On Twitter (link bundle) #wymhm

1. Twitter is like a game of broken telephone

Because messages are short and can be broadcast quickly and easily, Twitter can feel to its users like a fast-paced conversation (Boyd et al., 2010). The difference from a normal conversation is that people are taking part in a whole range of different interactions. It's like being at a party and talking to 10 different groups at the same time.

All sorts of processes that you would recognise from conversations are also going on in Twitter: much information is simply repeated (retweeted) but messages are corrupted over time, like a game of broken telephone (UK: Chinese whispers), as people re-evaluate, re-interpret or misinterpret the meaning of the original tweet.

But Twitter doesn't always feel like a conversation as people use it in different ways. In the same way that talking isn't always conversation, sometimes it's a command, an expression of surprise or an aid to thought. In other words, Twitter isn't just social, it has a big informational component, which we'll come on to.

What explains the rise of tags like #wordsthatleadtotrouble? Are black people participating in these types of conversations more often than nonblacks? Are other identifiable groups starting similar kinds of hashtags, but it's only those initiated by African-Americans that are hitting the trending topics list? If that's true, what is it about the way black people use Twitter that makes their conversations so popular? Then there's the apparent segregation in these tags. While you begin to see some nonblack faces after a trending topic hits Twitter's home page, the early participants in these tags are almost all black. Does this suggest a break between blacks and nonblacks on Twitter—that real-life segregation is being mirrored online?

After watching several of these hashtags from start to finish and talking to a few researchers who've studied trends on Twitter, I've got some potential answers to these questions. Black people—specifically, young black people—do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network—they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies—posts directed at other users. It's this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people—and in particular, black teenagers—the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter.

One of the most common dismissals of Twitter sounds something like this, "I don't need to know what a bunch of people had for breakfast." My response to this is always, "if that what you're seeing on Twitter, you're following the wrong people." Twitter can help academics make and maintain connections with people in their fields, find out about interesting projects and research, or crowdsource questions and technical problems, but it can be difficult to know where to start.

I have more than one goal in mind when using Twitter. In fact, I have several. They may be different than your goals. Your goals are also okay. (Oh, and you’re doing it wrong.)

  • I use Twitter to get the pulse of people in the larger online world.
  • I use Twitter to communicate in two directions.
  • I use Twitter to promote important causes, as well as business opportunities.
  • I use Twitter to promote other people’s stuff 12 times as much I as do mine (12:1 rule).
  • I use Twitter to stay updated on people’s shared news.
  • I use Twitter as a quick pulse-taking service.
  • I use Twitter to find business (via search).
  • I use Twitter to stream links to my stuff and to others’ stuff.
  • I use Twitter to connect with humans.

Again, there are lots of ways to use it. Your way is just wonderful. My way is just mine.

"Evidently crocodiles": footnotes as spoilers in Marco Polo's Travels

I picked up the Penguin Classics edition of Marco Polo's The Travels, translated by Ronald Latham, because of Uncharted 2, a videogame whose treasure-hunting plot was based in part on Polo's doomed voyage home from China. I had no expectations of becoming a treasure hunter like Nathan Drake, looking for clues to hidden exotics in Polo's published pages. Instead, I was more curious about what Polo claimed to experience and witness. I bought The Journals of Lewis and Clark the same day for the same reason.

My experience of reading of Polo's experience, though, proved frustrating at times. The focus of this frustration was upon Latham. For the most part, he's a more than capable editor and translator. He introduces the text with some broader history as well as an account of the many different copies and translations of Polo's Travels. It is clear of the time and effort expended in the production of this particular translation of the text. However, a handful of footnotes marred, even ruined, certain passages. 

It is with apparent bewilderment and fascination that Polo writes of certain animals, minerals and rocks. Latham's translation captures this well, but he lessens the impact with asterisks placed early in paragraphs. Rather than allow the reader to define and discern on their own just what Polo's writing about, Latham is all too eager to explain. In other words, Latham's a spoiler. Instead of being helpful, his footnotes are annoying, if not insulting. The Travels is not so cryptic in presentation and style that it requires such handholding. 

Below are the passages from Polo's Travels that Latham asterisked and explained without so much as a "SPOILER ALERT." 

"When the stuff found in this vein of which you have heard has been dug out of the mountain and crumbled into bits, the particles cohere and form fibres like wool. Accordingly, when the stuff has been extracted, it is first dried, then pounded in a large copper mortar and then washed. The residue consists of this fibre of which I have spoken and worthless earth, which is separated from it. Then this wool-like fibre is carefully spun and made into cloths. When the cloths are first made, they are far from white. But they are thrown into the fire and left there for a while; and then they turn as white as snow. And whenever one of these cloths is soiled or discoloured, it is thrown into the fire and left there for a while, and it comes out as white as snow" (89-90).

"It is a fact that throughout the province of Cathay there is a sort of black stone, which is dug out of veins in the hillsides and burns like logs. These stones keep a fire going better than wood. I assure you that, if you put them on the fire in the evening and see that they are well alight, they will continue to burn all night, so that you will find them still glowing in the morning" (156).

"In this province live huge snakes and serpents of such size that no one could help being amazed even to hear of them. They are loathsome creatures to behold. Let me tell you just how big they are. You may take it for a fact that there are some of them ten paces in length that are as thick as a stout cask: for their girth runs to about ten palms. These are the biggest. They have two squat legs in front near the head, which have no feet but simply three claws, two small and one bigger, like the claws of a falcon or a lion. They have enormous heads and eyes so bulging that they are bigger than loaves. Their mouth is big enough to swallow a man in one gulp. Their teeth are huge. All in all, the monsters are of such inordinate bulk and ferocity that there is neither man nor beast but goes in fear of them" (178).

"...they brought back with them the tusks of a wild boar of monstrous size. He had one of them weighed and found that its weight was 14 lb. You may infer for yourselves what must have been the size of the boar that had such tusks as this. Indeed they declare that some of these boars are as big as buffaloes" (300-301).

It's pretty clear what Polo describes, right?

"when I’m feeling eight-bit, I almost always go with Tetris" #wymhm

Floating through Tetris’ cranial hyperspace forces a natural introspection.  Often, sort of insanely, I’ll dwell upon what my playing method can tell me about myself.  My technique isn’t to plow through rows or shatter a score; I play Tetris for the tetris: the four-row clear that comes with the vertically-nestled “I” block.  Self-denial is necessary for the maneuver, as all must be laid aside for the blessed piece’s arrival.  Meanwhile, the pile mounts dangerously.  When the block finally appears, this mild daring and asceticism are handsomely repaid: there’s a flash of light, a scream of sound, and the pile’s heavy fall.

"There's an awesome satisfaction derived from games with no extraneous elements" #wymhm

the main rea­son games like Far­mville main­tain a huge player base is the entice­ment of the metagame. The actual game mechanic of farm­ing — which com­prises most of the game — is unfath­omably dull. It’s the abstracted layer above the farm­ing that cre­ates the pri­mary moti­va­tion: rib­bons (achieve­ments), new items, leader­boards, etc.

But the blur of time-consumption and value is simul­ta­ne­ously dam­ag­ing Far­mville. Because sat­is­fac­tion is derived only from the metagame, suc­cess is a mea­sure of how many hours you’re will­ing to play, not your abil­i­ties. Play­ers who have invested a lot of time into the game end up feel­ing bit­ter about the fruits (or veg­eta­bles) of their labor.

"If the form of the book is changing, it ought to lead to more variety, not less." #wymhm

On the page, the rhythm of the text emerges from both the macro design—the pleasing shape of the page, the proper amount of thumb space—and the micro—the right amount of leading, the evenness of the word spacing, the correct break of a line. On the screen, the rhythm of a text encompasses all of these things and more—the placement of a link, the shift from text to video and back again, the movement from one text to another. The rhythm becomes more complex as the orchestra gets larger, but the desire for rhythm does not subside.

In order to create this rhythm, the book must be designed and composed for the screen. A beautiful digital text can no more be arrived at by “converting” from a print design than a beautiful print book can be created by converting a Word file. The digital book will never come into its own so long as it is treated as a byproduct, unworthy of attention.

"computers alone can't keep students from falling into weak study habits" #wymhm

The research, published in The Journal of Educational Psychology, found that students tend to study on computers as they would with traditional texts: They mindlessly over-copy long passages verbatim, take incomplete or linear notes, build lengthy outlines that make it difficult to connect related information, and rely on memory drills like re-reading text or recopying notes.

Meanwhile, undergraduates in the study scored 29 to 63 percentage points higher on tests when they used study techniques like recording complete notes, creating comparative charts, building associations, and crafting practice questions on their screens.

"space travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be"

Many of the advances in space travel have come from the hard-won experience of past failures, but NASA and its brethren also rely on paid volunteers, who subject themselves to all manner of surreal and bizarre experiments that attempt to replicate living in space. For instance, in 1962 NASA funded a motion sickness study in which twenty Navy cadets were harnessed to a chair mounted on its side, and then rotated, rotisserie style, at up to thirty revolutions per minute, approximately six times faster than the chickens turn at Boston Market. (Only eight of the twenty cadets completed the exercise.)

"to unearth the origins of alphabets, we will need to travel much farther back in time" #wymhm

While the invention of writing itself could never have progressed without a highly structured and even authoritarian state to back it up, the coming of the modern alphabet is a completely different story. Written in Cuneiform we have the wonderful adventures of Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu, but most of the clay-tablets from the agricultural city-states are more mundane: lists, taxation, and commercial transactions.