation and the knowledge granted has an immediacy that is breathtaking. The plane crash in Denver last December was tweeted by someone on the plane from their phone as it happened. Find someone closer to the story than that! Find a way to obtain such knowledge more quickly!
But back to the paradigm shift and why classical liberals and libertarians must embrace it in my view. We are, I contend, seeing a near perfect recapitulation of the events that transpired in the middle of the 18th century in America and France. Rigid hierarchies are once again being rejected in favor of something more liberal. The backlash represented by everything from post-modernism to adbusters and Naomi Klein to anti-corporatism to just anyone whose worked for a corporation and recognized how soul-crushingly shitty it is to do so, is the same esprit that fueled the American and French revolutions. It is merely playing out in a different venue. To borrow from Jeff, this backlash doesn’t represent a legitimate prescriptive; it is merely a backlash. The solutions offered up by those who have most readily embraced these new social media tools amount to, as Wired puts it, The New Socialism, which is to say, the same old shit. As I mentioned above, socialism is just the other side of the Enlightenment paradigm coin from capitalism.
As these new social tools infiltrate the enterprise, they will subvert the hierarchies that have characterized the management of an enterprise since Adam Smith. I can explain exactly how it will happen because I’ve seen it. I sell enterprise 2.0 / innovation tools and to large organizations. What will rise in replacement of these hierarchies is what remains to be seen. To those socialist economists who say that the market should be managed just like the inside of the enterprise, I say, you have it precisely backward. The market should not be made to look more like the enterprise, the enterprise should be made to look more like the market.
The same goes for government. Verily, I tell you: Obama won not only because of the obsequious old, dead media – he won because they used web 2.0/social media tools with great sophistication. We can not let the socialists / leftists define the narrative being created in this space. We want another American revolution, wherein the new paradigm involves the institutionalization of liberty. If we, the real liberals, do not take vigorous interest in and evince leadership through these new tools, we will have another French revolution on our hands; all fury and no institution. The hallmark of the American revolution was the institutionalization of liberty; the enfranchisement of the individual. The hallmark of the French revolution was the guillotine.
I implore you who care about classical liberal ideals: take up these new tools. Do not let those who would advance only a disgust with the outgoing paradigm as their prescription to tear everything to the ground.
There is an “it’s” in there what should be an “its” and a “whose” what should be a “who has” but, y’know, I ain’t perfect.
Bra-fuckin-Vo, Mal.
Will be over that way not this coming week, but the following, on my way to KC, so I will be in StL overnight on the way there and the way home.
Of course, if everybody tunes it out…bupkis.
Too, there’s much to be said for what, in your description, counts as “knowledge.” I’m more inclined to see Twitter as an escape from knowledge, and Twitter users as the dangerous types with a little knowledge and very big opinions.
I am not a vain enough twat to tweet on twitter.
GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD.
I like it for a few insidery comments, it’s a good medium for getting info out quickly and when setting up and logging into a computer isn’t possible or convenient, but Jayzues chriminy on a popsicle stick! Narcissistic much? I’m so special I know people need to read my minute by minute inane bullshit!
From what I can see, the people tuning it out are those whom most need to be participating. Churchill said that history would be kind to him because he intended to write it. Today, in my estimation, that involves, at least in part, using twitter. Anyway, twitter is just a piece of a larger puzzle. The use of twitter increased traffic at my business partner’s blog by 300% over the course of three months. Twitter is not necessarily an end in and of itself.
People need leaders, even as they need liberty. You are a profound leader, Jeff (and you should, in my humble opinion, carry that mantle into every battlefield). The power of your rhetorical skill and the depth of your knowledge and the force of your wit is, well, fuck man, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve always told you I think you are needed and important and twitter is just one of many places that could be made more valuable by your presence.
Why rail against the tool? It reminds me of Western Union’s dim view of the telephone a hundred years ago. You could totally own Allah or anyone else in that venue. There are scores of PW posts that are, effectively, tweets; microblogs. Yes, your long-form stuff is tits, but you are just as powerful in 140-character chunks.
I think I was essentially agreeing, in my earlier comment, with the notion that those who own the social space, politically, are dilettantes. Again, I think that’s because those who find collectivism nauseating have eschewed the medium because it’s populated by collectivists. But I don’t see the adoption of twitter or any other social media tool slowing, nor do I think it wise to allow it to be considered as definitively belonging to the collectivists.
Twitter has raised a lot of venture capital. They turned down a $100+ million offer to sell to facebook. We’re not talking about TARP money here. We’re talking about money coming from people who want a return and believe that twitter will bring it. These same arguments regarding a lack of substance were levied against the web when it first appeared and again at blogs.
Tell you what: I’m working hard to attempt to build my own fortune. It’s still a lot of working and not yet a lot of fortune, but when I get to the fortune part, I intend to finance your candidacy for POTUS. And we’ll damn well use twitter in the campaign.
It’s not top-down mass media. You’re not barking your inanity to a captive audience. The aggregated conversation yields profound insight into all kinds of important stuff. I can perform analysis using twitter that will cough up outliers that no one would have seen otherwise. Let me try another example. Coke spent some $10+ million doing R&D on those 12-pack boxes that fit nicely in the fridge. It worked. It increased sales for reasons that should be obvious. After rolling it out, they discovered that a Coke bottler in Australia had invented the same thing years previously but it was invisible to them because their top-down, unidirectional communications systems we’re incapable of adducing such knowledge. IBM sells a tool called Lotus Connections that is about to add microblogging functionality precisely to help surface such otherwise invisible knowledge.
I’m thinking that technology will outstrip all projections. I expect within a few years to have available a wearable computer/phone/videocam that displays as an overlay like the HUD displays. Built into glasses that you wear. Voice input commands or even eye movement control. The Neal Stephenson world, online whenever, wherever you are at a whim. Unless the new progressive masters crash the world in their rush to rule all.
geoffb nails it and basically sucks the air out of my twitter thesis. I did work with the University of Hawaii’s Research Center for Futures Studies around ubiquitous wireless and augmented reality a little over a year ago. One thing we talked seriously about was the work going on at the University of Washington to create contact lens based display technology.
Thanks I had not seen that one but only ones based on laser scanning across the retina from an eyeglass unit.
I submit Jeff’s one single tweet, which strikes me as decidedly not inane. In fact, it’s so damn clever it hurts.
Okay, I’ll shut the hell up now. Sorry about the prolix.
You’re not barking your inanity to a captive audience.
Actually Mala, you make some really good points. I’m not actually slaming the reader or guirella markerter and a few more, I’m just talking about the girl that tweets she just bought bubblegum flavored lip gloss, then tweets that the movie Hangover is so totally going to be her favorite movie when it comes out.
Maybe someone can answer something for me, does it work on voice recognition tied into bluetooth (and if that sounded stupid, sorry. I still use speaker on for handsfree so I might not even know what bluetooth is)
None of what I said should be taken as downgrading the value of text as opposed to audio and video. Audio and video are illustrative but text is definitive in information dissemination.
Re: #122 I notice that Patterico is following Jeff on Twitter.
Jeff, BAN HIM!!!11!1!!!1!!
I’m pretty much failed at twitter. It’s Community Organizing nth degree, and I’m just not much caring for teh hive life.
But I wish I had bought their stocks, though.
126 – no you don’t. They haven’t figured out how to actually make any money off this trendy new thing….has a real 1990s dot com economic feel to it. So no regrets, OK?
very interesting read mal. thank you.
and your suggestion that we classic liberals and friends (conservatives, republicans, libertarians, etc.) embrace the medium dovetails with something i’ve been thinking about for some months, which is that jeff and PW should have a presence, a voice, on all of these social networking thingies. dan, and whoever else, tweeting on the OUTLAW channel is a good start. it doesn’t all need to be jeff, especially if it’s a medium which can link back to his (and co-bloggers) actual in depth writings here at PW.
i don’t see twitter ‘going away.’ tho i do think it may be eclipsed by whatever the next ‘killer app’ turns out to be. but i do know that the center of gravity of online coolness keeps shifting and will continue to do so. and that needs to be taken into account too. for example, my baby sister is one of the ‘cool kids’ and every year or so she pressures me to make an account and join her social circle in wherever novel online place the ‘cool kids’ are migrating to and colonizing at that moment. first it was friendster, then myspace, then facebook, now it’s twitter. and next year it will be something else, or something else in addition to all of those. but, anyway, all of these networks could be marshaled to get the message out and to counter teh narrative. and again jeff his own bad self needn’t do it all. and in fact perhaps it’s better if he doesn’t. instead whoever actually enjoys and is skillful in navigating each particular network ought to be posting or tweeting or whatevering there, with all roads leading and linking back to PW. bottom up not top down is correct, imao, fwiw.
and a note: i don’t twitter. because i was a beta tester for it, like a year ago or probably more. and all it did was cause arguments between the hubby and i. so i tried to cancel my twitter account. and the software, such as it was then, wouldn’t let me. so i called them on the phone and had a little tantrum. and they did close my account. but i think i am blocked from going back now and don’t really want to find out. =P
@louchette: I never got into online gaming. By the time it came along I’d gone through my social gaming phase sitting around kitchen tables rolling 20-sided dice with my high school friends.
@malaclypse: I think the future of Twitter is really best predicted by looking at the past of things like BBS, IRC, IM and so on. The only way Twitter becomes permanent is if it is the last possible permutation of the technology — which I find hard to believe. These technologies get embraced not so much for what they do as for what they are: NEW and EXCITING and (most important of all) INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO THE ‘RENTS. And yes, I know a lot of tweeters are older than I am. They’re the kind of people who try to ride skateboards and end up breaking their hips.
In a few years it’ll be something else that all the tweeting oldsters can’t understand.
In my day we walked six miles to school with no shoes, ate a sand sandwich for lunch, got bitch slapped with rulers by angry nuns, then walked six miles back home again.
You kids and your Segways. Bah!
You left out “..uphill both ways.”
Regards,
Ric
You laugh. Soon enough you’ll be trundling along at twenty miles an hour down a four-lane street with your turn-signal going, trying to beat the rush for the Early-Bird Special at Sizzler.
Then I’ll be the one cackling. Until I swallow my teeth and have to be taken out to the ambulance on a gurney.
Nah. Wednesday chicken-fried steak special ($1.99!) at Kentucky Fried.
Regards,
Ric
You forgot to say, in the passing lane.
Actually, I’m doing on-line gaming now…. except it’s with the same guys I’ve been rolling d20s around the dining room table, and with the GM calling the shots. All the on-line component (a neat program called Fantasy Grounds, and another one called Ventrilio, for the voice interface) is doing is allowing us to game with one of us in VA, one in TX, one in CA, and the GM on his goat farm outside Chattanooga.
I see twitter as that type of tech; lets you do what and how you would have done something, but in new ways / manners.
Twitter is just chat, like ICQ and IRC and a dozen other platforms. Its been yuppified and stuck on an I-Phone, but its basically the same thing.
i think twitter is not exactly like chat. but i haven’t given it enough thought to tease out and articulate how it’s different. and (just to be bratty) i still have my original 6 digit ICQ number. /geek
also, this is so weird, but i watched ‘heathers’ today. turns out hubby put it on the netflix list and it arrived yesterday. i hadn’t opened the mail, so i didn’t know that when i was writing yesterday. so i got to read the original ending script thingy too. which, i really hadn’t known about before. i saw the film in a theater a few times, then never bothered with it again.
it was different from how i remembered it, tho not much different. and there is a funny (date) rape joke in it. if you can call it a joke, cuz it’s really more of a bit. and a throwaway at that.
snd i still don’t like the ending. even not knowing they had to change it it’s always felt artificial planted there to me. but i don’t like the ending of ‘the breakfast club’ either. cuz you know that despite whatever bullshit they said, come monday those cool kids are going right back to snubbing those uncool kids. tho maybe that’s the point?
and i do wish they had filmed the original ‘heathers’ ending, even if they didn’t ultimately use it. i thought you were joking upthread about the happy heaven prom with all the dead kids. i bet it would have been sick and awesome. and i would have enjoyed seeing it i think.
Yeah, and a ballpene hammer is just a yuppified pipe wrench.
I mean, if twitter is “like ICQ and IRC” (which, one is an IM application and the other is a multiuser chat protocol, so y’know, they’re not at all interchangable) then why should it even exist? The 30+ million users, including people like Karl Rove, Richard Branson, the CEO of Forrester Research, George Colony, O’Reilly Publishing Founder and CEO, Tim O’Reilly, and so on? Yuppies! Trend following lightweights!
having given it not much thought, two things about twitter stand out for me. the first is that it’s like a social network, like facebook or myspace, much more than it is like a chat. following is like friending, more than it’s like adding someone to a chat or IM list. except that it’s not like friending, at least the way that works on interwebs like myspace, since it’s not always mutual. in that way it’s more like my livejournal, where people can friend you and give you access to private posts and pictures and whatnot, but you aren’t required to reciprocate. and tweeting itself is more like the bulletins people post in facebook groups or on myspace than it is like chatting. it’s more braodcasty, than chatty.
more important tho, i think, is the way twitter aggregates and collates information. it is interesting to see what such a chunky chunk of humanity is thinking and talking about most at a specific historical moment. and it may be a lot of narcissism and vanity (so, what isn’t?) but i actually kind of enjoy the ‘one human minute‘ aspect of the thing.
love it or hate it (and i don’t love it, didn’t enjoy using it) it *is* a killer app. but i doubt very much it’s the last one we’ll see.
i have to think about this more.
Because it’s de-geeked. Its hip and now, it’s the I-Phone version of ICQ. Nothing new, but slickly packaged and picked up by celebrities. Plus, like nothing else out there, it feeds ego and the need to be noticed immediately. It feeds that “I’m so important that everyone needs to hear my instant thoughts on all matters” narcissism of modern culture.
The vote is governance de-geeked. It’s hip and now. It’s the ballot box version of monarchy. Nothing new, but slickly packaged and picked up by the self-important Sons of Liberty. Plus, like nothing else out there, it feeds ego and the need to have your political desires noticed. It feeds that, “I’m so important that I need to express my desires and thoughts on political matters” narcissism of uppity proles who want to live above their station.
for clarity: when i wrote that twitter following didn’t require reciprocation what i meant was, i doubt someone like karl rove follows the tweets of everyone who follows his. IYKWIMAITYD. broadcast, micro tho it may be, not chat or IM.
Yuppies! Trend following lightweights!
Yeah, pretty much.
I actually like Twitter, but let’s not pretend that it represents anything other than a lucky break. Its current popularity is akin to that of the Members Only jacket, acid-washed jeans, and disco.
Sure, ride the wave while it’s flowing, if you can make money doing it. Just don’t count on (or invest any money in) any business model which depends on Twitter being around forever.
I mean, if twitter is “like ICQ and IRC†(which, one is an IM application and the other is a multiuser chat protocol, so y’know, they’re not at all interchangable)
Actually, yes, they are more or less interchangeable.
The affordance of each is the quick delivery of short lines of text.
Now, Twitter may offer certain conveniences that those earlier technologies lacked, but it’s simply absurd to claim that they aren’t filling the same need.
ICQ is a point-to-point IM application. I last used it over ten years ago. It may have added conferenced chats. Internet Relay Chat is open group chat (with private chat as an additional function). They’re not the same.
Ballpene and sledge hammers are both for hitting things, so they’re the same too, yes?
The question is not, “will twitter be around forever?” Forest/Trees. The question is, “how does equiping everyone with the ability to broadcast change the communications culture?”
Did you read the list I proffered? The CEO of Forrester? Tim O’Reilly? Lightweights? You just yanking my chain, or can you demonstrate the lightweightedness of these fellows?
mal — that indeed is the question. and the answer is, alas, i do not know.
a few years ago i thought myspace was a slum, the trailer park of the internet, what a geocities or AOL homepage meant to old timers. but then suddenly a lot of people and bands and thing i was a fan of got themselves a myspace. and it was almost like they barely existed if they didn’t have one.
everyone can have one. but no matter how much you link and friend whore you will never has as many friends as the jonas brothers, or sponge bob, or probably karl rove even. unless you have something tempting to off back too.
i still don’t know the answer. but i wonder, have you read this book? net of a killion lies, indeed. and of attention whores and trolls and griefers and wankfests. but what do you expect, from humans?
jeebus, i need to go to bed. typos. ‘net of a million lies.’ and ‘to offer back too.’ g’nite. i’m gonna sleep on this. the questions it and mal raise/s are not frivolous, i think. nini.
louchette, arigato gozaimashita for the book recommendation. I haven’t read it. But will now.
Through snowdrifts.
I’ve been most dumbstricken tonight by Mal’s suggestion about making the enterprise more like the market. I’ve read of “flash mobs” and such things, and I wonder about the still-indeterminate effectiveness of Tea Parties, and I’m wondering if the little lightbulb over my head just got a whole lot brighter: If the Web is heralding the end of MainStream Media, could Twitter become the thing that brings down Republican Government?
I’m not being facetious: If Conventional Business Models are calcifying, if the “top-down information” method is being overtaken by the New Paradigm that M the T was describing, then why do we still need Representative Government? Why cannot Government itself become Distributed, why can’t Legislation be adopted moment-to-moment?
Not Anarchy, certainly not: Any Law-Idea being proposed would still need to tally a well-defined Minimum Vote Count before being enacted (the Constitution itself is amended this way; it just takes longer), sort of what Phil Foglio laid out in his “Buck Godot” stories; and actually I was thinking more along the lines of “This is what Needs To Be Done” (as opposed to “This is what Needs To Be Controlled”), and let Those Who Can, Do, while the Need is there.
I keep hearing that No One In Their Right Mind Would Run For Office (which is how we keep ending up with such shitty Politicians). But the idea of Taking The Hassle Out Of Government intrigues me. Could the Twitter concept — instant knowledge, instant collusion, instant Wisdom (no pun intended) actually lead to a whole new definition of Self-Government?
(Or should I maybe just stop reading PW this late at night?…)
Role of social media in present Iranian situation:
Some links
iconic image
http://twitpic.com/7buyf
a wearable computer/phone/videocam that displays as an overlay like the HUD displays. Built into glasses that you wear.
Heh.
ICQ is a point-to-point IM application. I last used it over ten years ago. It may have added conferenced chats. Internet Relay Chat is open group chat (with private chat as an additional function). They’re not the same.
Thank you. I’m quite familiar with the current and past state of the art.
They all deliver short lines of text in near-real time over the network. They’re the same.
The only difference is in the user interface. You could run something very much like Twitter over IRC by writing a client which prepended tags to each line of text, and did different things based on those tags for incoming text. Hell, I could hack it up in 10 minutes.
Twitter was fortunate in that it built on Evan’s team’s previous success with Blogger. That was enough to achieve critical mass, which is what really matters. Certainly Twitter’s tech infrastructure is nothing special (I’d even go so far as to call it EPIC FAIL).
Did you read the list I proffered? The CEO of Forrester? Tim O’Reilly? Lightweights?
Yes, I did.
Tim O’Reilly is a publisher whose business relies on hopping on current trends. He’s a smart guy — smart enough to glom on to the flavor of the week. As I said, if that’s how you make your money, that’s great.
Look at what Tim was doing 10 years ago and notice how many of those things are still “hot”. Perl. CGI scripts. Netscape. SOAP. Macromedia Director.
I suspect that O’Reilly would be the first person to caution against assuming that the flavor of the week is going to be the same ten years (or even one year) from now.
Remember MySpace? Still there. Not hot any more.
M the T, your link to Twitter Search is invaluable. That’ll help me use (and accept) the thing. I just can’t see following a gawdawful number of people’s tweets just to glean a few bits of knowledge; the search engine (if it is or becomes powerful enough to access tweets from, say, a year ago) will cut though the useless chatter.
Just how long do tweets last, are they archived? Are there tools to view these things in retrospective? Can we look back, search for and find the
big bangfirst tweet?Yes. My entire thesis is reducible to “the flavor of the week is going to be the same ten years from now.” I don’t know what it is about what I’ve said that seems to have induced flip dismissals that completely ignore my central points. I’m not some twitter fanboi. Whatever.
The UX and the vision of the tools’ creators and the way they are adopted is what matters and that’s why they’re not interchangable, have different flavors and are used for different purposes. Facebook and LinkedIn are also, in terms of functionality, extrememly similar; but they are entirely different tools because they’re used in different contexts and serve different audiences and they are understood as serving different purposes by those audiences.
Oh, and the stock ticker services “deliver short lines of text in near real-time over the network”. Are they the same as IM and IRC? Hell, UDP fits that description as well. Now I know: UDP==ICQ.
You may very well be right, mal. it seems to be for those who are aggressively looking to connect in the etherworld. Me … I’m still stuck on IM to chat with few friends occasionally. But, that’s just how I roll. Twitter, at least, allows group chatter among ilks (if I can say that word here).
But it wouldn’t be adopted. In part, because as you point out, Evan’s connections to influential people wouldn’t be there. In part, because there’s no conceptual vision behind your also-ran IRC-twitter interpolation that drives use other than “I can make twitter over, built on IRC”. The point here is that a focus on underlying form is not sufficient to drive behavior for anyone but pedants and nerds.
Photoshop and my MUD client were both written using C++. The source for each contain lots of conditional statements, maybe some branch predication, object orientation replete with good encapsulation, some overloaded and overridden methods and other polymorphism, typed variables and so on. You could do image editing within the MUD client. Hell, I could hack something together using some of MS’ foundation classes in 10 minutes.
It takes a special kind of delusion to compare Twitter to democracy and liberty. Its ok to just say “I like it,” you don’t have to portray it as vastly important and culture changing.
exactly so mal. not to say there’s nothing interesting about the geeky coding side of the thing. there certainly is. but PW isn’t a blog about coding and programming. what PW is is a blog that is, at least in part, concerned with how people make and share meaning/s. and i think in that regard (vis this blog) what is important is how people understand and use the available tools to broadcast ideas and make meanings, not the tech specs of how the tools are constructed.
and of course it is the flavor of the year, and there have been others and will be others. but as they say, you’ve got to be in the game to play it. or something. what channels one exploits to disseminate data and meaning are always important. which is why i think it’s also important to keep track of the moving target that is the center of gravity of internet/communication/broadcasting coolness. because that’s where the audience and potential audience is.
and re the vinge book ‘fire upon the deep’: it’s not one of the greatest sci-fi books i’ve ever read. (and i’ve read a lot, like one or two a day, literally every day, from about age 10 or 11 to about age 40.) but it is quite interesting for the prescient way it describes the interwebs, way back when web 1.0 was still a tiny new little baby. and as a huge dog lover i have a soft, mushy place in my heart for any story where cute widdle doggies take up arms.
Stop the world, I’m jumping off.
As if a full-time Congress of 535 weren’t bad enough, we’re moving toward a 24/7 Congress of 300 million and counting?
First thing I’ll do is enact legislation outlawing everybody else and depriving them of their Twitter accounts. I WIN!
I’m comparing it to the vote. The vote is just a tool; technology. As McLuhan said, “we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.”
Our founding constitutionalists hated the concept of a pure democracy, and took steps to prevent such ‘mob rule’ from ever taking place. A pure democracy would be a nightmare for those of us in minority status. But using a tool to contact and influence our knuckleheaded representatives in real time, now, I can appreciate that.
You mentioned a ball-peen hammer…
(By the way, Mal, I searched for your Twitter account, couldn’t find it. But we share the Karl Rove link-feed, and I’ve had direct contact with him too. That was a special moment… )
Serr8d, that wasn’t my point; what I thought Mal was indicating was that the entire Social Construct could be changed by “tools” like Twitter: We may still have a Constitution as a Document; but couldn’t “Flash Mobs” end up with the real power?
And for that matter, why couldn’t Twitter become useful to the Tea Parties? If enough of us who go to them, Tweet enough to those of us who didn’t, couldn’t OUR Message be spread more effectively?
OTOH, if everyone just wants to sit in their rocking chairs on the front porch, scowling about “Back in MY day …”, then perhaps we DO deserve to lose to those who prefer to Seek Out New Life And New Civilizations”, to coin a phrase….
And, McGehee, though I appreciate your joke, I think one of us is missing Mal’s larger point….
St. Louis had one the largest Tea Party turnouts. On tax day, I believe the estimate was 2,500 people. The organizers here pulled that group together mostly through the use of twitter. In fact, it is more accurate I think to say that the group pulled itself together through twitter.
louchette desu wa,
I am wondering about the constuct “louchette desu wa”. I know that “louchette desu” or “watashi wa louchette desu” is “I am louchette”. “Boku wa geoffb desu” for the male version (I am geoffb). I know that the Japanese play with their language as much as we do English. Is this, “desu wa” something out of an anime?
it’s old lady speak, adding that extra wa (and it’s ã‚　not the particle ã¯) on the end. to indicate that i am an oldish lady. =P and yeah, i can’t boku. tho i do, sometimes, just to be funny or urusai. women can atashi and anata and a bunch of other things. and old ladies, and young ones being cheeky, can desu wa. desu wa ne?
at first i was going to make it ‘louchette desudesudesu,’ to make fun of /b/tard johnny come lately anime freaks. but then i decided that mixed in with the lum/urusei yatsura referencing moniker indirectly pointing out my age and non-loliness had more resonance. ymmv.
Mal, that’s what I thought you were saying; please allow me to take it a step further:
Right now (according to Rasmussen, iirc) there are more Independent voters than either Dems or Repubs; but unless those Independents can Unify around single (local) candidates, then they will still fail to have their voices heard in D.C. Where might Twitter become more useful in “organizing” voters than the MSM or even “New Media” blogs?
I recently suggested to the RNC that their GOP Website should devote itself as a Server (multiple meanings there) to allow anyone who wanted to be a GOP Candidate to present themselves online to The Voting Public, thereby getting past the traditional blockade to candidacy of needing Money Out The Wazoo (this in response to their online suggestion to “Tell us what you think would make us a stronger political party”). Would Twitter be a better “tool” for this sort of thing?
See, I’m a firm believer that the best thing that could happen to Congress would be for there to be 535 Parties involved; it would make it a whole lot harder to vote “on Party lines”, and might actually get Congress to do things for the good of ALL of us….
If you are an “old lady” then I’m a “one-foot-in-the-grave guy”. Thanks for the info, and for the tip about Gackt. I mostly listened to the female singers in the 90’s. Got into them through the music in anime since a lot of the voice actors sang.
Mao’s Little Red Book was a Tweet compendium before there Twitter was even a gleam.
geoffb — i’m nosy, a nosy old lady. =P and curious when and why you learned japanese? a lot of people start because of anime, or these days jrock/jpop, but that’s not always the case. it’s definitely an interesting language, despite how challenging it can be, and sort of a lifetime addictive thing for a lot of people once they start.
Anime was the reason I learned some, a little, Japanese. I got into it around 1994 or so. Think I related that before. Bought a cutout LD of “Beautiful Dreamer” and was hooked.
My son also got into it with me though he became very hooked on Dragonball and I was more Kimagure Orange Road and Evangelion. Lots of fansub watching, buying some Japanese manga, LD’s, then DVD’s and a region free player. Going through Newtype etc. looking for things, made me buy a number of books on Japanese so I could make out at least some of what I was seeing.
Haven’t done much in quite a few years now. Magazines, books, LD’s, DVD’s packed away for the most part. Still get Protoculture Addicts whenever it comes out.
True only inasmuch as smart people like you, Slart, cede it (twitter) to the collectivists. Says me anyway.
My anime/manga knowledge is limited to Akira, Spirited Away and Inuyasha. I got into the Japanese language and culture in part because I toured Japan with a choir as a child and in part because I became obsessed with Kurosawa films about 2 years ago. And now, 僕ã¯æ—¥æœ¬èªžãŒå°‘ã—分ã‹ã‚Šã¾ã™ã€‚
Oh. I have no idea what to make of that, mal, other than I ought to fight for my right to Tweet?
Collectivists can Twitter for all I care.
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If Google got that correct. I learned only what I needed to watch and purchase the shows I wanted. Languages are not one of my talents, even English. Plus the books on Kana are all packed away.
even tho i liked anime my first love was the films too. way back when joe anderson was one of my mentors. and the first time i learned it was sort of an accident. a woman i was TAing for asked me to help another grad student, japanese exchange student, to polish some of his papers. his english was impeccable, but sometimes too passive in tone. we ended up being friends and he taught me just for fun. and i liked it, so i took some classes. stopped for some years and my hubby decided we needed an enforced date every week. we made a list of possible fun activities, flipped a coin, and japanese won.
and re gackt: in japan, and in most places, his fanbase is almost exclusively female. like most jrockers, actually. but he actually is a talented musician, and he’s very interesting and amusing as a celebrity. like, he has a fanclub lottery every year, and the winners get to go on vacation with him. so don’t be put off by the fangirls and fangirling. fwiw, even i find it annoying sometimes. also, fwiw, i found gackt practicing japanese, while watching a lot of tv talk show clips on google and youtube, because i wanted to get used to listening to normal speech patterns. and one of the reasons i liked him right away was that he was one of the few celebrities whose speech i could understand. except for a tendency to ‘to ka’ all the time he doesn’t use a lot of slang or kansai-ben (rough boy slang.) which is a big help for us struggling student not fluent people, which i am.
and i still need to write something about jrock for bh. >_> but i’ve been alternately busy and overtired and out of sorts this week. =/ anyway, it’s nice to have some other jculture geeks here.
and i understand you fine. =)
louchette,
If you’re writing to bh in email tell him to send you my email addy if you like. I’ll write him to say it’s ok.
geoff, I haven’t exchanged emails with louchette but maybe she’ll put up her jrock thoughts at her blog for us?
Two random jculture tangents. My old jiu-jitsu teacher recommended a longish essay by Yukio Mishima called Sun and Steel. I dug it. Also, if anyone likes rap mixed with crazy good turntable skills, DJ Krush’s MiLight is an album you need to add to your collection.
You send me to music and writing so I’ll send you to a movie, non-anime, that I liked. The Mystery of Rampo. Unusual for me as most of the Japanese video I watch is either anime or action oriented.
Thanks Geoff, that looks great, I’ll check it out.
By the way, if you do read Sun and Steel, check out the guy’s biography first. He had some serious internal contradictions going on. Or, maybe read the essay and then make sure to read about his life. Either way, it’s truly odd when you put them together.
I guess nobody has learned anything from the last election, which somehow managed to get a young, inexperienced cypher elected POTUS….
nope, no email. just comments on my fangirly lj. where i haven’t been writing like i should or normally would.
this is way TMI but… i guess this week/month is hard for me. it’s just over a year since my father died, not quite a year yet since his… well my stepmother refused to have either a proper funeral or memorial. what she had instead was a happy happy joy joy birthday party for a dead man. the anniversary of which is soon. and fuck her, cuz we used to celebrate our birthdays together (because they were so close in date) as one awesome bacchanal. and now that event is forever tainted for me as a funeral. and i do hate to admit it (cuz ordinarily i am a perfectionist freak) but i’ve been all sorts of out of sorts the last week or so. because of this first anniversary of that… period. era. deathbirthdaything whatever… yuck. i don’t even know. and i’ve been trying to taser myself up by mah bootstaps, to do the brain reliant things i need and wish and want to do. but honestly? i’m losing. =P at least i’m getting some home repair stuff done. but there’s no emotional component to that.
sorry to be all emo in public. T_T normally i lj a lot. and normally i would have had brain power to spare for this task. easy. but this week has been… meh. next year in… i dunno?
doh~ forgot i meant to add: sugizo is awesome. which is why gackt made him the lead guitarist in his U.S. touring band S.K.I.N. and here is he, sugizo, riffing with DJ krush:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63pPSrW-Co
synchronicity…
You are doing what everyone does (in their own way) to cope with a loss. Time is the real healer.
louchette, I sorry to hear about that. It’s hard to buy you a shot and put your favorite song on the jukebox over the internet. So, hey, I think you’re cool as hell and I wish you the best.
About the jrock review, seriously, don’t worry about it at all. Awesome youtube link, btw.
Sugizo, I like, very good indeed. Thank you.
Which has fuckall to do with Twitter, as far as I can tell.
The Obama campaign’s use of social media was very very effective. Twitter was just one aspect of it. During the campaign he became the single most followed twitter user by a significant amount. He also bought ads inside of video games that sold millions of copies. Suffice to say his media team used media in ways that Republican strategists didn’t even recognize as possibilities—likely in no small part due to a haughty insouciance.
I quit twittering, blogging and commenting pretty much cold turkey a couple of weeks ago, it just isn’t fun any more. Twitter will go the way of all web fads. Geocities, Google pages, blogger, etc… I’m already “followed” by a mess of “people” who are really follow bots built to collect followers so they can tell
the worldeveryone who watches their infomercial that they have so and so billion “followers” on Twitter. Commercial interests eventually suck the “cool” out of everything, has no one learned from Halston?At any rate, The Battleship Yamato series (Star Blazers to you and me) is the anime to see. If only because I think that “Farewell Yamato, Battleship of Love” is the greatest name for a movie ever.
You’re welcome to Tweet to your little heart’s content, mal, as I’m completely free not to.
But I probably should. Might as well hand the Democrats an in-perpetuity supermajority if I don’t.