notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

2010-02-04

post/370381367

photo 10:37:50
revdancatt on the technology behind the new Guardian Zeitgeist (see also).

revdancatt on the technology behind the new Guardian Zeitgeist (see also).

2009-12-07

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quote 20:26:00
“ Until, that is, the Twitter UI gang gets off its tuckus and writes the fifteen lines of code it would take to fold real-time fav tracking directly into the main service. Why the retweet thingy is there and this isn’t is beyond me. ”

Dean Allen, creator of the just-closed favrd, in a comment on The Stars Look Down on Jeffrey Zeldman’s site. +1. (previously.)

(On the other hand, now favourites have been “private”, or at least obscure, for so long, I’ve heard people saying that making them more visible would stop them using them. Sigh.)

2009-12-01

post/265305205

quote 21:37:48
“ Using the new “native” retweet system gives your followers more control over their own stream. It’s the courteous thing to do. And if you wish to add a comment to your retweet, Tweetie 2.1 lets you do that ”

Give Retweets a Chance at the Tweetie support site.

This post succinctly sums up the advantages to “proper” (as opposed to “folk”) “retweets”, and they rest on one thing: metadata. As with replies, doing so using Twitter’s API methods gives users the metadata they need to do useful things: in the case of retweets, collapse repeats, and hide or ignore retweets. Not doing so deprives them of it, forcing them to scrape for data (or just put up with things). Don’t do that.

2009-09-10

Continuous…

text 15:41:00

These riffs on Linda Stone’s phrase have all been posted to Twitter by people I follow. Since some of them are private, these are presented without attribution.

  • Continuous Partial Precipitation
  • Continuous Renal Attrition
  • Continuous Anal Retention
  • Continuous Partial Mention
  • Continuous Complete Distraction
  • Continuous Partial Irritation
  • Continuous Partial Tension
  • Continuous Partial Intention
  • Continuous Partial Aggravation
  • Continuous Partial Exhaustion
  • Continuous Partial Gumption
  • Continuous Dolly Parton
  • Continuous Partial Apprehension
  • Continuous Partial Intertwingling
  • Continuous Partial Airport
  • Continuous Partial Teacup
  • Continuous Emergency Month
  • Continuous Partial Location
  • Continuous Partial Equations
  • Continuous Peak Neologism
  • Continuous Partial Future
  • Continuous Partial Comprehension

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have over the past few weeks. Keep them coming.

2009-09-08

post/182722946

quote 11:00:31
“ Postcodes are short URLs for space. ”

2009-08-25

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quote 13:10:11
“ Twitter feels like conversation, ephemeral, written on water, designed to fade away. Blogging feels like notes, writing as thinking and rehearsing, to be kept and remembered, written on paper.
And actually writing on paper, that’s still the best. ”

russell davies: written in water, written on paper (via ruminant)

It took me three years to realise that ephemerality on Twitter was generally regarded as a feature.

2009-08-09

Simon Willison’s Twitter client

text 22:33:38

I went through pages of history so you don’t have to. Sounds like it’d be pretty easy to copy.

Finally broke down and wrote my own stupid twitter client on the train… it does groups! (July 3rd)
@rboulton as a matter of fact I did :) mongodb + about 100 lines of Python (July 3rd)
Having your own Twitter client that saves tweets to a persistent store is AWESOME - group support, search over just people you follow… (July 4th)
my dumb home grown Twitter client is now powered by djng! (July 4th)
@TrevorGerzen it’s really simple - just a script that dumps tweets in to mongodb every 60 seconds, and a one-page Django app that shows them (July 4th)
@rboulton @cackhanded haven’t decided if I’ll release my client yet (July 6th)
@JimPurbrick my custom Twitter client now archives everything from people I follow (in MongoDB), it’s a really useful feature (July 8th)

Twitter and friend-only searches

text 22:05:00

Roo Reynolds posted a pair of photos (1, 2) to highlight a feature he says Twitter needs: searching the updates only of people you follow.*

I don’t disagree, but Twitter might find implementing followed-only search difficult. This is because Summize (the acquired company that provides their search functionality) is somewhat disconnected from Twitter proper: it still has own domain (which stayed up on Thursday), for example. Incidentally, this disjoint nature means that people who run private (hi!) aren’t indexed at all.

It’s also why deleted posts aren’t deleted on search, but then another failing actually saves you: the search index is only goes back a few weeks.

Probably the only practical solution in the short term, given I doubt Twitter have the time or inclination to fix these issues, is to fix it yourself. Simon Willison has started running his own local DB, largely for search purposes. It’s tempting to do the same.

* I commented over there, but thought it was worth pulling out for a larger audience.

post/159318568

quote 21:48:09
“ When users delete a post on Twitter, it disappears from their user profile but not from Twitter’s search-engine results. Tweleted uses this loophole to dig up deleted posts. ”
Tweleted: Making Mischief on Twitter in Time Magazine. I think I’ve remarked on this before, but it’s probably worth repeating.

2009-08-07

post/157831437

quote 11:27:46
“ What’s more depressing: The bored inanity of the Newsnight interview? That an event this unimportant is reported by the Guardian? Or the Guardian’s relentlessly anti-Twitter commenters? Tough call. ”
Phil Gyford’s comment on his bookmark of the Guardian’s transcript of Evan Williams of Twitter on Newsnight.

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