Category Archives: Microblogging

Oh BTW I’m a Twilight Fan

Please join me in a moment of silence, as we mourn the cruel and senseless murder of the series’ best character:

Very, very convenient—too convenient—that my truck would wheeze its last wheeze just weeks after Edward and I had agreed to our lopsided compromise, one detail of which was that he be allowed to replace my truck when it passed on. Edward swore it was only to be expected; my truck had lived a long, full life and then expired of natural causes. According to him.

Rest in peace, old-timer. 😔

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Smarter

I’ve been comparing past thoughts and projects to ones I have now, and it seems like I’ve gotten smarter. I’m not sure if that’s actually true or if it just seems that way because my friends are all smarter than me and I haven’t been spending time with them. One more reason to spend more time with them, I guess!

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Microblogging

When my youngest child was about two, I turned off all my phone’s Facebook notifications. Back then Twitter was still bearable, so I lingered there a little while, but it didn’t take long for me to quit social media entirely.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but there are some things I miss. The biggest and most obvious was staying up to date on the lives of people I hadn’t seen in years but still cared about, but I also missed the writing. A tweet is definitely not an essay, but the process of writing both is remarkably similar. And just like with my essays, sharing my little thoughts, jokes, ideas, and meditations publicly was much more fulfilling than keeping them inside my head, even when the audience was small.

Writing an essay may be similar to writing a tweet, but it is also a whole lot more work. Crafting a good essay was often a weeks- or even months-long process, and after having kids I simply didn’t have the time or spoons to keep at it. For a while I was still able to write smaller things through social media, but that was one of the things I had to give up when I quit.

Recently I was going through some of my old tweets and Facebook status updates, and I noted wistfully that many of them were quite good and that I missed writing them. That’s when I finally realized what should have been obvious years ago. I’d been thinking I couldn’t write tweets anymore because I’m not on Twitter, but a blog post can just as easily be 140 characters as 1400 words, can’t it? (Did you know I have a blog? You should check it out!)

I won’t be microblogging exclusively. Now that the kids are in school and becoming more self-sufficient, I’ve had more energy to devote to the big ideas, too. But as a way of dipping my toes back into the water I think tweet-length blog posts will be a great way to start.

One last note: I’ve disabled comments for now. I remember moderating and replying to them to be far too much like social media–lots of investment for very small or rare returns, yet addictive enough that it’s easy to spend hours on. If you want to comment or reply to something I’ve written, I encourage you to put something about it on your own site! (Even if your site is just your Facebook page or YouTube channel.) Pingbacks are still enabled, so I’ll likely see it.

To everyone taking the time to read this, thank you. See you out there.

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On Games and the Making Thereof

I am almost finished making my first real game! “Real” being a relative term, that is: my first game was an abstract, experimental undergraduate project that no one in their right mind would have voluntarily played.[1] The one I’m working on now is a bit more enjoyable, though technically it is actually simpler. It’s called “Press A to Win.” Can you guess what it’s about?

I am making the game in Pygame, so you will need Pygame installed in order to play it. I know it’s a stretch, but I figure there’s at least a chance that some of you might not be familiar with installing, compiling, and running Pygame files, so as soon as the game is finished I figure my next project will be porting the whole thing to Flash.

At the moment, however, both of those projects will have to wait, as I am busy showing off my fiancé to my extended family in Muenster, Texas. I would say “nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here,” except it’s not even a terribly nice place to visit. The views are great and the weather is (currently) lovely, but the town itself is tiny, the water tastes like sulphur, and taking a shower feels like coating yourself in a thin sheen of silicone. I can never tell for sure if I’ve gotten all the soap off.

Regular posts resume next week with a return to the “Agency and the Inevitable” series, after which I will likely write something about education again. I am a big fan of that topic, it seems! See you all then.

Notes:

[1] It was called “Clique” and it was about socializing polygons IT’S A GRAPH THEORY PUN GET IT WASN’T I CLEVER

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BREAKING NEWS: Obama Actually Muslim, Osama Actually Jew

In our top story today, CIA officials earlier revealed that an extensive, top-secret investigation has concluded that Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America, not only was not born in the U.S., but is in fact a Muslim extremist who hates America and everything it stands for.

“This was shocking for all of us,” says Zeke Retagent, the CIA operative in charge of the investigation. “But the deeper we dug, the harder it was to deny. There’s no doubt about it–Barack Obama is a terrorist bent on destroying everything this nation holds dear.”

In what some may consider even more shocking news, investigation into what is now being called the “Obama Conspiracy” revealed that Osama bin Laden, long reviled as the founder of al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, is in fact a devout orthodox Jew who had nothing to do with the attacks.

“He was really just a scapegoat,” says Retagent, whose investigation uncovered irrefutable evidence that Osama was forced at gunpoint to take responsibility for the attacks. “Obama was the real mastermind, he orchestrated the whole thing. 9/11, the recession, school shootings, the budget crisis, YouTube comments–all Obama’s ideas, brought to fruition through careful planning and a diabolical, systematic undermining of the U.S. government from the inside out.”

When faced with these charges, Obama gave an inspirational and eloquent public denial that was nevertheless soon drowned out by the hisses and boos of the furious crowd. His call for an “appeal to reason, prudence, and common Human sense and decency” came shortly before the crowd broke through the protective police barrier and secret service agents, trampling the man to death. Reports from the scene indicate that in his last moments Obama showed his true colors, shouting “La ilaha illAllah!” (“there is no God but Allah”) and “Damn you infidels to Hell!” When asked why he had ignored Obama’s moving denial and attacked, one man on the scene replied, “Yeah, Obama was pretty good at giving speeches. So was Hitler. You think that’s just a coincidence?”

Soon after Obama’s address it was revealed that Osama bin Laden, long believed to have been killed in a covert U.S. operation (one that dramatically boosted the president’s approval rating), was actually being held in a secret detention facility as leverage to ensure the continued cooperation of al-Qaeda. Osama delivered an official address apologizing for falsely taking responsibility for the attacks on the World Trade Center, claiming a “shameful weakness in the face of death”. He also indicated he harbored no ill will towards the American government, and advocated for a peaceful reconciliation. The alleged terrorist organization al-Qaeda, which was non-violent until Obama militarized it, will return to its former operations of charity work, education advocacy, and weekly Torah readings at their local community center.

The charges against Obama have naturally engendered suspicion against his staff, particularly the now-acting president Joe Biden, who was sworn in soon after Obama’s disastrous statement. According to Mr. Retagent, however, “none of the evidence so far points to Biden. As far as we can tell, Obama was acting alone.” Retagent stressed that the investigation was ongoing, although he went on to say “We don’t really expect to find anything. I mean, come on–his name is ‘Joe Biden.’ That’s about as un-Muslim as it gets.”

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