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What I would have written

dcurt.is

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: What I would have written

#51

There must be a group of people somewhere in the world that actually uses Twitter. I've never met any of them in real life, but occasionally I see things like this online that suggests that however far fetched the idea might be, it's nonetheless true. Amazing that this author is so upset about what this random website has done to his life. I have no idea how he could have found enough value in it to have integrated i…

Casual networking with people you would not want or dare to directly communicate with.

Re: What I would have written

#52
post #38
post #37

> And yet I see no solution to this problem. How hard can it be not to tweet?? I came here just to say this, and saw that many others had just said the same thing, and yet I felt the urge to say it again, myself! O, irony! Seriously though, Twitter isn't like TV or smoking. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substance there is; TV isn't really addictive, in a medical/chemical sense, but it's so easy -- you sit on…

Since when are TVs "a default"? I don't think I've watched TV in a big while, I don't even remember TVs being generally on around me.

[deleted]

Re: What I would have written

#53
post #48

There must be a group of people somewhere in the world that actually uses Twitter. I've never met any of them in real life, but occasionally I see things like this online that suggests that however far fetched the idea might be, it's nonetheless true. Amazing that this author is so upset about what this random website has done to his life. I have no idea how he could have found enough value in it to have integrated i…

If you don't use it, it's probably hard to understand.

But most successful online services are attractive even without knowing much about them. Tweeter doesn't feel attractive at all.

The consequence is that after seven years Tweeter simply ignored by half of the IT population.

Re: What I would have written

#54

I see a solution to the problem. Delete your twitter account, now. It's hard to sustain willpower indefinitely but easy to use it in a burst long enough to delete an account.

Twitter has a 30 day waiting period on account deletion to subvert this. What you need to do is set your password to something really obvious and disable two-factor.

Re: What I would have written

#55

There must be a group of people somewhere in the world that actually uses Twitter. I've never met any of them in real life, but occasionally I see things like this online that suggests that however far fetched the idea might be, it's nonetheless true. Amazing that this author is so upset about what this random website has done to his life. I have no idea how he could have found enough value in it to have integrated i…

I was extremely surprised to hear on the radio yesterday that the Shebab (the group responsible for the mass killing and ostage situation in the kenyan mall) does its public communications through... Twitter, of all things.

A silicon valley webapp used by somalian terrorists. The modern, "connected" world is weird sometimes.

To answer your question, and although I don't use it myself, some of my friends tell me they use it a bit like IRC: when you want to discuss of a particular topic, instead of joining a particular channel you ask your question with a specific hashtag (hey, IRC channel names are hashtags after all!) and it starts a discussion. It's like a more fluid IRC where chatrooms are created, deleted, merge and fork all the time. It sound good in principle, but I like the open and distributed IRC more.

Re: What I would have written

#56
post #33
post #7

'and every fucking thing I think about, I also think, “How could I fit that into a tweet that lots of people would favorite or retweet?”' That, as I see it, is the problem – not twitter or 140char limits or any of the other stuff Dustin raises, it's the desire for external validation (and I can't help but imagine him furiously clicking reload on his own blog post to see how fast his Kudos score is climbing…) My takea…

On external validation, I wondered about whether a social network or community with a karma system could fake that validation for each user to motivate content creation or positive sentiment? e.g., if I actually got 5 upvotes on a HN comment, but HN showed it to me as 54, and then 78 and then 104 on subsequent comments, would I be more likely to contribute more? As a new user, would I be drawn in deeper? It wouldn't…

The upvote count for OTHER people's comments in now hidden. you still always see them on your own comments. So it still does have public validation mechanism.

I think you can't see it on other people's comments because this forces you to up vote something only if YOU like it and not based on what other users think. Eg on FB, a lot of people "like" stuff just because it already has a lot of likes (the need to conform)

Re: What I would have written

#57
post #40
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>*"Dustin's problem is similar in some respects to an addiction (which he alludes to), so perhaps the solution is treating it as such;" The issue I see with this is that it takes the way we use technology for granted. It's just like saying "that stuff is here to stay, learn to deal with it". Which it is true in practice, but doesn't have to be true necessarily. We could have opted as a society to not tolerate those k…

There's something very Chinese about banning social media with the ostensible goal of encouraging people to focus on their work. (Also, where do you stop with your "addictive and mind crushing" barrier? Other forums, like HN? Video games? Fiction books? Theatre? "Thought-negating" music?)

I like the "where does it stop" part, but i withhold my upvote because of the chinese reference. Because I feel that's a bit racist (despite the great firewall of china). Besides, don't they have their own Facebook, google equivalents? So i think the idea isn't to stop people from using such services but to stop them from using such AMERICAN services (after the PRISM incident, it looks like they were the smart ones after all)

Re: What I would have written

#58
Is he seriously comparing himself with Picasso? I knew Mr Curtis thinks quite highly of himself, but this surprises me.

Just get off Twitter if you really feel this way, Mr. Curtis. It's not that hard.

Re: What I would have written

#59

There must be a group of people somewhere in the world that actually uses Twitter. I've never met any of them in real life, but occasionally I see things like this online that suggests that however far fetched the idea might be, it's nonetheless true. Amazing that this author is so upset about what this random website has done to his life. I have no idea how he could have found enough value in it to have integrated i…

My main passion is Heavy Metal. As a consumer, I use Twitter to keep up to date with tours, releases, news by following bands and music media. I use it to interact with bands.

I also have a band which has a Twitter account which is used to keep people up to date as mentioned above, and I have a music blog twitter account which I use to review gigs etc...

I have a pretty good Metal Twitter list here if anyone is interested: https://twitter.com/ColinHugh/lists/metal-news

Re: What I would have written

#60

I don't do twitter, but I have wondered what it would be to write or read a longer work composed within the limits of 140 character chunks - parceled out over time. It is not so much the size limitation on tweets as it is the disconnect between them that causes the dissolution of bigger ideas.

@samuelpepys is steadily posting the diary of Samuel Pepys - a famous diarist from the 17th century.
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