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11th February, 2007

Twitterings

Filed under: Random Mumblings, Technology, — bsag @ 07:02 PM

In a fit of messing about, I signed up for Twitter this week. I haven’t yet decided if it’s fun or a total waste of time (or both), but if you’re on Twitter too, my username is (naturally) bsag, and I’d love to know yours.

Incidentally, if you use a Mac, Twitterrific makes using Twitter much easier, and — importantly — easier to turn off when you need to concentrate.

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I signed up (as "dubh") a wee while ago , but only really started using it last week. Like you, I'm still working out if it's for me.

People seem to use it in quite different ways: some go for stream of consciousness, others for occasional pithy one line blog postings. I think I prefer the latter...

by Alan @ 11/02/2007 8:14 pm • Permalink •
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I get the impression that this would be far too intrusive for me, so I haven't tried it yet. A group of us are debating the nature of "Declarative living" at the moment.

by andyp @ 12/02/2007 9:29 am • Permalink •
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Alan: Yes, I think it could work for ideas that pop into your head that aren't substantial enough for a blog posting. I was so inspired by your lovely haiku twitters that I've been having a go at writing a few myself (my first ever, actually!). The limited word count is pretty much perfect for the form, and it makes you think a bit more.

andyp: I know what you mean, but using Twitterrific, I find it less intrusive than IM. With IM, I feel as if I have to reply straight away, whereas Twitter is more of an asynchronous conversation (when it's a conversation at all). Plus, I can just quite Twitterrific completely when I'm working, then log back on when I'm not and catch up with the twitters I've missed. I don't know if I'll keep going with it, but it's fun for now.

by bsag @ 12/02/2007 10:48 pm • Permalink •
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"...ideas that pop into your head that aren't substantial enough for a blog posting"

Exactly. And we all have mobiles to share the thought.

As for the haiku... I saw someone else doing one or two, and thought that might be a good way to constrain things (constraint leads to creativity, I find). It also seems to make mundane things sound quite cool and mysterious (your descriptions of what you saw on the telly being a good case

But now I'm finding the haiku thing so addictive that I'm overdoing it.

by Alan @ 13/02/2007 7:11 am • Permalink •
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You may find a lot of interesting people and... interesting thoughts (of course sometimes it may boring) there... Try it

by TJ @ 13/02/2007 5:29 pm • Permalink •
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Japanese poets are getting annoyed at westerners hijacking Haiku and changing its rules.

A simple definition is that it is a three-line poem with syllable counts of 5, 7, 5, with no rhyme and no particular metre; though purists would say that it should carry a reference to a season of the year, however obliquely. For instance "Ski slope" would lead you to infer that it is wintertime. This makes it both more difficult and more fun.

For example, a piece of “haikai no ku”

Harvest moon rising

Casts a golden shadow on

Wheat before reaping.

by Jonathan Briggs @ 13/02/2007 7:21 pm • Permalink •
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Haikus hastily thrown together, derided by Jonathan Briggs

in er... winter. Well, rules are made to be broken!

by ThoughtBadger @ 13/02/2007 10:27 pm • Permalink •
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I didn't deride anything, I merely pointed out that the Japanese literati are as sensitive about their verse forms as the French about the Anglicisation of their language. The Japanese poet would regard it as a moot point whether any Haiku written in any other language than Japanese can indeed be a Haiku at all.

The English language is so flexible and all embracing, we tend to absorb a foreign word into the language if it is the best one for the job. Clive looked at a veranda, saw that it was good, and the English adopted it for that style of architectural feature. Surprisingly the French also adopted the word essentially as is, probably because it wasn't English! The Germans may have changed it to something like "Theprotruberanceonthefrontofthehousewithslimpillarsandaroof", but in but in German of course; the Welsh language uses a similar technique of changing a description into a single word, as in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch, which means something akin to the church by the stream etc., etc.

So not a criticism, just an observation ThoughtBadger.

by Jonathan Briggs @ 14/02/2007 3:07 pm • Permalink •
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Alan: Yes, the haiku TV review might catch on!

TJ: I'm quite enjoying it so far, though my posting frequency varies a lot and depends on how busy I am doing other things.

Jonathan Briggs and Thoughtbadger: Oh, I'm sure Japanese poets do get upset about it, and I would never claim to be writing genuine haiku. Apart from anything else, I'm a rank beginner, so even getting the syllables right is a big challenge, let along making it actually sound good. But practice is good, and most Japanese arts strongly promote the idea that you must practice to strive for perfection, and that you never reach perfection and are constantly learning throughout your life. It's a lovely, challenging art form, and even it it's mangled Western form, I think Japanese should be proud of their cultural export.

by bsag @ 14/02/2007 7:44 pm • Permalink •
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Sorry Jonathan, my earlier post was supposed to start with an EJ Thribb haiku, but unfortunately the line breaks disappeared. I was not intending to be critical of yourself.

by ThoughtBadger @ 15/02/2007 10:04 pm • Permalink •
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Hi...

I'm twitter username=tychoish...

while I initially used twitterific (and I love the icon), I have to say that the application "twitterpost" passes twitters along as notifications to growl...

also I found a twiterpost script that can work as a Quicksilver action.... so that's awesome

best, sam

by tycho @ 28/02/2007 4:21 am • Permalink •
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OK, I caved in the end, and I'm andypiper on Twitter.

Personally, I'm using Twitterlex on my Mac OS X Dashboard, which also posts updates to Growl.

by andyp @ 28/02/2007 6:03 am • Permalink •

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11th February, 2007

Twitterings