Tag: Twitter

• Tools of the moment

  An ongoing series Pretty much everything from my last update. Kindle Paperwhite. After years of holding out, we got one last Black Friday and I finally started using it. I wasn’t against e-readers before; I just usually prefer print or audiobooks. But the e-ink screen and appealing handling of the Paperwhite is quite nice. Safari…

  Feb 23, 2023

  # Kindle, Safari, technology, tools of the moment, Twitter

• Please (don’t) clap

  Robin Sloan: Twitter’s only conclusion can be abandonment: an overdue MySpace-ification. I am totally confident about this prediction, but that’s an easy confidence, because in the long run, we’re all MySpace-ified. The only question, then, is how many more possibilities will go unexplored? How much more time will be wasted? Wishful descriptions of Twitter as…

  Apr 27, 2022

  # social media, technology, Twitter

• 4 lessons from the Trump years

  It’s been a tradition on this blog since its inception to do a kind of presidential postmortem for the outgoing commander-in-chief (see Bush and Obama), assessing both the political takeaways and my personal life during their administration. (I planned to publish this on Inauguration Day, but as the actual end date of the Trump administration…

  Jan 13, 2021

  # Abraham Lincoln, America, COVID-19, Donald Trump, federalism, Hamilton, politics, presidents, Republicans, Twitter

• How I’ve made my social media better

  Here are some browser extensions and tools I’ve been using to make my experience on the Big Three social networks better: Twitter Since 2012 I’ve been using the extension Fix Twitter [update: now defunct] to swap the right and left columns to put the feed back on the left, as it was pre-2012. Mostly cosmetic,…

  Mar 23, 2018

  # Facebook, Instagram, social media, technology, Twitter

• Ursula Le Guin on the ‘media golem’

  A pox upon me for never having read Ursula Le Guin before she died last week. I’ll get right on that, as her reputation is high among many different kinds of readers. Before diving into her novels, though, I encountered her blog (an 88 year old blogging!) on which last year she posted “Constructing the Golem”, pretty…

  Jan 31, 2018

  # America, Donald Trump, Nicholas Carr, Politico, politics, social media, technology, Twitter, Ursula Le Guin

• If the President Tweets It

  When the National Review is calling Trump out, it’s worth reading: [Trump’s] tweets, however, are exposing something else in many of Trump’s friends and supporters — an extremely high tolerance for dishonesty and an oft-enthusiastic willingness to defend sheer nonsense. Yes, I know full well that many of his supporters take him “seriously, not literally,” but…

  Mar 24, 2017

  # Donald Trump, National Review, politics, presidents, Republicans, Richard Nixon, social media, Twitter

• Let me exhort you

  Alan Jacobs: Let me exhort you, people: close Twitter and read a book. Take delight in something well-made, well-made because the author loved her task and sought to bring her best intellectual resources to bear on her work. Take delight in words crafted to increase the world’s store of intelligence, to share what the author…

  Feb 21, 2017

  # books, social media, technology, Twitter

• How Tweet It Is

  At the beginning of December I had my wife change my Twitter password so I couldn’t access it. I’ve learned that I’m a cold turkey guy. Maybe I have some elements of an addictive personality, because for things like social media that act as mini dopamine triggers, I can’t use them moderately. I’m either on…

  Jan 4, 2016

  # life, social media, technology, Twitter

• Make Yourselves Whole Again: On ‘Dataclysm’ and ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’

  In a sloppy but understandable attempt at satire, Justine Sacco tweeted: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Then she got on a long plane ride to South Africa. During the flight her tweet went viral, enraging the easily enraged bastions of social media and catapulting the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet around…

  Jun 5, 2015

  # books, Christian Rudder, Dataclysm, dating, Internet, Jon Ronson, Justine Sacco, OkCupid, privacy, review, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, social media, synchronicity, technology, Twitter

• The Millennials Will Be All Right

  I finally read Joel Stein’s Time magazine piece on the Millennial Generation, called “The Me Me Me Generation.” For the record, unlike some of my Millennial cohorts I hate “selfies” (the term and the thing it describes), I don’t feel entitled to a great job right out of school, and I don’t sleep next to…

  May 21, 2013

  # America, Baby Boomers, Facebook, Instagram, Joel Stein, Millennials, technology, time, Twitter

• Pruning the Rosebushes: What Not to Share

  There’s a scene in Saving Private Ryan when Matt Damon’s Pvt. Ryan and Tom Hanks’ Capt. Miller sit and chat, waiting for the impending German offensive to hit their French town. Ryan’s three brothers had recently died and he can’t remember their faces. The Captain tells him to think of a specific context, something they’d shared…

  Jan 3, 2012

  # attention, Facebook, Instagram, life, Matt Damon, Saving Private Ryan, social media, technology, Tom Hanks, Twitter, WordPress