Happily Married?
January 30, 2009
Saw this in my Facebook feed this morning. Pretty sure this isn’t what, YML host, @ShawnKing intended (read from bottom to top).
Leave a comment
Why Add Your Facebook Status to Twitter?
January 28, 2009
It’s pretty simple to let Twitter set your Facebook status, so why not just do that instead? I tried that for a time and, in my case, many of my Twitter followers are more tech savvy than some of my friends and family that use Facebook, and so some of the, geekier topics let’s say, aren’t going to be of any interest to many of them. And those that would be interested are likely on Twitter anyway. Also some tweets are part of a conversation or a reply. A Facebook status that reads “Casey is @ccgus 5 years from now you’re going to look back on that tweet and laugh.” doesn’t make any sense to the non-Twitter crowd. On the other hand most of my Facebook status updates are general enough that they may be of interest to both crowds. But the real impetus for adding my Facebook status updates to Twitter was a situation I encountered while working up a blog post yesterday.
So yesterday I was writing about bailouts, stimulus packages, and such and I knew I had tweeted something about the bailout back during the election, but I could not find it. I came to conclusion that I must have instead posted it as status update on Facebook. Fine, should be a simple thing to look through all my old Facebook status messages and see what I said. And then I actually tried to find my old status messages. Ha! The only way to do this it seems is to go to your profile and then keep clicking Show More Posts and eventually, hopefully, you’ll find what you’re looking for. But probably not. Compare this to Twitter. Say I wanted to go through all my old tweets where I talked about the iPhone. I can pretty easily page though all my old tweets or I can even try googling iphone site:twitter.com/somegeekintn and I have a nice list of every time I ever tweeted about the iPhone. You can also use Twitter’s Advanced Search, though it is still a bit rough around the edges. But there’s no way to do this with Facebook updates.
So, while not a perfect solution, the best solution is to echo my Facebook updates to Twitter and there they will be preserved for all time, or at least until Twitter runs out of money. I was going to make a post describing just how to do this, because initially the only instructions I was able to find were for the “old” Facebook, but eventually I stumbled across this very thorough explanation. I might add just a couple of other suggestions. First, that post lists the Facebook minifeed as http://www.new.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11 and while this may continue to work, the transition to the new Facebook is complete and so http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11 is probably a safer bet. He also suggests adding a prefix to these forwarded updates which is probably fine, but keep in mind you only have 140 precious characters available for use on Twitter. So I’ll not be adding a prefix. It should be obvious that tweets beginning with “Casey is”, or something similar, originate from Facebook.
Caution: May Contain Politics
January 27, 2009
I didn’t plan on posting this but the more I think about it, the more aggravated I get. So maybe if I vent a bit I’ll feel better.
Last night I’m playing my little video game with friends and the conversation in Ventrillo turns to politics, as it does from time to time. Some of the people I play with are fairly hard core conservatives, the 20 percenters if you will, so I did my best to ignore it, assuming the topic of conversation would move to something else soonish. The issue, it seemed, was Obama’s stimulus plan which, I gathered from the conversation, would provide money not only to hard working tax paying citizens, but also those who did not make enough money to pay federal taxes. The implication being that a bunch of undeserving slackers who do nothing to contribute to society would be getting a check. At some point I think I chimed and said, sarcastically, yeah that money could be used to pay for bonuses on Wall Street! No one seemed particularly interested in talking about that.
An effort was made by a couple of us, including me, to steer the conversation away from the political discussion. After all, we’re playing a game partly to get away from the troubles that plague the real world. But the conversation drifted back to this stimulus thing again. The idea of poor people getting money from the government so outrageous that more discussion was required. Rather than listen to it, I dropped out of Vent, opting for the sounds of Azeroth rather than the Limbaugh channel.
The problem wasn’t just that I disagree with my friends opinions on the proposed stimulus package. As a matter of fact I’m not sure that I disagree. No, the problem was, that when it was time to bailout Wall Street, there may have been a little grumbling, but nothing on the level of what I heard last night. It made me a little ill to know that the outrage wasn’t caused by the bailout money being used to pay for bonuses, jets, or corporate retreats. Oh no, the outrage was caused by the idea that poor people could be getting a check for $500. $500 of our money that these people did nothing to deserve! Redistribution of wealth! Auntie M it’s a twister! Dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
What?
Look, I’m not convinced that Obama’s stimulus plan is going to work and I’m certainly not convinced that TARP was a good idea, but I’m not nearly as troubled by the idea of giving a few hundred dollars to the very poor as I am giving millions to the very rich. How you can be for the Wall Street bailout, reluctantly or not, and yet begrudge a little help for our less fortunate citizens is beyond me.
Please Make it Snow
January 21, 2009
Aaron’s Signals
You ever tell someone a story and then think hey that might make a good blog post. This is one of those.
Monday I came from home from work and was greeted excitedly by my son: “Daddy, I made six signals to Mother Nature asking for snow tomorrow. Let me show you.” He’d written Please Make it Snow on several pieces of note paper and taped them to the wall in the living room. These were his “signals”. “So you’re not happy having Friday and Monday off from school and you want school to be closed tomorrow too?”, I asked. He said he did. I told him not to get his hopes up since no snow was forecast for the next day, it was just supposed to be cold. He remained confident despite this.
Tuesday dawned and it was indeed snowing a little bit, but not enough for more than a dusting so off my kids went to school. I asked him about his signals when he got home. They did work he informed me matter-of-factly. Mother Nature had made it snow, just like he asked. But, regrettably, he had forgotten to ask for enough snow to close school.
Historical note: Barack Obama was also sworn in as the nation’s 44th President on that day.
Yesterday: A Good Day
January 19, 2009
Firetower Road on Short Mountain
Yesterday my son and I out went out for a drive in the countryside, exploring, geocaching and taking a few photos along the way. We drove to the top of a mountain, albeit a Short one, and stood there in a quiet place listening to the wind.
I went to the movies with my wife and watched Gran Torino. We enjoyed it. It made me think of my own grandfather, years ago, sitting in front of his home in Center Line, Michigan, drinking his beloved Pabst Blue Ribbon. Of course his temperament was much more subdued than Walt Kowalski’s.
After the movie we picked up the kids and went out to dinner: Mexican food at Camino Real. Then back home for a little World of Warcraft with the guys before laying down for a little reading before bed.
Yesterday was a good day.