In Defense of the New Retweet Feature

Another something has changed on the Internet, so wouldn't you know it, everyone is upset. But the latest major Death of the Internet--the retweet reconfiguration--is a positive change. It is a positive change for more than one reason:

• It preserves the author's intent by preserving their tweet exactly as they wrote it. How many times have you had to truncate someone else's tweet to accommodate for their user name? The original tweeter picked their words carefully, and although it has become an accepted practice to remove select words to make room for retweeting superfluence, that's actually terrible citation practice. As a writer, I love the preservation of intent.
  
• It draws attention to new personalities. More times than I can count I've scanned a tweet and replied to the person who posted it, only then to realize they were retweeting someone else. Putting someone else's user picture, username, and full tweet in my stream forces me to pause and consider it, which is the (presumed) intent of the retweeter.
  
• It does not violate your personal space, so shut up. I've heard that some people find this new feature intrusive or otherwise violating of their personal Twitter space. This is total bullshit. Retweeting has been around since Twitter has been around and it was not considered a violation. Retweets have always been content in your stream put there by people you choose to follow. This has not changed in any way: the content is tagged as "retweeted by so-and-so." Honestly. It's the same thing.
  
• You add nothing of value to a retweet. Another major complaint about this change is that retweets are no longer able to be annotated. But here's the thing: do you really add value when you add "love this" "check this out" or "smart" to a retweet? You do not need to add an extra text to endorse a retweet. You are retweeting it; that is an endorsement. And if you really need to add your own commentary within the tweet (have we forgotten there are venues for commentary outside of Twitter? Maybe you could blog it!), they did not somehow deactivate the old way of doing it. People will still know what you mean if you type "is this you in this video lol RT @username blah blah blah."
  

Let Me Explain Google Wave

Author's note: It's possible that you know all of this. I am writing this down in the hopes that people who didn't get it before might be enlightened by my thought process. Enjoy.

I sought out a Google Wave invitation, not exactly knowing what I was getting into. It was new and I wanted to add it to the list of new technologies I could claim myself as an early adopter of (the list, as I recall it, runs from mini disc to kindle--incidentally, neither lasted very long).

My invitation came on Friday night. I poked it a few times over the weekend, but it ran too slow and there was too much going on at once. I was a member of the Twin Cities Wave and pretty much no other waves. I was confused and I was bored.

(A wave is a message thread made up of individual messages called pings.)

Yesterday I was confused and bored again. But then I joined a few smaller waves with some friends.

Google Wave is the following existing technologies wrapped into one delicious web app burrito:

• Wiki - Anyone can edit any part of a wave and there is a full record of who has done what. This beats wikipedia (or any other wiki I've used) by about a thousand in terms of intuitiveness.
• Message board - A ping (a message within a wave) can be replied to much like a LiveJournal or I Can Has Cheeseburger-style post, with root replies and sub-replies.
• Instant message client - Wave lets you see who is online. It is actually most like the old ICQ, where you can see what another person is typing as they type it. If you open up a wave with one other person--bam. Instant message.
  
• Email - It's not exactly like email, but it really helps to think of it as email: every message is private and includes only the recipients you choose. You can send a wave to a person when they're offline and it will sit in their inbox until they return.
  

These technologies are all a decade old or older. But just because Google Wave hasn't really introduced any new technologies from an end-user standpoint doesn't mean the combination of existing technologies isn't potentially game shifting (but not really game changing, like email was).

It may be obvious how there is some overlap with the functions the items on this list fulfill. But what was not immediately obvious to me is why it's so interesting to slip them all together into one very browser-crashing web application. Here's what I can see so far.

What it will be good for:

• Collaboration - What I never could get wikis to do, Wave does almost effortlessly: one document with multiple editors. Google suggests you use Wave to have everyone at a meeting take notes; maybe smart, maybe dumb. The playback feature is key here--it totally trumps the edit history page on Wikipedia. Much more useful (to me) to see edits progress temporally than see them listed.
  
• Discussion - The problem with message boards is their public nature. The problem with email and Gmail is its linear nature. Wave lets you communicate privately in a message board setting. If you branch off into two topics, no more guessing what a person is replying to--you can create new waves based on old waves. Google Wave provides the sharpest, slickest format for private, lengthy online discussion so far.
  

Wave is important. Being better than a wiki and easier to use for lengthy conversations than email will allow us to have richer conversations more easily. Definite value added. Not a Segway.

There is one problem I can see: the necessity of ubiquity. Sort of like Twitter, there's a critical mass that must be reached before this will be useful to me. I can't collaborate by myself. But give it a year; this thing will be pretty popular but, as I said, I don't think it will change the game on the scale of email.

On Living Your Life

There are a lot of articles online that suggest you delete any evidence of having a good time or living your life from all of your social network pages. “If an employer sees a picture of you drunk at a bar, they will fire you!” these articles seem to suggest. “If you mention a hedonistic allowance, if you blog that your favorite movie is Blazing Saddles, if you use a swear on Twitter, kiss your job goodbye.” I reject this sphere of thought.

The Internet blends our personal lives, our professional lives, and our idealistic lives. This is definitely a good thing, but it means that everyone is your audience. On the internet, unlike talking face to face, you can’t have a distinct work persona, bar persona, and family persona. But it doesn’t mean you should pretend to be a flawless, one dimensional person online.

Please, do not read this as a rant against professional responsibility. I understand there is a time to be interesting and a time to be professional. The best of us can exist in the happy grey area between the two most of the time. I try to.

Instead, read this as a suggestion that we all have personal lives, and to sanitize the Internet of our personalities for the sake of seeming flawless to potential clients or employers is ridiculous. If an employer does not want to hire me because I have interesting, honest content on my social network pages, I can conclude one of two things:

1) The hiring manager is holding me to a very harsh double standard

2) The hiring manager is a very boring person

In both cases, I say: who needs ‘em? I want to work with fun people who appreciate personality and a sense of humor.

So I humbly bare to you my presence across the Internet: my website, my Twitter, my Facebook… hell, even my rarely-used MySpace. I have nothing to hide. I embrace my love for Blazing Saddles and Scotch. I (reluctantly) share with you the (mostly unflattering) pictures of me on Facebook. I want you to know that I--like you--am a complex, interesting human being.

Twitter Pun Storm: Swine Flu Edition

Yesterday on the popular social networking website Twitter.com, I saw a tweet by @doughamlin that went like this:

@doughamlin *Cough* *Cough* *Honk* *Honk* #swanflu

This inspired me to make all sorts of swine flu puns:

@punsultant @doughamlin *cough* *cough* *swirl* *smell* *sip* #wineflu

@punsultant @doniree @doughamlin or, you know, *cough* *cough* *pickles!* #brineflue

@punsultant *oink* *oink* *smoke* *smoke* #swineflue

@punsultant George Bush was a great president! #swineflew

@punsultant *cough* *cough* *forest* #pineflu

@punsultant @doniree my back is coughing! #spineflu

@punsultant I stepped on this device and all of the sudden I started coughing #mineflu

@punsultant I think my fork is sick. #tineflu

@punsultant as I've been waiting here at the bank I've developed a cough and a fever. #lineflue

@punsultant OR my cough and fever only exist between two points #lineflu

@punsultant I am sick as an objectivist. #aynflu

@punsultant @MHMorgan if I do work I might get #tryin'flu.

@punsultant your lady doctor is sick #gyn'flu

@punsultant I am sick, but only when I'm lying on my back #supineflu

Which, in turn, inspired many others to make swine flu puns of their own:

@maxsparber Argh, I be struggling to catch me breath in the salty deep! #brineflu

@maxsparber @punsultant Funny, I had the same experience waiting to get pork in England #swinequeue

@eigenman @punsultant @zwjohnson I feel awful with this illness... I think I'm going to go lie on my back #supineflu

@eigenman @punsultant fuck I must have missed it while I was sacking Halicarnassus #rapineflu

@eigenman @julielyda @punsultant @zwjohnson but I do so enjoy upsetting you Julie! #malignflu command it in #()flu form and I'll stop :D

@eigenman @punsultant @zwjohnson MUCH better #anodineflu

@briannepitt @doniree @punsultant *sniffle* I can't even afford medication... #declinedflu

@doniree @punsultant @briannepitt *cough* *cough* *moooooooo* #bovineflu

@briannepitt @doniree @punsultant "Bueller... Bueller..." #Steinflu3

@doniree @punsultant @briannepitt *cough* *cough* *meow* *purr* #felineflu

@briannepitt @punsultant *cough* *grumble* *gripe* *sneeze* *exaggerated sigh* #whineflu

@doniree @punsultant I'm a poet and didn't know it #rhymeflu

@zwjohnson @punsultant it's not your fork, it's your food! #dineflu

@chessie @punsultant i got sick because i returned my library books late #fineflu ?

@zwjohnson @eigenman @punsultant I actually feel pretty good #fineflu

@doniree @punsultant *cough* *cough* *river* *europe* #rhineflu

@eigenman @punsultant oh JESUS my hypothalamus just threw up #endocrineflu

I'm sure some swine flu puns have slipped through the cracks. Although, I'm sure you're already pretty full up on your swine flu pun quota for today.

Firfox Spellcheck Fail

Not only did Firefox erroneously tell me a common pronoun was misspelled, it provided me with no help in how to spell it correctly:

That's what I said

I do not see a difference here.

The Kind of Spontaneous Publicity That Makes People

I am forever enshrined in Google's Street View feature:





Things are going to start happening to me now!

A Terrible Time

Dear 5:40,

Why must you taunt me?

If you were 5:20, I could take a nap. If you were 6:00 I could be on my way to a fun, social evening filled with Chinese food, bar trivia, and beer. But no, you must place me frustratingly in the middle: nap-desirous, but time deficient.

And that's how blogs are born.

Sincerely,

Sleepy on the Internet

Step 1: Puns. Step 3: Riches

My friend Zach recently brought to my attention a post from the top-notch economic thinkers at NPR's Planet Money blog. They shared with us a drawing, by a kid, inspired by the prompt, "I'm going to be a millionaire because..." The kid drew this:

Yes, that is a picture of an adult male deer with a cutaway of his midsection to reveal some dollars inside him. The conclusion the Planet Money people drew (heh heh) from this picture was:

...puns are the surest route to riches.

How Should I Spend My Stimulus?

When I filed my taxes (actually, when I had my mom do it, because I'm a child), I discovered (my mother informed me) I am receiving $300 in stimulus money for some reason. I am a patriotic American, so I intend to use this money to its exact purpose: to stimulate the economy. Which means I'm going to buy some stuff.

But I'm no fool. I think before I spend. I present to you three options I am considering for my $300.

The Nerd Collection

Register www.punsultancy.com $10

Fill out my Led Zeppelin collection (all their albums except Houses of the Holy) $75

Battlestar Galactica seasons 1, 2, and 2.5 (I own three and four already, which give it a slightly more nerdy edge) $70 (on Amazon)

LOST seasons two, three, and four $125 (on Amazon)

Dark Knight $20

OR

The Comedy Collection

All My Stuff (George Carlin DVD box set of TV specials) or Seinfeld -- the complete series $180

Let's Get Small and A Wild and Crazy Guy (Steve Martin comedy albums) $15

Venture Brothers Season 3 (but only after March 24) $20

Andy Richter Controls the Universe -- the complete series (but only after March 24) $30

Saturday Night Live season one -- $50

OR

The Responsible Adult Collection

Membership to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association $195

Microsponsorship of MinnPost $25

New business cards $20

Socks and underwear $40

Backorder www.artallen.com on Godaddy $20

And there you go. $300 smartly spent.


So what do you think? Which would you spend your $300 on?

Internet Sampler

I have had the good fortune to come across some hilarious internets recently. Here are some of the very best ones, in linkdump form:

First up, this had me in tears. For real. Salty water was streaming down my face:



(via)

Next, from marriedtothesea.com:

This as well, from XKCD:

And finally, via some chickface:

A Classic, Ruined

Brad Neely's videos are no longer available for uncensored viewing on the internet.

Let me say that again: Brad Neely's videos are no longer available for uncensored viewing on the internet.

Censored. On the internet.

That means such classic Brad Neely lines as "No one can fuck my strange guests," and "10s and 20s, what's so funny, fuckin' 20 10" are rendered pointless and boring. And then there are made up words that have roots in swears that are fucking poetry (or, if not poetry, then otherwise genius) that get bleeped. For example, from Babycakes Diary #3: "Sometimes, if I'm fast enough, I catch a glimpse of the Brain Fuckler, just fucklin' the shit out of everyone."

Luckily, I was able to download (legally, for free) the audio to the best song of them all before all of this happened. You may care to take a listen to Be Aggressive by Brad Neely. (For now you may also be interested in watching an unauthorized distribution from you tube dot com. But shh! Keep it under your hat! )

The facebook dot com sez:

All the Brad Neely videos adopted from Super Deluxe are edited--not just bleeped, but images are cut out, too. I thought the title "adult" swim suggested that we could handle this stuff, as well as the huge TV-MA plastered on each video. Really lame.

I can't verify the claim that images have been cut out. I've watched The Role Play Tournament and Bible History, which have, respectively, the most violent and vulgar images of the Neely Collection. I'm not saying this didn't happen, just that I can't verify it. I will say that it would not surprise me in the least.

But, as with all things in the universe except household cleanliness, this is not happening in a vacuum. Brad Neely’s blog says this:

Neely can do nothing about it. SuperDeluxe is gone. We are lucky to have our pieces posted on Adult Swim.

The post after that (which is the most recent post, dated December 21, 2008), says these videos will be returning to the internet in their uncensored form “very soon.” I eagerly await that day.

Which brings me to my point: I am not saying this signals some great defeat of Western ideals. This is a mild affront to Internet Common Sense, but this is also very likely just some oblivious online programing executive who was given authority over a medium his 80-year-old ass is totally clueless about (TED STEVENS). I am merely lamenting the (momentary) stifling of a very specific artist whose work I genuinely admire. Alas.

Post script: I will admit this is not exactly breaking news. SuperDeluxe.com was taken over by Adult Swim on December 17, 2008 (via). Forgive me if I’m still not indifferent. But seriously. Censorship. On the internet. I just had to register my frustration indignation slack-jawed bewilderment.

#1!

I'm not sure how this happened, but I am the #1 result when you Google creepy old man wink (not in quotes). I have secured my rightful place at the top of the creepy/pervy old man hierarchy. *haaaaaaawink*

Tell Me: Is This Funny?

Ok, if you know me you know that somtimes I am the only person who thinks something is funny. It happens a lot, in fact. So I want a reality check.

I made this lol celeb on ROFLrazzi last summer with their lol builder and it never went up. I happen to think it's damn good:



Instead, they've put up things like this, this, this, this, this, and this. None of which is funnier (or even as funny) as the lol celeb I made.

I'm not fishing for compliments. I know I think this is funny. But am I out of touch? Or is this truly not funny?

Look At How Much They've Grown!

My mind has been blown today.

In late 2004, I was at a party. Someone said, "Come over here, Art. I want to show you this internet video." The video was called "Just 2 Guyz" and it went something like this (mildly NSFW):



I lost my shit watching it. We must have played it five times in a row at that party, and at subesquent parties and other social gatherings for months and years.

This video was produced by an internet comedy trio called The Lonely Island. I checked out some of their other stuff in 2005 and thought "Yes, this is pretty good. I hope they get picked up somewhere."

Well, as I discovered from their YouTube page, you may have seen some of their other work:

Dick in a Box

Jizz in my Pants

Laser Cats!

That's right! The Lonely Island was taken onto Saturday Night Live to create their Digital Shorts segments. And Andy Samberg (one of the three dudes, and "Steve" in the Just 2 Guyz video) was even brought onto the full SNL cast. This is yet another example of the blurring line between Main Stream Media and New Media. Score one for talent being justly rewarded.

Some Movie Statistics

I picked five movies and brought them to my room to watch while I sit in bed feeling sorry for myself with this head cold. I couldn't decide which one I wanted to watch, so I decided I would Google each of them (each title in quotes) and the one with the most results would be the winner. I was surprised at the results:

1. The Big Lebowski: about 1,820,000


2. Good Night and Good Luck: about 1,400,000


3. Wayne's World: about 994,000


4. Blazing Saddles: about 913,000


5. Star Trek First Contact: about 295,000

I'm convinced the only reason Wayne's World beat Blazing Saddles is beacuse it necessarily includes results for both Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2.

But, the internet does not lie, folks. The Big Lebowski it is. Probably followed by Good Night and Good Luck.

Guess Who's Coming to Twitter

Last night I got an unexpected email in my inbox:

Hi, artallen.

thecosbyshow (thecosbyshow) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out thecosbyshow's profile here:

http://twitter.com/thecosbyshow

This is really neat! What the Tiwtter feed gives you is little updates on what the actors are doing. For example:

thecosbyshow Phylicia Rashad (Clair) Nominated for Best Actress SAG Award for playing Lena Younger in "A Raisin in the Sun" - http://tinyurl.com/9tclts

This might seem kind of pointless and stupid, but I actually really like it. I actually wish some other shows would do this. Like, if Star Trek TNG or M*A*S*H had feeds like this I'd follow them.


Oh, and then there's the question of how the Cosby Show knew to follow me on Twitter. A quick search.twitter.com excursion finds one two three tweets that contain the word "Cosby."


Also, if you've spoken to me in the past month and a half you know that it's all I can do to wait until Christmas Day to get some Christmas Monies so I can go to Best Buy and buy each of the eight seasons of the Cosby Show for $20 each. Heckuva deal! But getting this email connected for me (for some reason) that I could buy this show on Amazon, and it'd probably be even cheaper. And it is! The Cosby Show: 25th Anniversary Commemorative Edition (1984) $89.99


I cannot wait.

HELL YES

OK ladies, stop holding out on me. Guess what the USA Today said about you:

About a third of young adults 20-26 and 20% of teens say they've sent or posted naked or semi-naked photos or videos of themselves

Haha! Hell yes you did! noodz plz!

Cats on a Slide

In the finest internet traditions of uncreativity and theft, I present to you CATS ON A SLIDE [via, via]