some of the rationale behind the twitter-to-weblog code effort, thoghts related to a different purpose for "microblogging"
i poked around twitter a bit recently while I've been playing, and i noticed that there were basically two styles: the originally intended open-loop micro-blogging, and the chat. people don't seem to have figured out how to really use micro-blogging, they either fell back into chat patterns, or just compulsively post trivia. the news channels aren't so bad, but that's what used to be professionally provided via rss from the news websites.
so, i wonder: how has im traffic been faring lately ? i bet it's down by an amount corresponding to twitter use. not sure what im'ing in public gets you. and twitter makes a lousy chat room.
as for the micro blogging, what proportion of the updates out there are bodily function related ? "went to the gym" "got back from the gym" "at the gym" "tired / cold / hot / sleeping / stupid / omg, what's this infection, my nuts have just dropped off!". does anyone really want to know that ? does anyone really want others to know that ?
then there are those projecting "image". professional, cool, wacky, dark - all that self-indulgent cvrap.
here's what i had in mind, and why i haven't really used it, and why I've been tinkering with daily accumulation and posting of micro-posts: sometimes i have quick thoughts, or a stream of thinking, that doesn't quite go together in a longer coherent post yet. but i want to capture that stuff that's been getting lost to date. stuff that i don't email, im or talk to anyone about. in other words, i'm trying to catch another source of information. there are times when i'm just thinking about economics, or cosmogony, or metaphysics, or whatever. a string of what-ifs, conjectures, speculations, maybe an aha or two. and then they're gone.
so, maybe this new lighter weight tool might be of help there. i'll see. now that i have my tools built, i'll try it out, when i'm having one of those times. like anything else, it'll take practice. and maybe it just won't float at all. expectations of the lowest order would be of help here.
as for the twitter-world-as-it-is, as with any popular phenomena, there are a lot of critics popping up - and they're right.
so sure, there's unprecedented openness, but no one seems to know what do with it, on either end of the pipe. it's like i noted a long time ago, privacy is generally no big deal, outside of personal or institutional maliciousness. ever seen someone else's email ? once you get over the voyeurism, it's just boring crap. but maybe we never get over the voyeurism.
once upon a time i wanted to open up all exchanges anyway, making it able to delve into causality in new ways. and it's slowly been happening. global mind ? not yet. a demonstration of illusory free will / consciousness ? no one will pay attention (proving the point).
so - i have a rock. i wonder what i can bang with it.
revised xsl for that little twitter-gitter i've been toying with
re my recent playing, "final" xsl:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet
version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:user="http://blogs.no-ip.org/fractalnavel"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
exclude-result-prefixes="xsl user msxsl"
>
<xsl:output
method='html'
omit-xml-declaration="yes"
version="1.0"
encoding="UTF-8"
indent="yes"
cdata-section-elements=""
/>
<xsl:template match="/statuses">
<div class="divLTAll">
<div class="divLTHead">
via @<a href="http://www.twitter.com/fractalnavel" target="_blank"
title="twitter!">fractalnavel</a>: in the last twenty-four hours:
</div>
<div class="divLTBody">
<ul>
<xsl:apply-templates select="status" >
<xsl:sort select="position()" order="descending" data-type="number"/>
</xsl:apply-templates>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="divLTFoot">
(pulled direct from twitter via custom job)
</div>
</div>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="status">
<li><span class="spnLTItemDate"><xsl:value-of select="user:fnNormalizeDate(string(created_at))" /></span>:
<xsl:value-of select="user:fnSetLinks(string(text))" disable-output-escaping="yes" /></li>
</xsl:template>
<msxsl:script language="JScript" implements-prefix="user">
//<![CDATA[
function fnSetLinks( strText )
{
// embedded hrefs
strText = strText.replace( /(http:\/\/\S*)/g, "<a href=\"$1\" class=\"aLTLink\" target=\"_blank\">$1</a>" );
// twitter ids
strText = strText.replace( /@(\S*)/g, "@<a href=\"http://www.twitter.com/$1\" class=\"aLTUser\" target=\"_blank\">$1</a>" );
// hash tags
strText = strText.replace( /(#\S*)/g, "<a href=\"http://search.twitter.com/search?q=$1\" class=\"aLTHash\" target=\"_blank\">$1</a>" );
return strText;
}
function fnNormalizeDate(strDate) {
try {
// "Mon Mar 16 18:16:59 +0000 2009" to "2009.03.16 18:16":
var rxMatch = /.{3} (.{3}) (\d{2}) (\d{2}:\d{2}):\d{2} \+\d{4} (\d{4})/;
strDate = strDate.replace( rxMatch ,
function($0, $1, $2, $3, $4)
{
var strMonth = $1;
var strDay = $2;
var strYear = $4;
var strTime = $3;
var dat = new Date( strMonth + " " + strDay + " " + strYear + " " + strTime );
// months number is zero based ?!? wtf
strMonth = (dat.getUTCMonth()+1).toString().replace( /^(\d)$/, "0$1" );
return strYear + "." + strMonth + "." + strDay + " " + strTime;
});
} catch(e) {
strDate = e.message;
}
return strDate ;
}
//]]>
</msxsl:script>
</xsl:stylesheet>
i think i can live with that for a while. the results will be evident later.