The problem with a minimum length, as any schoolteacher knows, is that it can encourage padding. If you've said your piece, you should stop.
If you've said your piece, you should stop.
Hi, sailor. New to the Internet?
We owe Twitter's limit to SMS's limit, and that limit to F. Hillebrand. Today, there are more text messages than cell phone calls. Shocking?
I wrote my last comment intendeding to include a link. That link was supposed to be anchored to the text "F. Hillebrand". Here is that link.
intendeding
Fuck, I give up. Time to get off the internet.
I think you're going to have some of trouble getting people to play along with this one, young n. nosflow. Too much work, too little payoff.
It's not that hard as long as you've got something to do your counting for you, of course. Something like Twitter--at last put to good use!
The execrable @nosflow construction, however, is one all people of good taste should refrain from indulging in. La la la thirty characters.
Th mor cnstrants 1 impos th mor 1 fres 1slf f th chans tht shakl th sprt Th arbitrarinss f th cnstrant nly servs 2 obtan precison f xecuton
A tweet can encode a Universal Turing machine!! I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this tweet is too short to contain.
Poem: There was a young man from Kent, Who swallowed a set of encyclopedias. His mother said, Ken, what have you done? They were for dinner.
The young man from Kent was named Ken? Preposterous.
10 and 12 are both 139 characters, not 140. Is elemund making mock? Is this some kind of quasi-virtuosic display? Either way, it's bad news.
16 - you were so shocked you couldn't count? Yes, Ken from Kent. It was a poem on a button badge that my father wore in 1979 or thereabouts.
I'm awfully disappointed with the responses this challenge has garnered in the comments. The math skills of unfogged are hereby reproached.
Which is not to say, I suppose, that my attempts are any better. Sure, I get the letter count right, but as ever I haven't anything to say.
OT:
cockaigne
c.1305, from O.Fr. coquaigne "lubberland," imaginary country, abode of luxury and idleness. Of obscure origin, speculation centers on words related to cook (v.) and cake (cf. Big Rock Candy Mountain).
Love me some BRCM.
I can barely count to ten, much less one hundred & forty. As far as I am concerned, basic numeracy is overrated. Statistics just lie, right?
19 and 20 also are, by my count (open Python, len("[text here]"), see answer) 139 characters. Do you count "\n"? If so, why? Makes no sense.
He double-spaced after the full stop, which your browser elided.
139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140. 139 is the new 140.
Because, after all, it is so very unnecessary in this day and age - the HTML specification mandates collapsing whitespace almost everywhere.
23 is the method I used as well.
I forgot to mention that one should of course collapse runs of spaces/whitespace, but also, apparently, forgot to put it into practice.
A link to one of several easy-to-use sites for the less technical folks. Padding this to 140 characters left as an exercise for the reader.
Huh. I just wrote mine in Word and checked the count.
What the hell *is* all this tomfoolery? I can't believe anyone would be so stupid to go along with this. But if you must, you must, I guess.
If you just write something that looks roughly the right length, everyone will assume it's right? You guys aren't really counting, are you?
My 6yo daughter just wrote me this story: "Once upon a time there was a little girl her name was Ruby. She was an only child. Her dog died."
Close counts in horseshoes. Ask Parenthetical.
There is a chapter in J. Cabell's "Jurgen" in which the eponymous hero visits Cockaigne, where the law is "Do that which seems good to you."
It will surprise no one familiar with that book (lauded by Twain) that what seems good to Jurgen is sex and drugs. No rock 'n' roll in 1919.
35: I am hugely disappointed in regards to my horseshoe injury. Hurts like hell, but there is no bruise to show off, and gain sympathy with.
33's looks were very close to accurate, but were in the end one too few. Keep at it, heebie! You are no arithmetician, but I believe in you.
What heights of expressiveness we are collectively achieving! I feel as eloquent as a very eloquent poet. There is nothing I cannot do, now!
I sympathize with you, Paren, bruised or not. I positively thrill, with sympathetic vibrations, to your every experience, or some such shit.
41: I am beginning to suspect that I am being teased. Now I must go console myself with counting out the letters in my unfinished lecture...
Nosflow thinks that requiring exactly 140 characters will discourage uninteresting tweets? You have *got* to be kidding me!!!!!1!!!!!!!11!!!
What it is like to be asked,"What is it like to be asked, self embedded in quotes after its comma?" self-embedded in quotes after its comma?
I deny that 'semicola' is cheating; it is, I maintain, a reasonable if recherche pluralization. Consider 'polyhedra', for example: it is ok.
words upon words come
endlessly adding meaning
ending suddenly
It seems as though you've gone to a lot of trouble. But you need only request, Ben!, and I and plenty others would happily follow your feed.
46: According to W. Quine,/Whose views on quotation are fine/"Boston" names Boston,/And "'Boston'" names "Boston"/But 9 doesn't designate 9.
A bad colon does emit fart gas hourly. I just key-logged Mr Neb's orifice. Probe quill result showed tube used very well. X-ray yielded zip.
50:@W.V.Quine "Paradoxically yields falsehood when appended to its quotation" paradoxically yields falsehood when appended to its quotation.
There once was a young man of Kent
Whose prick was so long that it bent
To save himself trouble
He put it in double
So that, instead of coming, he went.
Such glitter has fallen upon Twitter that even the shortest post is worth a boast. Ephemera, yes, but litter not. 140 characters on the dot.
To the uninitiated it may be cryptic, that social triptych: following, followers, tweets. And links so curious--short, nonsense, mysterious.
For want of a nail, a shoe was lost. For want of sobriety, a horseshoe was tossed. And who did it hit? (I think you can guess from context.)
47:
Two problems with semicola:
1. The Greek grammatical term colon has a different meaning from the English typographical term colon. The one refers to the assemblage of words delimited by the other. I have only ever seen cola as a plural of colon when the Greek meaning is intended (that may just be my limited experience, of course, but a Google search is impractical; one can't exclude soft drink references).
2. Once one adds a Latin prefix to a Greek root, one can't then form a Greek plural of the result. Had early modern typographers called ";" a hemicolon*, one could perhaps accept a plural hemicola*. But they didn't.
Still, I withdraw "cheating."
When I read "semicola," I think of Caffeine-free Coke.
Good idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If it will spawn the coinage of neologisms like semicola (a neo-anglicism at any rate), and the use of archaisms like "and c.", I'll buy in.
btw, this was like doing a goddamn crossword puzzle: "what's a five-letter word for encourage?" "what's a six-character phrase for endorse?"
62: Tell me about it. Try something like 51. I had it all worked out and then realized that I had left out "v".
OT:
The appeal of the work of Frank Rich eludes me. As does that of the work of Frank Bruni. Is there another Frank at the NYT who could poison something else for me, like opera or baseball?
I slept fitfully last night; each time my dream got to a certain length, my subconscious would seize up. Darn you nosflow! Darn you to heck!
65: got to a certain length, my subconscious would seize up
The very same thing happens to my manhood!
"Semicola" is a perfectly cromulent word, and snarkout's 50 and JP's 51 are fine works. Stay tuned for the next episode of "This I Believe".
This thread embiggens my soul.
54 and 55 surpass 50 and 51, though this is no discredit to the latterly denumerated. All--I admit it!--are far better than any of my works!
Wondering where to go on vacation, and unable to decide between a New Zealand hill and a Massachusetts body of water, a twitterer might ask:
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu or Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg?
Genuine question: what would a US visitor to (roughly) SE England like to see/do? Have imminent guests and am thinking up possible days out.
re: 73
London, obviously, with all the usual galleries/museums, etc. Also, the Globe is worth a visit if you can get £5 groundlings tickets. Further afield, Oxford, also obvious. The South Coast: Beachy Head, Brighton, etc? The White Horse? Stonehenge? Hampton Court? The list is long!
You could place some fringe on top of your guest and take him or her to Surrey.
73: Have they been to the UK before?
A day hike with a stop for lunch in a pub would be fun. Of course, this is entirely dependent on what they like to do.
Whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa-whumpa!
max
['Sheesh!']
Yes, they've been to the UK before - they're about 50, pretty well-travelled, 11 year old son. New Yorkers. Not sure they're hiking types!
ttaM - yeah, and I have a decent-sized list (and I'm sure they have some ideas too), just wondering what actually IS appealing from the other side.
Stanley, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!
London, Oxford, and Stonehenge seem like the obvious choices that come to mind. Depends on whether they've been there before and how long they're staying, I suppose.
asilon has clearly never been to Oklahoma.
The Football League starts play this month. How about taking in a match at Gillingham or Wycombe Wanderers?
82: Is that the place where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains?
84: Yep. And you should smell the waving wheat when that wind comes right behind the rains.
What is the 11 year old interested in? Perhaps you can take him on a tour of Hogwarts?
Not the hiking types! Why then, leave the ingrates to amuse themselves.
Maybe you can enroll them in a dry stone wall–building tutorial class type thing. I know that I'd get a kick out of that.
Yes, they've been to the UK before - they're about 50, pretty well-travelled, 11 year old son. New Yorkers. Not sure they're hiking types!
Given these demographic characteristics, they probably have a pretty clear idea of what they want to see.
because
i'm just killing time you see, and i like to disagree with you it seems
91: It is a pretty fascinating topic. I saw a demonstration of said craft up in the Lake District one time.
and i like to disagree with you it seems
In other words, you like to be wrong. How odd.
99: Well you can hardly expect me to allow wrong people to be on my side, now can you?
why, that was the wittiest comment i ever wrote
I love putting things on top of things. I won't deny it.
ttaM - yeah, and I have a decent-sized list (and I'm sure they have some ideas too), just wondering what actually IS appealing from the other side.
My parents really liked their day in Canterbury, I know.
Stanley, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!
In case it wasn't made clear by teo and M/tch, this.
101: Indeed it was. No one is disputing that.
on the questions i won't answer, coz that's meaningless
I think learning how to build stone walls would be a very useful skill. I could add it to my list of things I do somewhat well but have no opportunity to do so since I live in an apartment.
now i think it's boring, i should have said strong
!!!
Idea!!!!!! For Riddley Walker tourism!!!
Travel the Fool's Circel 9wys!
M/tch and read, if you don't cut it out, you won't get any dessert.
If you were advanced enough to make dry stone arches, just imagine how cool you would be. You would get all the ladies or dudes.
Maybe I should start stalking Andy Goldsworthy.
110: Hmmm.
What's on the dessert menu tonight?
blueberry and vineyard peach cobbler.
I love putting things on top of things. I won't deny it.
And after all, this is no time for complacency! No, there are still many things, and I cannot emphasize this too strongly, not on top of other things.
114: It all depends on how you define top, doesn't it?
112
i'm indifferent what you'll get for your dessert
113: Cutting it right out then!
What makes a peach a "vineyard peach"?
What makes a peach a "vineyard peach"?
A label.
I'm not sure, actually. I would guess being grown in a vineyard? But maybe it's a variety? This doesn't look like any other peach I've ever seen.
122: Wow! Interesting. How's it taste?
And when's dessert?
It looks like it is a varietal...from eastern Europe? Did you know that many of the major fruit growers in the Bay Area in the 19th century were from Eastern Europe?
A rediscovered classic! I am told they taste somewhat more almondy than other peaches? I've never had one.
Dessert is after dinner, obviously.
127: So when's dinner? And what's for dinner anyway?
I will email them immediately with details of dry stone wall tutorials. Or Andy Goldsworthy's address, whichever is easiest to find.
I'm sure they do know what they want to do though; I just want to be a bit prepared.
Neben dem Kulturpfirsich ist auch der Weinbergspfirsich als seltenere Variante bekannt. Weinbergspfirsiche haben ein dunkelrotes, sehr festes Fruchtfleisch und eine dunkle, pelzige Haut. Das Fruchtfleisch ist meist weniger süß als das vom Kulturpfirsich, hat aber einen intensiveren Pfirsichgeschmack und Geruch. Daher wird er selten roh gegessen, sondern überwiegend zu Marmelade oder Likör verarbeitet oder in Gläsern eingekocht.
My German is nearly non-existent. So, these are a less cultivated form of peach?
"Geschmacksknaller"? "strotz"? Ich verstehe nicht.
vineyard peach:peach::crab apple: apple ?
Why? What did I do?
Oh. Analogy.
Apparently they are cultivated but have (I guess) less of a history of cultivation; I mean, they are contrasted with cultured peaches. They are less sweet but have a more intense peach flavor and aroma!! O boy!
I wonder if I can get my hands on some.
How did you find out about these, neb?
They're mentioned in Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures. In the Autumn section of the book, in fact.
133 excerpted from the new SWPL Aptitude Test.
140: I could totally ace that test.
Parenthetical is my favourite female around here i think i said that before
As an American tourist, I thought Cambridge was nice to visit. In some ways I liked it more than Oxford, but I had less time in Oxford. It's more to the east, too.
|| I will probably be in Scotland (St. Andrews) for a month and a half starting September. Anyone there? |>
145: I wish I was! I love it there. You'll have fun.
146 gets it exactly right.
When were you in Scotland, Paren?
It's more to the east, too.
Further north, though.
Anyone there?
It depends on where you go.
Further north, though.
I wonder if Oxford is closer to the west than Cambridge is to the non-South (next up is Midlands, right?).
The late summer, fall, and early winter portion, to be exact. I really like fall in Scotland, but it may be because I lucked out with decent weather.
Somebody please tell me that read isn't writing "repulsive" to everything M/itch is saying. I don't have the heart to check in on the other thread and figure this out for myself.
What shall I tell you instead, Ari?
Perhaps I shall mention that my good friend's new baby makes me wish I wanted one too. I visited the baby the other day and was just kind of nostalgic with the having-wanted while no longer really wanting one. If that makes any sense?
I think she is trying to disagree with everything Motch says, and therefore says "repulsive" whenever he says some sort of food is good.
The reaction that babies elicit in me is always both weird and unpredictable. I often want to send money to Planned Parenthood after meeting my friends' kids. But just now I met a kid cute enough that I'd consider having a third of my own. Like I said, weird. Repulsive, even.
Wanting a third of a kid sure is repulsive.
Depends which kid and which third, I think.
read : M/tch :: Jes :: bitch
152: I was there for a year beginning in August 2002, based in Edinburgh. And yeah, the fall was beautiful.
161: Did you just call me a bitch?
162: Hey, we were there at the same time! Awesome.
Have you been to China, Paren?
No, I'm not actually particularly well traveled, I just harp on the foreign places I have been over and over in true SWPL manner.
I just harp on the foreign places I have been over and over in true SWPL manner.
When I lived in China, there were lots of people who did this. Repulsive.
I will email them immediately with details of dry stone wall tutorials.
Dry Stone Walls (mp3).
Song written by Dave Goulder, who has written book about dry stone wall construction, performed by Gordon Bok.
Do you want to hear about my summer in France, M/tch?
I play the harp while singing about the places I have been.
"Repulsive" is the new "horrible and degenerate".
For neb: A Twitter Proposal. (Worthy recipients will find within the key to proving their wordly worthiness. I'd try testing it here first.)
Will you join with me in wedlock? Will you be my wife? I throw myself on the mercy of your court. Beloved judge, I beg you--judge me worthy.
I thought it was "twisted and degenerate."
Ee, 174 to 172. Although, I guess I did sort of feel that way about wedlock and being a wife...
171: Accompanied by a troupe of expressive dancers.
I lie unconvincingly about all of the places I've never been.
178: I've been there, done that.
178: China was great. And the Great Wall was like...a bag of sand...when I was touching it.
I recently discovered that someone I'm close to IRL is a troll. What does one do in this situation? It's hard to want to stay friends.
Study them. Trolling is a fascinating sociological and psychological phenomenon on which there is (I assume) rather little data.
If I were a better person I wouldn't have posted 181. Everyone please ignore it.
186: You just couldn't resist?
If only someone here had the power to delete comments.
184. If they're ToS you could break their hands, and then apologise nicely and remain friends.
I've never used twitter but I find myself texting a lot and trying to keep messages shorter than 160 characters. This also is handier than I would have thought.
130: Too many characters.
155: Wanting to want things, yeah, that's a weird feeling. Being sorry you aren't sorry, though, that's totally normal.
184: But Bave always seemed like such a nice boy!
184: Why do anything, why's it so hard to stay friends? Also (maybe relatedly, maybe not, I don't know), how did you discover it?
All things being equal, trolling just doesn't seem that bad to me. "All things being equal" is a big caveat of course; trolling a rape survivors' support group, to make up an example at random, would obviously be a really shitty thing to do. But trolling - saying inflammatory things to piss people off and provoke argument - isn't necessarily all that bad. Is the blogger Jon Swift a troll? How about the real Jon Swift? Why worry about disrupting the conversation or community in places like the blog linked to here?
It all depends on how you define top, doesn't it?
Insert anal sex joke/riff on my own youthful dating here.
185: There's lots of experience even if it hasn't been committeed and dissertated. Trolling used to be done at events called "Cocktail Parties". You'll have to think of them as the meatspace version of Unfogged as seen through a very intermittant connection.
Compared to the internet version, there was somewhat more fucking and less masturbation, balanced (perhaps) by somewhat more physical violence if the troll was unskilled.
Is the blogger Jon Swift a troll? How about the real Jon Swift?
I don't know the blogger, but I would presume that when you asked the real Jon Swift if he was serious about that baby-eating thing, he'd say "no of course not," which seems like a minimum necessary point of distinction between satirists and assholes.
No, neither Swift is a troll. Nor is trolling simple provoking argument. Trolling is the internet version of being an asshole at other people's parties, and as any etiquette coach will tell you, one doesn't invite those people back. I don't blame AWB for not wanting to be friends with an asshole.
That said, once in a blue moon someone trolls or is a party asshole in a way that's amusing and witty, in which case exceptions can be made.
That said, once in a blue moon someone trolls or is a party asshole in a way that's amusing and witty, in which case exceptions can be made.
Which for some reason reminds me: the David Wayne character in Adam's Rib. Over-the-top party asshole, treated as amusing and witty by the other characters in the movie. What's the deal?