“This will sound awful - but after seeing a guy sneeze into his hands and then use those same hands at a public internet terminal, I will *never* use public internet terminals anywhere.”
Imagine what's under the chairs of that terminal - George The Writer
Yeah, that's why I don't use the public terminals at all. I also don't sit on or eat lunch at the tables on our lovely indoor plaza for pretty much the same reason. - Cecily Walker
Sound awful? It sounds reasonable. Grody to the max! - Erica Mauter
I usually try to sneeze into other people's hands. I believe in efficiency. - Akiva Moskovitz
Seriously, don't they teach doctors to sneeze into their arm/elbow for exactly this reason? - Erica Mauter
Before I started working at the information desk I never understood why we had so much antibacterial gel in the staff areas. Now I know. - Cecily Walker
ew. The worst are food places handling money and then touching your food without washing or changing gloves. - Shey
I'm an elbow sneezer/cougher. I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on tv, but I like to dance. Nobody wants to ask you to dance if you've just sneezed all over the hand they're about to touch. Anyway, I've stopped using antibacterial stuff because of the info about good germs vs. bad germs. Here's a quickie about it: http://www.wsd.wa.gov/resident... - Lisa L. Seifert
Lisa, I think you've given me a great idea to keep creepy guys at bay. I'll (fake) sneeze into my hand before offering to shake theirs. - Cecily Walker
The creepy guys will be too busy watching your chest to worry about your hand. - Michael W. May via twhirl
I didn't know it was called an Oxford comma either, thanks. Wikipedia tells me it's called an Oxford comma, a Harvard comma, or a serial comma :) - Michael C. Harris
Grammar humour? You guys are wonderful! ;) - Abby Martin
I can't wait for the next time at work when I ask someone, "Could you send me that file in Oxford comma delimited format?" - Kevin Shannon
One, of, the, many, things, i've, learnt, on, friendfeed. - Gordon Swaby
I didn't realize it had its own name, either. I always use it. In fact, I tend to list three items out of compulsion to use it... heh - Michael W. May
I will drop this quote and move on. The differences of opinion on the use of the serial comma are well characterized by Lynne Truss in her popularized style guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves: "There are people who embrace the Oxford comma, and people who don't, and I'll just say this, never get between these people when drink has been taken."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...http://snipurl.com/2u2sp - Russellreno
I'm with you Edythe, with a whole lot of reverence to the Comma, and; I also pay due obeisance to the Semicolon. - Parth Awasthi
The semicolon is, alas, woefully under-appreciated. - Joanmarie via NoiseRiver
I overuse the colon and semicolon; at least that is what I am told. ;) - Michael W. May via twhirl
Most punctuation doesn't get its proper due: people over-use the comma when they really should use a colon or a semicolon. Don't even get me started on the lack of em dashes and en dashes; they happen to be perfectly valid and useful punctuation marks that nobody uses anymore. - Mark Trapp
Michael, I want to say you should've used a colon instead of a semicolon there :) - Mark Trapp
I've seen those English dramas too
They're cruel
So if there's any other way
To spell the word
It's fine with me, with me - Joe Dawson
I am yepping this 100%. Although I allow myself little creative leeway with commas, colons, and semi-colons, I am otherwise mortally strict when it comes to proper, classic punctuation and grammar. Yep, I am the guy who has no problem with the em-dash and a semi-colon meeting. - Akiva Moskovitz
I'm a big fan of the semicolon and the serial comma. I suspect publishers wanting to save ink are responsible for dropping the serial comma :) - steplow
Joe Dawson: :) and, yes, I also love the semicolon. - edythe
I worked at a marketing department where they had a policy of not using an Oxford comma - Bjorn Tipling
I will cut some slack where the Oxford Comma (never knew it had a name) is concerned, but NO SLACK for the "apostrophe mistakenly used for plural" crowd. That makes me feel like Conan the Grammarian. - Harvey Simmons
"Felt it was our duty to give you a quick update on the struggles of the San Francisco Giants' starting pitcher Barry Zito -- he of the 3-12 record for the 2008 season and the seven-year, $126 million dollar contract.
[Wince.]" - Robert Seidman via Bookmarklet
UPDATE! = Holy crap, Zito recovered from his rocky start to strikeout 10 (his highest amount as a Giant), and last seven innings. Then the Giants ground out some actual run support (I know!!!), keyed by a Randy Winn 2-out 2-strike chopper that scurried through the center of the Dodger infield. In the 8th/9th, tattooed Giants closer Brian Wilson slammed the door, reaching 100 MPH on his fastball in the process. Well, hell-yeah! What do y' know! A rousing win. And to think that the game started so ickily... it feels good to be proven wrong! - Robert Seidman
When I follow someone new, I typically don't say 'hi'. My assumption has always been that if someone is concerned that I might be a spammer, he/she will take a quick look at my timeline. Seeing actual tweets and conversation, along with a followee/follower ratio that is within normal parameters hopefully identifies me as a non-spammer. :-) - Joanmarie
Joanmarie that may be true, but as my tweets are public, I usually get 5-10 follower notices per day from Twitter that end up being from spammers. Besides, if you're following me, what's wrong with letting me know who you are and why you decided to follow me? Don't we introduce ourselves to new people in real life? Why should the internet be any different? - Cecily Walker
What do you mean by ratio within' "normal parameters"? Isn't that all relative? - Do You KNOW Clarence?
That's actually a good question, Clarence. I have more following to followed ratio is slightly off kilter, but primarily because I can't handle the noise that was so common on Twitter for awhile. - Cecily Walker
Hi, Akiva. You show up in my Friendfeed stream quite a bit (through likes), so I kind of feel like we're acquainted already. - Cecily Walker
Hi, Cecily. I see you in the stream all the time so I thought I'd officially subscribe since you're putting it out there. :-) I'm Lisa. It's nice to meet you. - Lisa L. Seifert
People who let me spy on them are starting to spy on each other; it is like a family reunion with people you never met *chuckle* - Michael W. May
Hutch, I'm going to subscribe to you just because you used the word 'goober' in a blog post. Are you from the South, by chance? - Cecily Walker
Michael, it is like that! Yet here on FF, it doesn't feel as one-way as it does on Twitter. - Cecily Walker
I'm not a spammer, I'm a social media fungus. I get everywhere you don't want me. :-) - Robert Scoble
I should also say that the 'say hi to me when you add me' comment was not a cheap play for attention. I'm secure in my online identity. ;-) - Cecily Walker
Yes I am...grew up in Virginia. I'm out in San Francisco now. And goober's a mighty fine word, ain't it? - Hutch Carpenter
Hutch, I used to say it all the time until I moved to the PacNW. I miss it. I think I'll add it back to my vocabulary. - Cecily Walker
*sprays an anti-fungal agent at Scoble* ;-) - Cecily Walker
Ewww... I have Scoble on my toenails. ;-) Michael W. May - I am now spying on you too... mwah hahaha - Lisa L. Seifert
Edythe, bachelor parties are called 'stag' parties in Canada, so it only stands to reason that bachelorette party = stagette party. Just like we don't have 'prom', we have 'grad'. - Cecily Walker
OK, I'll put up one or two of the less scandalous ones. :) - Cecily Walker
Who's buying ... More importantly, why wasn't I invited - Charlie Anzman
I'm at Ad Hoc, another Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon) spawn. This one is a little more casual, less pricy, and serves 'comfort' food... the only one of the chains I've yet to experience. Smoked salmon with like weird fruit salad, steak with onions, arugula, mushrooms, and roasted potatoes in a red wine reduction sauce (had a fancier name), some toast (crostinis) with cheese, and like random fruit for dessert :) - Mona N
Smoked Salmon as in Lox? .. that is near impossible to find here in central PA - Charlie Anzman
Sounds good! Aaaaand now I'm hungry. I'll go grab something. - Vincent X
Fresh smoked salmon which is less salty than lox. SOOO amazing. California has the best produce and seafood. Crustaceans are better in the East :) - Mona N
btw, Ad Hoc is a little over rated. Go with no expectations and you will probably be floored - Mona N
Hell yeah, I love going to New England by the ocean for that kind of stuff... Lobster rolls, fried clams, clam chowder, things like that. Hmmmmm. I love it there. - Vincent X
For some favorite pics from the past 3 days, try http://friendfeed.com/mitchell.... My teeth are super-lousy with very weak tooth enamel. If I don't take care of them, my next dentist visit has 4-6 cavities. :-( - Mitchell Tsai
I *JUST* saw the same sign at a bar in Key West last week. - Gary Bacon II
for me it's easier. I like twitter more casue it's on twitter that I first experienced microblogging. You don't just have to "not suck" if you want me to move, you have to give me something totally different. Like.. Friendfeed? :) - Simone
I don't see that as trolling. Identi.ca was supposed to be "the competitor" for Twitter. The site itself is messy, subscriptions are weird, the tracking ability is lacking. I never cared for Pownce at all and Plurk looks like something a kid painted in kindergarten. - Candace Holly
I like it because you get the excitement of never knowing when it's gonna work - Blackopsmanners
i sorta agree, twitter usage seems to be resilient to fail-whale's mystic powers. loyal loyal base.. - Ruben Llibre
Twitter has the right user experience but the wrong internal architecture. The other sites don't even have the former and from what I've seen they don't have the latter either. Identi.ca seems to be amateur city as does Pownce. Plurk was too ugly to try out and no one I know uses Jaiku. - Dare Obasanjo
Jaiku is a pain to join, but the conversation features are nice. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Maybe it is just me, but I don't look at identi.ca to compete with Twitter. Rather it is more about what might be possible from an open source perspective when you're able to make multiple microblogging sites work together. I'm not looking for a "Twitter killer" from it, rather some real technology innovation for distributed microblogging. - David Recordon
plurk is only "ugly".. so why not use just the mobile version. - thecolor
I too enjoy the vertical layout over the horizontal, but prefer the threads in plurk and "stability" over twitters "just tweet". - thecolor
plurk is more of a game as well as a communicative social network. Twitter, feels more like a "statement made" only type of SN. - thecolor
@David Recordon +1. In fact, you truly are a visionary. +2. - Andy C
Isn't it also because FriendFeed lacks whatever it is that Twitter gets right? - blackmailismylife
I agree with David. I think its going to be more about supporting the people that are contributing to the development of a new way of doing Tweet like micro-blogging. - Chacha via twhirl
@blackmailismylife: FriendFeed isn't constrained to 140 chars. Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce/Identi.ca are. What some would see as a feature, others see as a restriction. Sometimes, you need to be constrained to 140 chars. Less is more. - Andy C
Much as I find Scoble the arse-hole of the A-Lister Blogger body, he has a point. Twitter is for all its flaws, the best out there. - Adam Wilcox
I tend to agree. I've tried pownce and din't like it in the least. Twitter is simple and easy. They just need to get their issues fixed. - Richard Miles
Seems to be the way things go. We stick with whatever "sucks less." - Jason Shultz via twhirl
People stick with Twitter because Twitter has the community and the cool API applications. - possible248
@Andy Apples and Oranges. This has been discussed to death but friendfeed doesn't fill the same shoes..er..rackspace as twitter. - Kamath via twhirl
Scoble: What an unpleasant and uncharitable comment to make about Identi.ca, a free service (that will remain free forever, something you are not guaranteed by any of the others that you mention) in early alpha testing. I was already unconvinced by the inexplicable personality cult that you seem to have generated for yourself, but now you've given me the last reason I needed to flip the bozo bit. Thankfully FriendFeed has a button I can use to do that. - Earle Martin
There is a difference between what something is and what it will be. Or what it may be. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Scoble curious what would Bush choose after leaving white house - Fred Grott
I have to agree with @earle on this one, comparing twitter and identi.ca is impossible, identi is very early stages, twitter has been around. I doubt you would compare a alpha release of a program with a final version. As far as the others sucking, how so? I find plurk to be more fun, enlightening, and easier to follow than twitter. - BCK
Identi.ca isn't ready for prime time. It doesn't even keep me logged in. Pownce is good, but no one is there. - Francine Hardaway
BCK: what do you mean we can't compare the two? That's the lamest thing I've read in weeks here. A clone of a service (and that's all that Identi.ca is so far) DAMN STRAIGHT BETTER BE BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL. So far it's not. Why should I pay any of my attention time to it if it isn't going to be as good. And anyone who says that they are different is drinking on this 4th of July. At least Plurk looks different. - Robert Scoble
identi.ca was released prematurely, imho. if they waited til they got *all* twitter functionality working before opening it up, would have been a great Twitter clone. Now, it is struggling. Plurk, otoh, tried to look different with all those ajax thingamagigs but too much ajax is not really good! - Rom Feria
Rom: I totally agree with you. I'm also getting tired of trying all these Twitter clones. FriendFeed proved to me that even if something is better in a lot of respects you'll never get enough people to switch to really matter anyway. - Robert Scoble
But some of these services are a great place to talk to a very small number of people (which makes them fun in of themselves). - Robert Scoble
AndyC: Pownce is very slow and I can't sign into it. Fails to let me in. - Robert Scoble
AndyC: Jaiku? Slow and hard to comment on and I don't like the UI. - Robert Scoble
AndyC: Identi.ca has no way to look at replies, participate in conversations, not to mention no search, no direct messages (even though I hate them), no real community yet, and has lots of bugs like what Francine said. - Robert Scoble
AndyC: Plurk has a UI that 13-year-olds love, but isn't simple to track thousands of people on. - Robert Scoble
Twitter has a huge userbase. But like it or not, many users have moved on to a better Twitter and that's called FriendFeed ;) - Muthu Ramadoss
Replies, privacy, great UI, fast loading, SMS, command line interface, spam control... just for starters... this is why Twitter is still king - Cait
I think it's still because everyone is still on Twitter, and people get replies easily. None of the other networks have that as much. Twitter is still where the action is, despite all it's downtime and technical issues. People have built up quite big communities there too, so are reluctant to leave easily I think. - jjprojects
The only thing wrong with twitter is it's up time. We all like the service, and the API. If they just solved the DB problems, twitter would be near perfect. - Brian Norwood
If it runs slow, please edit the script and set the variable MAX_SUBSCRIPTIONS_PER_USER to a lower number and LMK what number works well for you. - Hao Chen
Just posted a fix for performance issues. - Hao Chen
Installed but it keeps asking for my user/pass for FF, which I give, but it won't authenticate. - (steve isaacs)
Now, now, Jeff. I mentioned in the article that I typically prefer native apps or Web apps to AIR apps, but this one is very interesting, at least to me. I dig it. - Louis Gray
im just trying to be funny...hehe good post btw. - (jeff)isageek
Wow, twhirlscope down -- gotta try this out - Shey
ah! and I was wondering why my twitter vanity search hit on that topic as I do not like the air apps. but grouping actually would be a reason to try it out. problem: as long as twitter decimates the request rates it is unreliable, but a first step in the right direction. will download it now ;) - Nicole Simon
Louis, I think you're right - there is still innovation happening around Twitter, fortunately. The fact is there is still a huge audience on Twitter and that audience still has the potential to be monetized. I'm even building something around Twitter at the moment. There is still that threat though, that developers could leave if Twitter keeps neglecting them - it's in the back of the mind - Jesse Stay
"feels" like Twhirl. Wish it had FF support...if it does it wasn't obvious from the website. I agree with others that I'd really like to see these Adobe air apps with some better skins - Rob Neville via twhirl
"Now, now, Jeff. I mentioned in the article that I typically prefer native apps or Web apps to AIR apps, but this one is very interesting, at least to me." - That's part of why I like the platform so much. Most people like native apps but AIR apps are pretty easy to build so there's bound to be a few that people really like. (Ryan - rstewart@adobe.com) - Ryan Stewart
Tweetdeck is very nice. Breaking tweets out into @ replies and groups makes sense. Pretty, too. - Leo Laporte
Excellent! I'm just not that into all the dark gray. - kennbell
'scuse me while i wipe up this drool, but that looks hot! - Sarah Perez
This is very nice. Love the grouping feature. Makes it a lot easier to follow tweets. - Dave Rutter
ok, see that got all screwed up just now, had to delete & start over. - TheMacMommy via twhirl
so what I meant to say was, I like tweetdeck for trying to improve on apps like twirl or twitterific for that matter, but I'd still love to see some über combination of tweetdeck & twirl that lets you group, customize color in UI, post using ping.fm and receive more than just tweets like FF does - not so much a firehose but more like a spiffy detachable shower head w/the different dial settings. Come to Mamma! - TheMacMommy via twhirl
I like it Louis - thanks for the tip .. even though there are acouple of things I would probably like as options it is very workable in the short time I have been using it - Steven Hodson
I really like this so far, it'll be interesting to see what future plans holds. I'd like to see a tad more customization of the client itself. Nice so far though. - Nick
Nice that you can keep twittering even when Twitter is down. Categories/groups/tags is clearly a direction Twitter user needs are heading. Also need an app, though, that can handle multiple Twitter accounts. I tried Twhirl but after a while kept getting timeouts on the 2nd open account. Maybe that's Twitter's fault, not Twhirl's. - Gordon Vaughan
I still wonder why all of these apps default with a dark background. - Caleb Elston
Just saw it with my 9-y-o daughter. Animation was amazing and it was visually attractive. Story was cute, but not great. I think that Monsters Inc., the Incredibles and even Toy Story had better writing. Most interesting thing to me was that more than half the people in the theater were adults with no children. Definitely a bit of a geeky crowd, different than you might expect for a Disney/Pixar flick. All that said, Nice. Now all I need is a blackberry version (that also handles friendfeed) :) - Barry Graubart via twhirl
Using it .. nice. Try clicking on the photo. Looks like most of us need to go higher rez! - Charlie Anzman
pretty slick...just not picking up all my twitter friends though for some reason. - Zee from WeDoCreative
Ok, another ugly black twitter client. I want an Air app with some brushed metal feel to it. Having something on my desktop that doesnt match the rest of the windows makes me feel like Im on windows. - Colby Olson
I would rather pay for Flickr than put my photos on Facebook to be fodder for advertisers. - Andrew Feinberg
Are there any other Twitter services/apps with the Grouping functionality? Really loving that. - Bryan Landers
looks excellent. love the "maximized view" for real twitter addicts. though I can't imagine there are many left that are addicted, since, well, you know. can't really be addicted to twitter when it's down all the time - Mark Bao
Thanks! I'll check it out over the next few days! - Soulhuntre via twhirl
This is lovely. Funny how some really nice apps sneak up on you. Thanks for linking! - mark.kemperman via feedalizr
nice but I doubt it fits the workflow now that twitter is a tiny bit of it - Dobromir Hadzhiev
thanks Louis, very cool app, what do you think of the group service? - John Cass via Alert Thingy
I like the group service, but I love the Summize integration more. I've watched my search for TweetDeck just blow up today, and the app hasn't crashed once or locked up - which is saying something despite the fact it's been open all day. - Louis Gray
It's not exactly a very liberal/free-speechy kind of nation is it? - Adam Turetzky
This more than anything I can think of makes me glad I'm American today. - Sprague D
That country's government sucks. The country itself and (most of) its people are awesome though. - Bjorn Tipling
Sunny-side up: At least they're debating it. :-) - Louis Gray
@Sprague D there are plenty of other countries that don't even have the death penalty for anything - America is only slightly up the scale you know - Ivan Pope via twhirl
It won't be long before Ahmadinejad installs his horse in the Parliament - Peter Simard
I feel sorry for the Iranian people who have to deal with these idiots - Shey
this is just part of a "good cop, bad cop" game. they'll defeat the bill and then everyone will go "Yay! now bloggers only get torture and years in prison for being snarky about the government! Iran is teh progressive democracy!" - Karim
Peter, your comment illicited a surprise snort out of me. I never snort. Good show! - Akiva Moskovitz
Need a shirt now that says, "Give me Blogging, or give me death!" - proud to be an American! - Jesse Stay
@Ivan Pope - nice reply - people in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks and all that
@Peter Simard - I think you'll find Nero (he of the horse for senator fame) was higher on the dodgy ranking than the Iranian Government or Ahmadinejad himself
@Jonnyc - spoken like a true Xenophobe - is it timely to mention the debacles that have been performed in the name of other religions - witness the crusades anyone
That said - this isn't what Islam is about - another case of zealots manipulating a religious message for their own purposes...... - Ben Kepes via FriendFeed MT Plugin
I believe they will just chop off hands for tweets -
!["Sorry we're OPEN" sign [Luckyred, Pixdaus]](http://pixdaus.com/pics/1215178892eFGuLbq.jpg "\"Sorry we're OPEN\" sign [Luckyred, Pixdaus]")
![Tiger with tongue hanging out [castillion, Pixdaus]](http://pixdaus.com/pics/mgG1FwcpsUG3iEMgYH.jpg "Tiger with tongue hanging out [castillion, Pixdaus]")
