{"id":3226,"date":"2009-02-11T13:33:38","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T18:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3226"},"modified":"2009-02-11T13:33:38","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T18:33:38","slug":"i-tought-i-taw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/i-tought-i-taw\/","title":{"rendered":"I Tought<\/em> I Taw…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’ll go out on a limb here: Twitter<\/a> “tweets” are the\u00a0Schr\u00f6dinger’s cats<\/a> of Internet phenomena. In general, they exist or do not exist as long as you ignore Twitter altogether; when you actively pay attention, though, each tweet instantly crystallizes into a state of aliveness (Whoa, How about that<\/em>, Ha!<\/em>, or Hmm…<\/em>) or death — forgotten at once. (My own experience indicates that tweets, on average, have a half-life of about two-thirds of a second before the inevitable decay into memes, interstitials, youtubes, and other elementary particles.)<\/p>\n

So I haven’t enthusiastically leapt aboard the USS Twitter yet. Life’s too ephemeral as it is, y’know? That said, I do like seeing what others get out of (and sometimes put into) it.<\/p>\n

For example, there’s Jon, of the newly (to me) discovered Ransom Note Typography<\/em> blog (subtitle: “Discontinue Use If Rash Develops”). In a late-December post<\/a>, Jon exhaustively documents his favorite tweets from 2008. After a brief introduction describing his criteria for selection, he lays out his month-by-month catalog of several tweets per month.<\/p>\n

Here’s a small sample:
\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nckwinny<\/a> Just for fun: wear a ski cap around your house, catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror & have a heart attack thinking it’s a stranger. 11:44 AM Jan 28th<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nftrain<\/a> “EXCELLENT PowerPoint. Fetch me fresh trousers.” 10:26 AM Feb 12th<\/a> [Ed. note: all of Paul Ford’s ftrain<\/a> tweets are six words long. No more. No less.<\/em>]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nscottsimpson<\/a> “Am I being a J-E-R-K, Dad?” OH SHIT THEY LEARN TO SPELL. 4:03 PM Apr 29th<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nAuntMarvel<\/a> Dear spider on the wall: The only reason you are still alive is because I’m holding a sleeping baby. Get any closer and HOLYCRAPWHEREDYOUGO? 10:20 PM Aug 15th<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nfireland<\/a> I don\u2019t care what the DSM-IV says, you CAN go crazy from eating too many tequila worms. Take it from EEEEEE CHUPACABRA IN MY HAIR YOU GUYS 8:55 PM Nov 6th<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\nsecretsquirrel<\/a> Company XMas party last night. Awoke with ‘Liver Transplant’ written on hand. I didn’t get one so I can only assumed I performed one. Again. 2:36 AM Dec 19th<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The entire list nearly lures me into full-blooded participation. (Nearly.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll go out on a limb here: Twitter “tweets” are the\u00a0Schr\u00f6dinger’s cats of Internet phenomena. In general, they exist or do not exist as long as you ignore Twitter altogether; when you actively pay attention, though, each tweet instantly crystallizes into a state of aliveness (Whoa, How about that, Ha!, or Hmm…) or death — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37,5,713],"tags":[977,978,979,980,981],"class_list":{"0":"post-3226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-onlineworld","7":"category-06_writing","8":"category-humor-writing_cat","9":"tag-twitter","10":"tag-tweets","11":"tag-schrodingers-cat","12":"tag-ransom-note-typography","13":"tag-best-of-lists","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-Q2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3226"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3240,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3226\/revisions\/3240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}