Mike Champion with a really smart look at the problem of Twitter as "information network". Basically, it's difficult to find Twitter accounts that Tweet only about subjects that interest you, which then creates a lot of noise. I think this might be one reason celebrities and brands are so popular; people are more inclined to find the non-basketball related musings of their favorite basketball player interesting because it's their favorite basketball player! Mike uses the example of being less interested in the non-Ruby related musings of Ruby hackers... Until Twitter makes it more possible to follow interests, rather than accounts, it'll face this challenge.

Twitter is increasingly being described as an "information network" rather than a social network or "fun-like-ice-cream" novelty. That seems accurate, but the challenge is that Twitter is currently designed like a social network. Even with its innovative asymmetrical following relationships what you follow on Twitter are accounts [1] not "interests". As a result, it is difficult to consume information effectively and to tweet for disparate audiences.

PS Congrats on the baby, Mike and Sam.

It was a hell of a day for a bike ride this morning. Though, in fairness, it felt more like 10° than -1°.

I don't even know if Curry Prawn exists, but I couldn't help it. Do you have something else that fits?

The 2010 photo retrospectives have begun, but for my money, the photo of the year is this picture of a monkey saving a puppy from a gas pipeline explosion in Nanjing, China.



We can all agree on this one, right?

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Update: Just found out the picture isn't from this year. It might be a monkey saving a puppy, but it's from 2006. I don't care. It should be the picture of EVERY year.

"You guys in AZ are life savers," Kernan e-mailed Charles Flanagan, Arizona Department of Corrections deputy director. "Buy you a beer next time I get that way."

California recently had a little trouble finding the drug they use for executions. This could have been phrased better.

Booboo Kills Yogi



Via everyone

Or not a scam really. Jonah pointed to a ThinkProgress story about Nigeria's charges against Halliburton and Dick Cheney.

The Nigerian government moved to “charge former Vice President Dick Cheney in a massive bribery case involving $180 million in kickbacks paid to Nigerian lawmakers, who awarded a $6 billion natural gas pipeline contract to Halliburton subsidiary KBR when Cheney was running the company.

Or as Toby put it:

DEAR MR CHENYE

WE AWAIT RECEIT OF 500 MILLION USD

PLEASE SEND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND WE SHALL WIRE THE MONEY IMMEDIATELY

DR. JOSEF MABATU

Good times.

Is it possible to stow away on an airplane safely? Not always:

A month after the mangled body of a North Carolina teenager was found in a quiet Milton neighborhood, Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said yesterday that evidence indicates he stowed away in the wheel well of a plane and fell from the sky as the landing gear came down on the approach to Logan International Airport.

Seems to me like Randy Quaid's wife is the crazy one in this relationship. Though together, they're pretty crazy as a couple.

Kilian Martin: A Skate Regeneration seems like a video I might have posted already, but if I did it's only because I love you very, very much.



Via kayfabe