My friend, Russ, will be retweeting original Tweets about blog posts here and he will use the hashtag of #ithaka. Maybe that sounds like a Tweet snowstorm under that hashtag but this is not an account page so the content only matters when you do that search. It should definitely reveal the latest posts and probably there won't be the need to scroll through much of it.
For immediate news, Twitter is my first look. It's mixed in quality but unmatched in speed. On the other extreme, CNN is so slow as to be useless as are most of the primary media sources.
Blog updates get posted automatically to Facebook and Google+ and many regard those as news sources but I've never seen them that way because they rarely reveal anything I haven't seen earlier somewhere else. They do serve a purpose but, for me, that isn't one of them. For me and I suspect a great many others, Facebook is a stage. Lots of people pretend they aren't performing but look at what they write.
Russ also said the satire is the best stuff and it may have seemed disingenuous when I say I don't know what draws people but it's true and I'm not sure whenever I write an article how it will be received. The blog has been leaning toward historical records lately as I know there's some demand for those but in most other cases the reaction, for me, is unpredictable. It's the same with my music as I know I like it but that doesn't mean you will and it's been true since I started that I really don't know what people think of it.
A favorite source of satire for quite a few is Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker. I've read a number of his articles but they fall short for me because the satire is too obvious or it's not outrageous enough. Nevertheless, he sets the general standard for left-wing satire because many know of him.
There's only one required action for any standard: bust it all to hell
For satire to really bite, it can't be immediately obvious whether it's true or false. It needs to be just credible enough that you start to believe it but the satire of it is revealed if you think deeper with it.
Maybe an example is the story of when Nixon and Kissinger prayed together on their knees in the Oval Office. According to them, it really happened ... but ... what if I told you they were praying for a good return on some stock options. Some might believe it but think later, man, there's no possible way he could know that.
Or maybe the murderer who sang before his execution ... "Jumping Jack Flash" - It's conceivable. No-one ever did it but there's the outside possibility someone could.
Those are now blown as topics for articles but that sort of material has, for me, more edge to it and people may get bent by it but the premise underlying it is not trivial. False values in religion are a deep problem (i.e. rampaging materialism, etc) and execution is a travesty by any measure. To make a travesty of a travesty is not, in my view, a foul.
The AHA part!
Russ, it just came to me. You mentioned the posts disappearing and that was likely when Feedburner fritzed out of it and I was posting Tweets manually. Under normal conditions, Feedburner detects a post and posts to Twitter about it. Feedburner is yet another Google product and, what do you know, it wasn't working. That got working again somewhat recently (i.e. maybe weeks to a month back) and that is what posts 'Ithaka' in the Tweet. I had not been doing that when I posted Tweets manually.
Eureka!
Therefore, it is not necessary to add #Ithaka to my posts because ... because ... it will already be there. Searching Twitter for #Ithaka will reveal the latest posts, definitely. It will also reveal a bunch of people who have only just read Constantine Cavafy but that's ok as they get crazy over Greece and that can be charming.
Note: there IS a difference between searching Twitter for 'ithaka' or searching for '#ithaka' and the reason is Twitter will substitute near-misses such as 'ithaca,' etc in the first search. There's an Ithaca, NY, and who knows how many others so there's a lot of chaff in that one.
Update: Feedburner has been updated to add this prefix: #Ithaka Blog: article-title
That will automate the whole deal and we like systems where we don't have to screw with them. The way this is rigged, I write the article and post it. Feedburner sees that and it's all pachinko action from there out. Google+ saw the posting so it's posted there. Feedburner posts the article in a Tweet and that gets propagated to Facebook. Beyond writing the article, there usually isn't another action required and the article will go zinging around all over the place by itself. That's the best part of working with computers: when the computers do the work.
For immediate news, Twitter is my first look. It's mixed in quality but unmatched in speed. On the other extreme, CNN is so slow as to be useless as are most of the primary media sources.
Blog updates get posted automatically to Facebook and Google+ and many regard those as news sources but I've never seen them that way because they rarely reveal anything I haven't seen earlier somewhere else. They do serve a purpose but, for me, that isn't one of them. For me and I suspect a great many others, Facebook is a stage. Lots of people pretend they aren't performing but look at what they write.
Russ also said the satire is the best stuff and it may have seemed disingenuous when I say I don't know what draws people but it's true and I'm not sure whenever I write an article how it will be received. The blog has been leaning toward historical records lately as I know there's some demand for those but in most other cases the reaction, for me, is unpredictable. It's the same with my music as I know I like it but that doesn't mean you will and it's been true since I started that I really don't know what people think of it.
A favorite source of satire for quite a few is Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker. I've read a number of his articles but they fall short for me because the satire is too obvious or it's not outrageous enough. Nevertheless, he sets the general standard for left-wing satire because many know of him.
There's only one required action for any standard: bust it all to hell
For satire to really bite, it can't be immediately obvious whether it's true or false. It needs to be just credible enough that you start to believe it but the satire of it is revealed if you think deeper with it.
Maybe an example is the story of when Nixon and Kissinger prayed together on their knees in the Oval Office. According to them, it really happened ... but ... what if I told you they were praying for a good return on some stock options. Some might believe it but think later, man, there's no possible way he could know that.
Or maybe the murderer who sang before his execution ... "Jumping Jack Flash" - It's conceivable. No-one ever did it but there's the outside possibility someone could.
Those are now blown as topics for articles but that sort of material has, for me, more edge to it and people may get bent by it but the premise underlying it is not trivial. False values in religion are a deep problem (i.e. rampaging materialism, etc) and execution is a travesty by any measure. To make a travesty of a travesty is not, in my view, a foul.
The AHA part!
Russ, it just came to me. You mentioned the posts disappearing and that was likely when Feedburner fritzed out of it and I was posting Tweets manually. Under normal conditions, Feedburner detects a post and posts to Twitter about it. Feedburner is yet another Google product and, what do you know, it wasn't working. That got working again somewhat recently (i.e. maybe weeks to a month back) and that is what posts 'Ithaka' in the Tweet. I had not been doing that when I posted Tweets manually.
Eureka!
Therefore, it is not necessary to add #Ithaka to my posts because ... because ... it will already be there. Searching Twitter for #Ithaka will reveal the latest posts, definitely. It will also reveal a bunch of people who have only just read Constantine Cavafy but that's ok as they get crazy over Greece and that can be charming.
Note: there IS a difference between searching Twitter for 'ithaka' or searching for '#ithaka' and the reason is Twitter will substitute near-misses such as 'ithaca,' etc in the first search. There's an Ithaca, NY, and who knows how many others so there's a lot of chaff in that one.
Update: Feedburner has been updated to add this prefix: #Ithaka Blog: article-title
That will automate the whole deal and we like systems where we don't have to screw with them. The way this is rigged, I write the article and post it. Feedburner sees that and it's all pachinko action from there out. Google+ saw the posting so it's posted there. Feedburner posts the article in a Tweet and that gets propagated to Facebook. Beyond writing the article, there usually isn't another action required and the article will go zinging around all over the place by itself. That's the best part of working with computers: when the computers do the work.
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