Apathy Sketchpad

Okay, so…

Andrew_Taylor I did consider changing my Twitter username to @ndrewtaylor but it looks stupid in all other contexts. 23 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor lol @andrew_taylor is a nonce 21 minutes ago from web

It’s worth mentioning this account was set up purely for making-this-tweet purposes.

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Yeah? Well YOU LOOK STUPID IN ALL OTHER CONTEXTS! Oh, snap! 19 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor least im not a noncing nonce you fucking nonce 19 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor I’m not at all convinced ‘nonce’ can be used as a verb. 17 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor yeah it can. andrew taylor went noncing 1 day and nonced up a kid. you manchester nonce 16 minutes ago from web

Okay, now bear with me here, because when Friz joins in replies start coming in out of order and things get a tad confusing (more so):

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor I think @ndrewtaylor is going to be my #FollowFriday this week. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle fuck you fatty with shades 14 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor No, I still think that’s ungrammatical. (Also, false.) 13 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @ndrewtaylor You’re an odd individual. 13 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Let’s see if he lasts that long before being thrown off Twitter. 13 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor id have thought you were a grammar nazi. or a nonci (nonce+nazi) lol 12 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle sorry mate cant hear you over all the pies your fucking 11 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Gold. Utter gold. Any more pantomime villains you want to call me? You haven’t called me a terrorist yet. 10 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle How odd. @ndrewtaylor is accusing my friend of being a paedophile, and accusing me of having sex with pies. 10 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor why is your profile a drawing are you so butt ugly 9 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle by friend you mean lover gay boooooooooi 9 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Explicitly, or did he mistype and call you a piedophile? 9 minutes ago from web

I appreciate that this is not the best advert for Twitter.

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor Well, he seems to be a fan portmanteaus. Did you SEE the “nonci” quip? Had me on the FLOOR! 17 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle It was a total nonce-sequitur! HAHA! 16 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle I wouldn’t mind if he’d at least follow me and add to my perceived popularity. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor sall just words mate. 15 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle yeah you thought american Pie was a documentary fatty 15 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor Some of it isn’t even that. 15 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor I think he’s just F5-ing the @ reply page. 14 minutes ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor What’s the deal with@ndrewtaylor? 14 minutes ago from Tweetie

ndrewtaylor @garethpwatkins ha more of his bum buddies coming to white knight him. leave him to nonce, mate 13 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor words words words words words words words words words words yeah i can type words 13 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkins How should I know? 12 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkinsso what are you three like the three nonceketeers 14 minutes ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @ndrewtaylor So I see. Maybe one day you’ll master sentences. 14 minutes ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor I assumed he was your nemesis/evil twin. 6 minutes ago from Tweetie

ndrewtaylor @Andrew_Taylor yeah i bet you love being the master and you want me to be your slave gay boi 3 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @garethpwatkins I personally hope it’s actually@Andrew_Taylor. Like a sort of Fight Club ending. 3 minutes ago from web

frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor @garethpwatkins Oh christ, it has some sort of profile pic. 2 minutes ago from web

ndrewtaylor @frizfrizzle you on about me mate thats my girllfriend your on about 1 minute ago from web

garethpwatkins @frizfrizzle @Andrew_Taylor Can’t see it on Tweetie. I’ll just assume it’s a Swastika. 1 minute ago from Tweetie

frizfrizzle I find @ndrewtaylor’s tweets more fun to read in a Welsh accent. less than a minute ago from web

garethpwatkins @Andrew_Taylor @frizfrizzle Oh God it’s following me. Me and my big mouth. less than 10 seconds ago from Tweetie

And this may be continuing…

prayforyou RT @Forestpelt Please pray that @Forestpelt’s 2 atheist friends will find Christ. Pray that God would shine through @Forestpelt to them. about 1 hour ago from web

Andrew_Taylor @prayforyou This ought to be the single most elegant demonstration that prayer doesn’t work we will ever see. about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to prayforyou

prayforyou We have a challenger saying we will only prove that prayer doesn’t work. Everyone pray so we’ll prove to @Andrew_Taylor the power of prayer. 22 minutes ago from web

Come on then, God. This should be an easy one. Convince two people you exist. I mean, I don’t want to pour scorn on Your infinite power at all, but I can manage this task pretty easily. I’m almost sure that everyone at work is totally convinced I exist. So come on, God. Pull Your finger out.

Call me cocky if you like, but I’m pretty sure I can win this bet. Convincing atheists of his own existence is one of God’s weakest suits. He’s much better at tasks that only involve committed theists.

Maybe it’s all the praying they do.

My last post got me thinking about what the hell Twitter is actually for. It’s strange that it did so well when nobody really knew, but it’s equally strange how long I spent rather enjoying it and not having a good answer when people asked me why. I think partly that’s because I’ve not really embraced it until recently. So here’s what I think is unique about it:

It’s different to instant messengers (IM) firstly because it isn’t instant, but mostly because it’s public: your tweets can (by default) be seen by anyone in the world. That means it’s less of a one-on-one conversation and more of a group chat.

It’s different to blogging because of the attitude: it asks ‘what are you doing’ and it won’t let you prattle on about even that for more than 140 characters. That means that most tweets you see are pretty trivial stuff you wouldn’t care if you missed but are, in the moment, of interest. It works best if you follow more people than you could reasonably keep track of, and dip in and out of the stream as if it were an IRC channel, so again it’s more like group chat, but…

It’s different to IRC because of the ‘networking’ side of it: in a chat room (IRC is ‘internet relay chat’ and is a form of online group-chat favoured mostly by awful nerds) you see everything in the ‘room’ you’re in, but on Twitter you see what your friends are saying, even if they’re friends with other people you don’t know. If you have a good client such as Twhirl then you can also see what anyone says on a particular topic and anything anyone says that is directed at or that mentions you.

At any given point there are thousands of discussions taking place, and you should generally see whichever are relevant to you by topic or by friendship. You can chime in at any time, even with people you don’t know. To some extent people find themselves ‘grouped’ by a handful of well-known users that loads of people follow — mostly difficult-to-spell celebrities. The tag ‘#badmovieclub‘ was invented a few days ago because at 9PM yesterday Graham Linehan watched ‘The Happening’ with his Twitter friends, who generated something like 30,000 tweets in 86 minutes. They’re going to do it again in a month, probably with the 2006 version of The Wicker Man. I honestly don’t think Linehan could stop them if he wanted to. Phill Jupitus was working that evening, so he organised a second screening at midnight. I’m sure it could have happened without a celebrity endorsement, but it would have taken longer to spread. So Twitter can create events: for further example, this afternoon a friend of mine (I say friend; I’ve never met the guy and know him better by his Twitter username than his real name) went to an event called ‘#flashdate‘ organised on Twitter and met some people. Twitter can also make normal events more social: loads of people watched Barack Obama’s inauguration with a laptop and got live opinion from around the world as they did so. (The BBC have tried this a couple of times, but it worked a lot better on Twitter.) Even small events — I left Twhirl running while I watched QI this evening and got a couple of comments from relative strangers about that as it was on. And it was the repeat. This afternoon I had a look at the Guardian crossword, and because that’s a relatively common Saturday afternoon activity, it was eventually completed by a collaborative effort between hundreds of Peter Serafinowicz‘ followers. When he ran out of crossword he asked his followers to send more cryptic clues for him to solve. Anything you do that other people are doing, you can do together. Anything you are doing at all, if you’re Stephen Fry. Who knew being stuck in a lift was so interesting?

It’s also a great place to vent. You can shout at Twitter and if enough people follow you then you’ll get some sympathy (or told off) and you’ll never feel like you’re whining because you’re supposed to discuss pointless trivia on Twitter. Some companies even watch the feed to see what aspects of their products annoy people. At least once I had someone let me know that the latest version fixed my problem (bizarrely, they replied with a blog comment). I’m sure I get more done at work since I can tweet from Launchy.

It’s a strange thing, Twitter, but it’s a good thing to have around. Oh, and if you don’t already, you can follow me. I assume anyone reading this far down my blog might want to do that.

Twitter have, for the US election, launched a sub-site which constantly feeds you the latest tweets from or about the candidates. It’s pretty good, but by far the most entertaining thing is the horde of Republican trolls who appeared out of nowhere with absurd opinions when the McCain mob realised that every single post was pro-Obama. Here are a few from around now:

moms4prezpalin Looks like Obama is an anti-semite, just like Buchanan http://tinyurl.com/4fl7e8 #

wataboutRONPAUL Obama winning in polls by morons who play Second Life who are too lazy to vote anyway. Who cares. McCain will still win. #

Yes, what about Ron Paul? Since that’s the question literally nobody is asking.

captured1 because you don’t think clearly enough to vote. Media lies constantly, Banks have OUR MONEY-not theirs – Whats right? McCain is ONLY choice #

I have literally no idea what this one is about.

omgiamgoingnuts The only way obama wins – he cheats. Period. ACORN #

McCain’s supporters do seem to love using the word ‘acorn’. None of them ever feel the need to explain what it might mean. Don’t they know about confirmation bias? Obama supporters aren’t going to look it up if it might make Obama look bad. I have looked it up, but I don’t understand what the problem is.

mjelli01 McCain has one powerful thing on his side – people that pray!!! Good Night #

Please rely on that.

NObama4thisMama Obama sued Citicorp (a bank) on behalf of ACORN to give out loans to the underdeserving. They foreclosed which led to the downturn. FACT! #

It’s nice to know economics is so simple. FACT!

jdbegg I am a real vet, disabled for that matter and Obama/Biden won’t do squat for this country. #

Essentially, you’re argument is that you understand politics because you were patriotic or stupid enough to get yourself badly injured in a war?

teddyroosevelt I’M NOT ANGRY. I BELIEVE SENATOR OBAMA IS A GOOD MAN, JUST NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT. DOES THAT MAKE ME AN ANGRY MAN? #

No, the fact you shout all the time makes you an angry man. teddy is a bit of a single-issue troll: every one of his tweets is about what he calls the “THE LONG UNANSWERED QUESTION, WHAT HAS OBAMA DONE TO QUALIFY HIM FOR PRESIDENT?”. (A real smart tack when your VP pick is Sarah Palin.) It remains unanswered because he cannot read, only write. I suspect his computer has a keyboard but no screen. Similarly,

ogerme Name one significant Barack Obama accomplishment, since being appointed to the U.S. Senate. #

I replied to this to say “He put the Federal Checkbook online — which Palin promised to do not knowing Obama already had.” Ogerme hasn’t tweeted since. This was about two weeks ago.

zettytwine is an interesting case because they’ve protected their updates but have no followers and follow nobody, so nobody can read anything they write. Presumably it still appears on the election feed, though.

mylittlehadji Does Obama support Sharia laws in the US??? Think about it folks #

No?

letstalkchange McCain’s idea for withdrawing troops was to do it after winning. Obama voted to lose a war. And this is good judgment? #

You really think that Iraq is something you win or lose, don’t you? You’d rather ‘win’ a war than ‘lose’ it, even if winning is actually worse?

…and so on. There’s so many of them out there, and many of the dumbest have had their accounts suspended already. They’re good fun though.