Emergent Noise

Twitter allows to reply to people you are following by appending an “@<username>” in front of the message. But unfortunately, the person you are trying to reply to doesn’t see this reply if they, in turn, are not following you. Of course this impedes some communication , but it turned out that all you had to do was change a setting to see “All Replies” , rather “Replies from people I am following only”.

If you don’t want to be missing out people’s replies to you : 

Just log on to Twitter , Click Settings and then the Notices Tab. You can then set the replies to “all @ replies” .

I also find it wierd that you can only direct message someone who is following you. That leaves almost no chance for one to build a network via Twitter. It seems to just enhance your existing network. Twitter, I think has the potential to provide simplistic (read “unlike Facebook”) social networking, if they could only get their act together.

Twitter has gone from a microblogging service, to a source of news , a social platform and even a communication forum.

But the Twitter website and the Twitter interface is completely bird-brained when it comes to facilitating these unintended uses of their service. The solution ? TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is an Adobe AIR application (read “black and cross-platform”) that provides an intuitive and easy to use interface to Twitter right on your Desktop. Your replies, Direct messages and Tweets from friends are shown clearly in three panels (which can be customised). You can send Tweets with the click of a button. Your URLs can be shortened using one of many URL shortening services right in the menu and you can post images to Twitter.

And finally, as if that was not enough. TweetDeck will work offline too and queue your tweets to be updated seamlessly the next time you are connected to the Internet.

I think I can stop looking for better ways to access Twitter.

You can TweetDeck from Tweetdeck.com .

*Adobe AIR needs to be installed first (if you aren’t nerdy enough to have that done already).

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xkcd.com/416

A man condemned to be hanged was sentenced on Saturday. “The hanging will take place at noon,” said the judge to the prisoner, “on one of the seven days of next week. But you will not know which day it is until you are so informed on the morning of the day of the hanging.”

The judge was known to be a man who always kept his word. The prisoner, accompanied by his lawyer, went back to his cell. As soon as the two men were alone, the lawyer broke into a grin. “Don’t you see?” he exclaimed. “The judge’s sentence cannot possibly be carried out.”

“I don’t see,” said the prisoner.

“Let me explain They obviously can’t hang you next Saturday. Saturday is the last day of the week. On Friday afternoon you would still be alive and you would know with absolute certainty that the hanging would be on Saturday. You would know this before you were told so on Saturday morning. That would violate the judge’s decree.”

“True,” said the prisoner.

“Saturday, then is positively ruled out,” continued the lawyer. “This leaves Friday as the last day they can hang you. But they can’t hang you on Friday because by Thursday only two days would remain: Friday and Saturday. Since Saturday is not a possible day, the hanging would have to be on Friday. Your knowledge of that fact would violate the judge’s decree again. So Friday is out. This leaves Thursday as the last possible day. But Thursday is out because if you’re alive Wednesday afternoon, you’ll know that Thursday is to be the day.”

“I get it,” said the prisoner, who was beginning to feel much better. “In exactly the same way I can rule out Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. That leaves only tomorrow. But they can’t hang me tomorrow because I know it today!”

… He is convinced, by what appears to be unimpeachable logic, that he cannot be hanged without contradicting the conditions specified in his sentence. Then on Thursday morning, to his great surprise, the hangman arrives. Clearly he did not expect him. 

And sure enough, he didn’t know he was going to be hanged, let alone known the day! 

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyNyKpDnaOA"]

available here : http://picasaweb.google.com/nachiketvartak/IndiaJuly2008

XKCD does a search for phrases in the blogosphere.