What are you doing?

[omega minimo]

What are you doing?

Is the web or email or phone service or whatever else exists really too slow for Twitterers?

FROM: http://twitter.com/

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Why use Twitter?
Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

How does it work?
With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted.

Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :yoiks: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

WHAT? What is the purpose of having people constantly monitor their own lives in bits of "What are you doing?"
WHY? Why do we need to be wired and watched "hyper-connected" every second of the day?
HOW? How does "Twitter put you in control and become a modern antidote to information overload"?

Please provide some answers to these questions, unless it takes too long or keeps you from reporting on what you're doing.......... :hi:


http://twitter.com/
Do not miss the video :rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5145278

[madaboutharry]

1. All of this technology gives me a headache.

Sometimes I really miss my Remington typewriter. It was my best friend in college.

[omega minimo]

2. they got pills for that.......

ah old typewriters are cool. Clackety clack.

I sometimes wonder in an economic downturn why folks are being convinced they "need" another e-device at all.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. What if I don't WANT anyone knowing what I'm doing?

Even those nearest and dearest? That's not to say I'm doing anything illegal, immoral or insane, but interrupting whatever I may be doing in order to relay the minutiae of my daily routine smacks of micromanagement on an oppressive level.

[omega minimo]

7. So reporting on what're ya doing interrupts whatever you may be doing to relay the minutae

.......................... that you may rather concentrate on and just DO..... :thumbsup:

"smacks of micromanagement on an oppressive level..." and further indoctrinates folks to the surveillance state. :tinfoilhat: esp. youth who've never know otherwise...

[Cirque du So-What]

10. The yoots are already there

Text messaging is a fine tool for this indoctrination.

[omega minimo]

12. soon it'll be cameras turned on themselves.

aside from Big Brother, it's a ripoff of their own experience................... awareness................ focus....................


ability to connect the .................... and outer POV of their own lives.

[Kitty Herder]

15. That's already happening.

Some people I know are hooked up to their IM with the webcam on a good share of the day. Watching and being watched. It gives me the creeps.

[omega minimo]

17. aye------

and you're too busy herding kitties :hi:

[Kitty Herder]

14. Not only do I not want to give people up-to-the-minute updates on what I'm doing,

I don't want their updates either. Let's face it; most of us are pretty boring most of the time. And if we're doing something exciting, why would we want to interrupt it to twitter? I just don't see the appeal, I'm afraid.

[omega minimo]

20. maybe it's for people who live at the mall

I was at Nordstroms and two women on opposite sides of a mirror pillar were calling on cells to find each other. :spray:

[Sugar Smack]

4. Don't ask me about it. I'm a card-carrying Luddite.

:hi:

[omega minimo]

8. Luddites respected and those who are selective about use of new techie trends

:toast:

[valerief]

5. I remember years ago, riding in a car with my sister, two minutes from

her home, and she phoned her husband to say she'd be home in two minutes. I didn't understand it. Her husband wasn't some knucklehead who ran around the house naked when he knew company was coming. She hadn't asked him to prepare any food or anything. She said she'd be home and briefly told him what she'd bought. She couldn't do this two minutes later apparently.

Time went on and people graduated from car phones to cell phones and I witnessed the same kind of behavior. And it still stymies me. Who the fuck is that important that you need to know such banal details about them? Or are people just that unimaginative and brainwashed?

[omega minimo]

9. Loud quacking obnoxious cell phone woman broadcasting in Trader Joes at full volume

post from previous thread in answer to why some are concerned about the BEHAVIOR and (lack of) MENTALITY this "hyper connectedness" creates:


Loud quacking obnoxious cell phone woman broadcasting in Trader Joes at full volume is why some question the sanity of yet another level of hyperconnection that encourages people to think they must be reporting on their activities or checking on their devices every FU**ING second of the day INCLUDING WHEN IN PUBLIC AND TOTALLY OBLIVIOUS TO THE REAL WORLD AROUND THEM.

Annoying the hell out of other shoppers, amusing me when she went by saying to her headset, "I'm RILLY sorry to tell you this" (WHILE TELLING IT ALSO TO EVERY TOTAL STRANGER IN TRADER FU**ING JOES) and TOTALLY alienated her OWN CHILD THAT SAT THERE IN THE CART. ANNOYING THE HELL OUT OF EVERYONE standing in line, Friday night after work rush hour.

LOUD. Quacking. Not a clue.

Don't try to tell us Twitter "is the real world."

[Mollis]

6. Co-workers want to know if you are running late...

but you have time to type it out? lol

[acmavm]

11. Don't these morans ever want to be left alone? I don't want to be connected

that much to anyone.

I never wanted a cell phone. BUT, I have a 16-year old kid and voila, I am now the proud owner of a pink phone that fits in my pocket (the kid has a blackberry). That, the house phone and the internet make me feel sometimes like I need a 'trip back to nature' like we used to say in the good/bad old days.

[omega minimo]

13. all that sounds reasonable

have you seen the moon lately? nice crescent with Venus?

[acmavm]

19. Nope. Gotta check that out. I missed Star Gazer last Saturday night so I

don't know what to look for this week. Oh well, Jack Horkheimer is on tonight and I intend to catch it.

[omega minimo]

21. new moon was Tues 2-24, visible low in sky at sunset. Tonight will be higher after dark. Look west

and up about ..... 45 degrees? :wow: Purty

[acmavm]

24. Thanks!

Do you have a telescope? Do you know anything about them?

[omega minimo]

29. Venus will be very bright in same area if the moon is hard to spot...

Don't have a telescope. Colleges usually have some nights for public viewing, esp. on eclipse nights or other big events like comets...

There's a cool group called Sidewalk Astronomers that teaches people to make their own telescope, grind their own lens -- and has public viewings on the sidewalk.

I've participated in front of a Tower Records and it's so cool how "all walks of life" love looking at the moon and stars. "OOOooooooooh."

http://www.sidewalkastronomers.us/

Venus event;

The crescent Venus meets the new Moon, will be an awesome spectacle, seen and shared locally and globally. “On the evening of Feb. 27, the crescent moon will pass near Venus and will create a beautiful sight for sky watchers.” This event is a ‘mini trial’ of our new global organisational network for Earth Hour, Globe at Night, ISAN on April 4th and 100HA April 2nd to 5th, and Sun Day April 5th.

[Nay]

30. Know what u mean. I broke down just today and got a cell phone.

Had car trouble last month in the middle of nowhere with baby grandson, and figured out I should probably have a cell if only for that reason. I guess I feel I would never forgive myself if something happened and I didn't have a cell phone to get help quickly. But I've made everybody SWEAR not to call me all the damn time on it. You can get me at home, you can get me at work, so lay off the cell....

As far as the trips back to nature, I know exactly what you mean. We are going camping this summer for our 2-wk vacation and on weekends, just to slow down a bit. Wish I could retire tomorrow.

[acmavm]

31. Yes, as you point out, there are some very good reasons for having a

cell phone. But I only get calls when I'm driving (and I try not to use the cell phone and drive because I am totally incapable of doing both competently at the same time). And I forget about turning the sound off so it starts making that annoying sound at some very inopportune times. But for emergencies (and tracking down that kid), they're great.

Camping sounds great right about now. Its funny, I was thinking about that the other day. It sounds like so much fun, and I like to fish. And we have a state park here where you can rent teepees (my friend and I usually take a bunch of kids and get two teepees and just let 'em rip.) We do that in the fall. We didn't go last fall, and I just have the urge.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

16. Surfing DU, Listening to Prairie Home Companion

and getting ready to make some soup (mix, though, not from scratch).

I need Twitter like a submarine needs a screen door.

[omega minimo]

18. What mix?

[omega minimo]

22. oh see, too busy

:spray:

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

23. Bear Creek Minestrone

with a little wine and fresh Italian sausage added.

[omega minimo]

27. nice. too bad DU don't have SmellOVision

little wine, sausage, bluegrass guitar............

:thumbsup: Good night.

[BlooInBloo]

25. Daily twitter freak-out thread.

[omega minimo]

26. Daily BlooInBloo freak-out post -- thanks fer checkin in

:hug: :toast:

[StopTheNeoCons]

28. There is a reason that the first 4 letters are T W I T