Twitter Avatars by Ape Lad
Adam "Ape Lad" Koford did a set of Twitter avatar designs based on the outline of the Twitter bird. I particularly love the one based on Where The Wild Things Are. Can’t wait for the new ones (get crackin’ Adam!) Link | Apelad’s Tweets
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Big Ben on Twitter
Big Ben, the London clock tower, has a Twitter account. Online, it says the same thing it has always said in real life. The account was opened as a statement on the banality of Twitter, but Big Ben now has over six thousand followers! Come to think of it, this IS handy if you want to know what time it is in London. Link -via Blame It On The Voices
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Alphabet of Computing
Every geek knows that "A" is for Apple, but I bet not many know that Apple had a "third founder" who gave up his stake for $800 (it would've been worth at least $17 billion today). Or that Cisco was named for San Francisco. Or that Twitter used to be called twttr? Let's take a stroll through the A to Z of computing trivia, Neatorama style!
If you think that Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, think again: there was a "third founder" of Apple. In 1976, Ronald Wayne gave up his 10% stake of the fledgling company for $800 because he was worried that the company would fold and that he would be liable for debts incurred by the other partners (at the time Apple wasn't a corporation yet). Of course Apple became the big company, and Wayne's stake could've been worth as much as $17 billion today.
Originally, Research in Motion wanted its wireless messaging device to have the word "e-mail" in its name. When RIM hired Lexicon Branding to do a little research, they found out that people associate "e-mail" with work and therefore can raise blood pressure. Someone said that the buttons look like small berries, so they decided to name it BlackBerry.
Evolution of Cisco logo, by Design Maven via Speak
Up
Cisco System was named after the city San Francisco (the founders of the company worked for Stanford University, which is just a couple of town over). Indeed, first Cisco System's logo was the Golden Gate Bridge. (See also: Evolution of Tech Logos)
Ben Curtis, in his very first
Dell commercial
In 2003, after three years of playing the Dell Dude, actor Ben Curtis was arrested while attempting to buy a bag of marijuana. People immediately parodied his tag line "Dude, you're getting a Dell" to "Dude, you're getting a cell." Though charges were dropped, Dell canceled the Dell Dude commercials. Curtis was working as a waiter in 2007 but he's making a come back with a (supposedly) upcoming play "Dude! I'm Going to Hell"
In 1977, the US Postal Service recognized that email would pose a serious challenge to its monopoly on delivering mail. At first, it wanted to ban emails (like it did mails delivered by underground pneumatic tubes), but the FCC objected and the Postal Rate Commission refused. So it created an experimental email service called E-COM ("Electronic Computer-Originated Mail"). The idea was simple: You send the emails, which the post office would then print out and deliver as physical letters at the price of 26¢ each (it was said that it actually cost the USPS $5 to deliver the message). Oh, and the service was one-way. If something went wrong, you'd get an error message delivered two days later ... in form of a letter! Needless to say, E-COM failed.
John Backus, the inventor of FORTRAN programming language, said this about his invention: "Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701 (an early computer), writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs."
When Paul Buchheit started the Gmail project at Google, he named it "Project Caribou" after a Dilbert cartoon strip.
HP could've easily have been PH. In 1939, when Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard formed HP in a Palo Alto garage, they flipped a coin to decide the name of the company. Packard actually won the toss, but decided to name it Hewlett-Packard instead of Packard-Hewlett.
In 1999, Al Gore was asked by Wolf Blitzer what distinguished him from other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he famously said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Gore was immediately ridiculed for claiming to have invented the Internet. Not to be outdone, Dan Quayle said "If Al Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell check."
JPEG stands for the Joint Photographic Experts Group, who created the method of compression for photo images. Like all image processing algo, JPEG was tested on the standard test image of "Lenna", a cropped photo of a 1972 Playboy magazine centerfold Lena Soderberg.
Knuth reward check, photo via Upto11.net
Legendary computer scientist Donald Knuth offers to pay a reward of $2.56 for the first finder of errors in his books. Why $2.56? Because 256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar, which is sort of a joke that only a programmer can appreciate. But that's okay since that's Knuth's target audience anyhow. Indeed, Knuth reward checks are "among computerdom's most prized trophies," according to MIT's Technology Review. If the name Don Knuth sounds familiar, that's because we've featured his Potrzebie System of Weights and Measure before on Neatorama. (see also: Fun and Unusual Units of Measurements)
At first, Linus Torvalds wanted to name his new operating system Freax, a portmanteau of "freak," "free," and "x" (for Unix). A co-worker thought that it was a horrible name and renamed it Linux without telling him.
In 1996, Monty Widenius and David Axmark created MySQL, a relational database management system that would later become one of the most widely used software in the world, powering many of the web's largest sites (WordPress, Neatorama's blogging engine, uses it). What most people don't know is that the "My" in MySQL doesn't refer to "me" - it's actually the name of Monty's daughter My.
The
term newbie or noob, originally thought to be from British
public-school and military slang "new boy," was first spotted
in the Usenet newsgroup talk.bizarre as an insult to a clueless newcomer.
(N
is for Newbie Onesies/Kids T-Shirt at the Neatorama Shop)
In 1977, Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates were working on a CIA-funded project codenamed Oracle (because the CIA believed that it would give them answers to all questions). The project failed, but Larry and friends took the idea and used it to create a company that would later become the Oracle Corporation.
The most common passwords in the world are:
1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. link182
10. (your first name)
And you thought you were clever to do a derivative of Blink-182 as your password!
The keyboard you're using now is most likely set in a QWERTY layout (named for the first 6 characters of the top row of letters). This layout was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1874 because people were typing too fast on typewriters back then, thus causing the machine to jam. Sholes did frequency analysis on letter-pairs and separated pairs of letters that tend to cause mechanical jams when typed in quick successions like TH. Sholes' new layout was designed to slow down typists (technically, he aimed to improve typing speed by reducing jams - and indeed, that's exactly what happened.)
ROT13: Jung qbrf Whyvhf Pnrfne unir nalguvat gb qb jvgu zbqrea qnl Vagrearg? Pnrfne vairagrq n fvzcyr rapelcgvba zrgubq gung orpnzr dhvgr cbchyne va Hfrarg arjftebhcf nf n zrna gb uvqr fcbvyref, chapuyvarf naq chmmyr fbyhgvbaf. Gur vqrn vf fvzcyr: ercynpr n cvrpr bs grkg jvgu yrggref 13 cynprf shegure nybat va gur nycunorg ("ebgngr ol 13 cynprf" be EBG13). Gur travhf bs gur zrgubq vf gung orpnhfr gurer ner 26 yrggref va gur Ratyvfu nycunorg, gur fnzr rapelcgvba zrgubq jvyy qrpelcg n ebgngrq grkg!
Before Digg, there was Slashdot. The technology-related news website was so huge that getting linked from it meant a massive increase of traffic that would cripple smaller web servers. Webmasters call this the Slashdot effect, which is the granddaddy of similar terms Digg effect, Farked, or Drudged.
The very first Twitter message was sent by its co-creator Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006: "just setting up my twttr." That's not a typo - twttr was the original codename for the project (inspired by Flickr). At least twttr was better than one of the first names they were considering for it: twitch.
I'm including USB (Universal Serial Bus) here so I can play this awesome "Intel Star" commercial starring Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB. Watch it and weep:
Before the World Wide Web, there was Gopher (note: it's gopher://, not http:// - you'd need Firefox to see it) and Veronica was its search engine. Why Veronica? It's because the first search engine of the Internet, a tool that indexes FTP archives, is called Archie. Officially, Veronica is an acronym for "Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computer Archives."
Call it user-generated content, Bubble 2.0, millionth-word in the English language or whatever you want, but know this: Web 2.0 is trademarked by CMP Media (who partnered with O'Reilly in producing the Web 2.0 conference) in 2004. In 2006, they sent a cease-and-desist nastygram to the Irish non-profit organization IT@Cork for using the word in the name of their conference and sparked a kerfuffle over the ownership of "Web 2.0"
What's the company that invented the personal computer, graphical user interface, the computer mouse, but didn't bother to market them because it couldn't see their commercial potentials? Yep, Xerox. In 1979, Steve Jobs of Apple visited Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and saw the Xerox Alto workstation. Several years later, Jobs brought the Apple Macintosh to market.
When YouTube was sold to Google for $1.7 billion, the spotlight was on Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. But did you know that there was a third YouTube founder? That's right: Jawed Karim left the company to become a graduate student at Stanford University. He did, however, fare better than Ronald Wayne - Jawed got about $64 million worth in stock. Jawed also uploaded the very first video on YouTube on April 23, 2005:
If you own a PC in the late 80s/early 90s, then you're savvy about the ZIP file format. Back then, disk space was at a premium (a regular 3-1/2" HD floppy disk can only hold 1.44 MB worth of data) so compression was a big thing. In 1986, Phil Katz created PKZIP (Yep, PK is his initials) and released it as a shareware. He chose the name "zip" to imply that his software was faster than other compression formats available at the time. Sadly, Phil, the alcoholic computer genius, died alone in a cheap hotel cradling an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps.
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Klosterman on Facebook/Twitter
Do you use Twitter or Facebook?
I really get the most out of Twitter when events like the Iranian elections went down. (the only reason to like Twitter, aside from this).
Chuck Klosterman has a seriously cool interpretation. Enjoy.
I’m more of a Facebook type that just shares links. Have a nice weekend.
Hit Play or go to You Tube
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Woofer: The Anti-Twitter
For those of us who simply don’t get Twitter or are tired of the Web’s fascination with the 140-character microblogging platform, here’s the anti-Twitter. Introducing macroblogging wonder Woofer, where each post has a minimum of 1,400 characters!
(And yes, the entire thing is a spoof/homage of Twitter, made by Join the Company)
Link – via InventorSpot and Rue The Day!
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Psychologist Says: Facebook Makes You Smarter, Twitter Makes You Dumber
Or to be more precise, Dr. Tracy Alloway of the University of Stirling in Scotland says that in a study, Facebook users showed increased working memory, whereas Twitter users showed decreased working memory. She concluded that Facebook has more mentally intensive activities, but Twitter’s communications are too brief to require substantial brain activity:
Dr. Alloway has developed a working memory training programme for slow-learning children aged 11 to 14 at a school in Durham, and she found out that Facebook did wonders for working memory, improving the kids’ IQ scores, while YouTube and Twitter’s steady stream of information was not healthy for working memory. Also, playing video games, especially those that involve planning and strategy, can also be beneficial.
Link via The Presurfer
Image: U.S. Department of Energy
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Dinosaur Twitter
I’ve had some fun today with this generator that marries random Twitter updates with the graphics from Dinosaur Comics. The generator was created by Idefex, who enlarged upon an idea from Bing. Hit the link, then refresh to get new text with your dinosaurs. Link -via Metafilter
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Tweeting from Lollapalooza!
One of the good things about living in the midwest is that while I may not live in a big city, a bunch of them are within decent driving distance – Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha. Milwaukee and St. Louis aren’t too bad.
Anyway, as such, I’m headed to Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend! And I’ll be Tweeting as I go, so if you can’t be there to enjoy the extremely varied selection of music, you are welcome to live vicariously through me. I’m a little bummed the Beastie Boys won’t be playing, but I totally understand why they can’t be there.
Bands that are definitely on my “To Watch” list include Manchester Orchestra, Heartless Bastards, the Decemberists, the Arctic Monkeys, Animal Collective, Tool, Vampire Weekend, Snoop, the Killers and the Silversun Pickups.
If you have any other recommendations or just want to follow along as we check out cool bands and try to hit up some local culture (the Shedd Aquarium is on our list, as well as the Chicago Art Institute), leave me a Tweet. And if you’re already following me on Twitter, you should probably switch to this new account – the old one got hacked by spammers and was suspended.
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Neatorama Update - Mystery Sale, Twitter Only Contest, UQ Prize, and More
Hello
Neatoramanauts! It's been a while since our last Neatorama State of the
Blog post, so I'd like to take a minute to update everyone.
Mystery Sale - July 2009
Thank you to everybody who participated! We truly appreciate your business
and support. It took us a few days longer than I had initially expected
to gear up to ship out orders, but the warehouse has started to ship out
- we shipped the first batch two days ago and it'll probably take us another
full week or so to complete every order.
Usually, we ship out your NeatoShop order within 1 business day or so, but the volume of shipment for the Mystery Sale is (like last time) extraordinarily high. We're working hard to continually improve this process and thank everybody for being patient :)
If you ordered from outside of the United States, please be extra patient - shipments can take up to 14 to 21 business days due to customs clearance (those guys can really take their time though they're usually much, much quicker). I'll do another round of update when we've finished shipping out.
Twitter Only Contest
We're going to post a Twitter-only contest where you can win cool stuff
from the NeatoShop soon. It won't be announced on the blog, so you have
to follow @neatorama on Twitter
(we won't overload you with tweets, I promise!) to find out. Perhaps if
it's a success, we can do the same thing on Neatorama's
Facebook Fan Page ... what do you think?
Upcoming Queue Top Submitter Prize
Love it or not, I think the Upcoming
Queue is one of the neatest feature of Neatorama. For those of you
who are not familiar with the UQ, it is a way for the blog's readers to
write a blog post. Submissions are voted up or down by other viewers and
good posts are promoted to Neatorama's front page (details at the Upcoming
Queue FAQ).
For
the coming month of August, we're going to have a neat prize for the top
5 submitters: the number 1 submitter (based on frontpaged posts) will
get an iPod Nano, whereas the rest will get some extra neat stuff from
the NeatoShop.
Remember that quality, not quantity of submissions will be the key - please read the Formatting Tip first.
Neat Stories You May Have Missed
We posted a lot of neat stories on Neatorama in July, so be sure to check
these out (in case you missed them):
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Thank you for reading Neatorama! Please tell your friends about the blog!
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10 Quickie Quotes About Twitter
For more Bizarro, definitely checkout Dan Piraro’s website and blog
Love it or hate it, Twitter has certainly taken the web by storm. In just a few short years, the social networking/micro-blogging website has grown to be one 50 most popular website in the world.
As much as I am fascinated with Twitter (though I’m a bad Twitterer, Neatorama’s Official Twitter is not as frequently updated as the blog), I’m more interested about what other people say about Twitter.
Here’s a quickie 10 most interesting Twitter Quotes (some are from people who, ironically, don’t tweet):
"oh this is going to be addictive" – Dom Sagolla, Twitter co-creator
“The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what makes it so powerful” – Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard law professor and Internet expert (Source)
“Twitter lets me hear from a lot of people in a very short period of time.” – Robert Scoble, blogger (Source)
“Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite ‘The Iliad.’" – Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and journalist (Source)
"Whoever said that things have to be useful?"
– Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and
CEO
"For the uninitiated, here’s how Twitter works – I have no f***ing idea. I have no idea how it works – or why it is." Jon Stewart, comedian and host of The Daily Show
"Facebook is to 2007 as Twitter is to 2009. It’s the most open communication platform out there" – Roger Kondrat, social media consultant (Source)
"The people drawn to Twitter are people on the cutting edge, the real nerds who are resentful of the fact that the general population have found and taken over Facebook" – Steve Dotto, host of Dotto Tech (Source)
"HI TWITTERS . THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY" – Oprah, yes that Oprah, on Twitter
"Ummm . . . I don’t think it’s as big of a dilemma as people seem to think. We haven’t focused on it yet and I can’t say for sure how it’s going to work." – Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and CEO, on how Twitter will make money
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WalMart Fails At Twitter
If you, for some weird reason or another, have any interest in signing up to WalMart’s Twitter feed, be prepared to agree to a 3,379 word long (lord only knows how many characters) Terms of Use.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Twitter myself, but I do understand that the main attraction is the simplicity of limiting things to 140 characters or less. It kind of defeats the purpose when you have a TOS this long.
Link Via BoingBoing
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Homage to Fail Whale
Fail Whale is the delightful image of a flying whale that Twitter uses when the site is down for one reason or another. The whale, designed by artist Yiying Lu, became so popular that folks made their own versions, ranging from sculptures to tattoos to comics. Pictured is one of the several Fail Whale cakes in this extensive collection of Fail Whale tributes. Link -via Metafilter
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Neatorama Update: Environmental Graffiti Interview and Twitter
Environmental Graffiti Interview
Karl Fabricius of Environmental Graffiti has just posted an interview with me about Neatorama and how the blog came to be. Actually it’s a story I’ve never told anyone online – so it’s a neat exclusive for Environmental Graffiti. Here’s the interview: Link – Thanks Karl, that was a treat!
Neatorama on Twitter!
A while ago, I posted about Neatorama’s account on Twitter. Long story short, we got the account @neatorama back amicably from a fan (Thanks Mike!) … and now am wondering what we should do with it.
Should we continue displaying Neatorama’s posts (using Twitterfeed?) or should we do Twitter only content (like mini-posts)? Or both? What do you think?
The only thing we’ve decided so far is that we should do twitter-only contests – so if you’re on Twitter, here’s Neatorama Twitter page: Link
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Social Media Venn Diagram
A Venn diagram showing the psychological forces at work among users of social networking tools — a new shirt from the comedy geniuses at Despair, Inc.
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Twitter Treasure Hunt
Anthony Gardiner of Wellington, New Zealand bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend, but she turned him down. He can’t return the ring and doesn’t want to keep it as he considers it bad luck, so he’s staging a treasure hunt!
Anyone keen to pick up the ring, valued at NZ$5,000 ($3,268), will need to be in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington, on Saturday to join the hunt, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.
Clues to the ring’s whereabouts will start being posted on social networking site Twitter (http:/twitter.com/donoogle_com) at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday (2000 GMT on Friday).
Link to story. Link to Twitter feed.
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Twitter Quote Cross Stitch
What do you get when you mix Twitter with a crafster? How about this twitter quote (michael Ian Black) put in cross stitch, by Julie Zidel of You Heart.Us:
I’m not really sure where I should begin here. I guess we should go way back the beginning, last Wednesday. I’m in the office sitting at my desk eating lunch and making my daily rounds through facebook, flickr and twitter. I take a look at my twitter favorites page. The tweets on this page. These tweets range from the the funny to the mundane to the completely absurd but they all have one thing in common. They amuse me. I thought it was a shame that people were out there living life and not even knowing what they are missing out on. Then it hit me! It is my duty to spread the joy through cross stitch.
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Best Job for Facebook Addicts and Twitterholics Ever: $10K a Month to Tweet
Hang out, drink wine, send tweets and Facebook updates all day … and get paid for it! Can this possibly be the best job for a twitterholic ever?
Sonoma County winemaker Murphy-Goode is looking for a "lifestyle correspondent" that makes it look good, all for the sweet salary of $10K a month plus living accomodations:
We at the Murphy-Goode Winery got to thinking about the new age of communications and we figured it was a pretty good thing. So to get going, we’re looking for someone (maybe you) who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that — to tell the world about our wines and the place where we live: the Sonoma County Wine Country.
In exchange, we’re offering you a “Really Goode Job” — a six-month job paying $10,000 a month plus accommodations!
We want to hire a social media whiz (your title will be “Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent”) who will report on the cool lifestyle of Sonoma County Wine Country and, of course, tell people what you’re learning about winemaking.
Did we mention that the compensation was $10,000 per month Plus accommodations in a beautiful home in picturesque Healdsburg, a popular vacation destination in our neck of the woods. Working hours are flexible. And all you have to do is experience wine and good living, and then tell people about it. (Do you play Poker, or Liar’s Dice? Don’t worry; we’ll teach you.)
Here’s where you’d sign up: Link – via SFoodie
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Doogie Howser’s Diary or Random Twitter Update?
The fictional TV doctor Doogie Howser Kept short entries in his journal that resemble Twitter updates. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, can you identify which blurbs are from the show Doogie Howser, MD and which are actual Tweets? I couldn’t confidently peg any of them! Link
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Famous Last Tweets
We’re all gonna die someday. What will be our last tweet before we do? I found this pretty hilarious. Takes a look back at what might have been tweeted had twitter been around in years past.
A day rarely goes by without word of a new celebrity signing up to join the Twitter revolution. Everyone from mainstream personalities, like Shaq and Jimmy Fallon, to YouTube stars, like iJustine and Michael Buckley, are microblogging personal details that were formerly accessible only to the most ardent stalker/fan. Allowing celebrities to reach out to their fan base in such a direct manner must keep their management teams in high alert, which makes us wonder what would’ve happened if troubled stars from years past had known the power of Twitter. We did a little soul/Twitter searching and came up with a collection of “Famous Last Tweets” that sadly never were.
From the Upcoming 
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If Twitter Were Human, What Kind of a Person Would It Be?
If Twitter were human, what kind of a person would it be? And, more importantly, would you befriend such a person? Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum has an opinion about what she dubbed the "Age of Oversharing":
… at the risk of unilaterally offending 14 million people, I need to say this: If Twitter were a person, it would be an emotionally unstable person. It would be that person we avoid at parties and whose calls we don’t pick up. It would be the person whose willingness to confide in us at first seems intriguing and flattering but eventually makes us feel kind of gross because the friendship is unearned and the confidence is unjustified. The human incarnation of Twitter, in other words, is the person we all feel sorry for, the person we suspect might be a bit mentally ill, the tragic oversharer.
… as Twitter’s popularity wobbles at the tipping point between faddish distraction and worldwide obsession, it’s worth wondering how much of this "connecting" is simply hastening the erosion of our already compromised interpersonal skills. Are we tweeting because we truly want to communicate with a select group of true friends, or because typing has replaced talking and indiscretion has been stripped of all negative connotations? Are most Twitter posts merely inane, or do they carry the faint whiff of the insane?
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The Twittering Office Chair
Instructable user randofo outfitted his office chair with a gas detection sensor, then programmed it to publish updates on Twitter whenever a fart is detected! “Office Chair” now has 2,395 followers on Twitter. Here is a sample of the results:
# I wish I were some other chair
about 15 hours ago from web# He farted right on me again
about 17 hours ago from web# allow me to repeat… ppppfffffffffftttttttttttt
about 18 hours ago from web# Ugh. That was a gross one
about 18 hours ago from web
Link to instructions. Link to Twitter feed. -Thanks, Emily Farris!
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Twittering Towards Gomorrah
Add this to the list of social ills blamed on web 2.0 social networking sites Twitter and Facebook: they could harm your moral values!
Today’s fast-paced media could be making us indifferent to human suffering and should allow time for us to reflect, according to researchers.
They found that emotions linked to moral sense are slow to respond to news and events and have failed to keep up with the modern world.
In the time it takes to fully reflect on a story of anguish and suffering, the news bulletin has already moved on or the next Twitter update is already being read.
As activities such as reading books and meeting friends, where people can define their morals, are taken over by news snippets and fast-moving social networking, the problem could become widespread, researchers warn.
Children could be particularly vulnerable because their brains are still developing.
"If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states and that would have implications for your morality," said Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, from the University of Southern California, and one of the researchers.
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Yes ... Now Even Your Houseplants can Twitter
Pothos has thousands of followers and gives regular updates. Pothos … is also a plant. A built-in moisture meter relays messages about the plant’s current state in order to remind its owner when it needs watering. This is, one has to admit, a potentially wonderful innovation for those of us with thumbs that are anything but green. Still, Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?
Are you slowly killing your houseplants? Is it because you’re too busy Twittering? THEN HAS THE INTERNET GOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOU!
link -via huffingtonpost
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A Book of Tweets
"Thursday Jan. 1, 2009 18:20 Rousing from torpor to go to shops then come back and cook good things. Fried things, in all likelihood."
James Bridle decided to collect all his Twitter messages from the past two years and print them up in a hardcover book. He will make one for you, "if you ask nicely and pay me a lot of money."
Why do such a thing? Bridle explains, "When Twitter is inevitably replaced by something else, I don’t wan to lose those incidentals, the casual asides, the remarks and responses. That’s all really. This seems like a nice way to do it, and I’ll probably do it again in a couple of years."
Link – via izreloaded
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Explaining Twitter
(YouTube Link)
This 4-minute video from Current TV’s SuperNews lampoons the Twitter phenomenon. Why would anyone want hourly updates on the mundane details of other people’s lives? SuperNews explains.
Via Gavin Richardson
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Twitter Throughout History
What if microblogging platform Twitter had been available in the distant past? Sharinator has a sample of Twitter feeds from an ape-man, a caveman, Julius Caesar, and Hitler, plus on from the future! Link -via Digg
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Twittering Surgery
Surgeons have found a new way to send updates to other doctors, medical students, and the public during surgery -by using the social networking site Twitter! Last week, doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit “Tweeted” an operation to remove a tumor from a kidney.
Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.
“We’re trying to use this as a way to get the word out,” Rogers said.
Observers say Twittering about a procedure is a natural outgrowth of the social networking media revolution.
“Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable,” said Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site changehealthcare.com. “It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged.”
Link -via Geek Like Me
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Twitter Stars
Plenty of celebrities are using the micro-blogging platform Twitter. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to match 15 celebrities with a tweet they left (tweets are the short entries on Twitter). I couldn’t, but I may have to start following a few new friends on Twitter! Link
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Tweeting the Super Bowl
Check out this neat interactive graphic of Twitter chatter during the Super Bowl. You can move the slider to see what people were tweeting during each minute of the game. Mouseover to find out what part of the country tweeted these words. Select subjects on the left to focus on the type of tweets. The screenshot here is from …well, you can guess. Link -via Digg
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