why twitter instead of google+?

Because.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/why-im-not-on-google-plus.html

and apple made him do it: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/10/ios-5-initial-notes.html

Not so much Apple as publisher marketing folks.

Anyway, as I said in my first ever tweet: I will consider my work to be done if and when I can make Warren Ellis throw up in his mouth a little.

You want to disgust the man who dreamt up godzilla bukkake porn? You've got to plumb the depths to aim that high. Good Luck!

I would have thought you'd be more of an identi.ca/Statusnet kind of person, but I guess you have to go where the audience is...

I have two phrases for you:

"Martian hyperscabies"

and

"Penile degloving accident fan-site"

Regarding the latter - so that's how they get frankfurters?

And for those who, like me, are firmly clinging to the technology of the 2000s, here's the link that's no longer so easy to find: http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=cstross

Sorry, no twitter, witter or bitter. I have to spend part of my day getting something useful done. The penile degloving accident fan-site sounds interesting though... and, if we are promulgating tasteless jokes, I think that's how they get wieners, actually.

C'mon movable-type-plugin-which-automatically-tweets-when-a-new-post-goes-up-on-here! :D

Also, I would like to state that if the simple present is "tweet", then the past participle should be "twat". Just in case it ever comes up.

It exists, but it's commercial; registration is $97. It'll show up once I square it with my piggy bank.

Meanwhile, here is a dub. (Vegans/vegetarians should avert their eyes.)

Most awesome twitter pick though.

"Pic" as in "Picture". Dang auto-complete.

IF NOT HERE THAN WHERE? Officials at the state environmental agency in Texas have altered a scientific report they commissioned on Galveston bay, deleting mentions of human-induced climate change and rising sea levels.

The 2010 State of the Bay report has been delayed for a year by disputes between the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and scientists at the Houston Advanced Research Center, who are contracted to provide the state with regular reports on the bay.

John Anderson, an oceanographer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, who wrote the chapter of the report that was apparently edited by TCEQ management, told British newspaper The Guardian that the cuts reflected what he called "denial" throughout the state of Texas about the effects of global warming.

Ah, well. I'm still not going to join Twitter. I figure anything truly Strossian in terms of reading enjoyment will still take more than 140 characters.

(And I'm currently too pissed off at Diaspora* to plug them at the moment as a better alternative.)

• That only-for-style asterisk in its name is a real pain in the ass when posting or commenting there, because it's also a formatting character in their interface.

I use the RSS feed into Google Reader to alert me whenever there's a new post.

Oh, finally a reason to visit that sit- TWITTER IS OVER CAPACITY.

O_Ô

It doesn't even need to be penile degloving, any degloving accident make me feel very sick.

Top Tip: Don't wear rings if you do manual work. Topper Tip: Don't wear cock rings at work, manual or otherwise. It's "inappropriate work clothing". Dress down friday, my arse.

"if the simple present is "tweet", then the past participle should be "twat"."

You're too late. One David Cameron, Prime Minister of HM Government has already staked a claim to that word as being the correct noun to designate a twitter user.

On BBC Radio. Live. At breakfast time...

as I've said before, to me the purpose of twitter is so that I can see which links people like Bruce Sterling, William Gibson or indeed Lauren Beukes find interesting right now and why.

Also, of course, just follow AJEnglish and you get quite a lot of the News in a timely manner.

Is there a relevant collective noun? I was wondering about Twitards (pronounced Twit-tards)?

Is there something specific about those you follow, or is it mostly work (ie well I suppose I have to follow my publisher, etc)?

I follow (a) work contacts, (b) meatspace friends, (c) people I find interesting. How about you?

I'm a loner. I move with the wind, helping humble folks sort out problems that are too big for them to handle, then drifting on to the next epis...town, town. Twitter can't help me where I'm going.

Ohhhhhhhh, so that's where they're hiding the twitter>RSS feed gubbins, I was looking for that the other week. Thanks buddy :)

Family (ah, that moment when your dad mentions that he follows you on twitter/facebook/whatever. Priceless...); work colleagues (past, present and possible future - the computer industry is a small and incestous one and it pays to know people); fellow olympic target shooters (our sport doesn't get any love from the commercial media because Dunblane sells more ad space than the Olympics); wierdos who are interesting. (As to which bucket Charlie falls into, that is left as an exercise for the reader :) )

AND, the occasional stuff (ie stuff I follow for short defined periods) such as the #aras11 hashtag (tracking the current Irish presidential election), or the #oiref and #jpref hashtags (tracking the current Irish constitutional referenda); or @Octocon (the Irish science fiction con account)

AND, the news sources (ie sources which are regular but low-traffic, or high-priority event-driven) like @storyful, @apod, @MetEireann, @GardaTraffic, @overdublin, @CSOIreland, @NewEarthquake and so on.

Another method is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/390039185.rss described here.

Well spotted JDC, I second your felicitations to Our Gracious Host. Happy Birthday Charlie, long may you write!

And here's a weird postscript ( as often happens on blog posts here :-) Most of my work is on real keyboards, but I'll often read the blog on the only Apple hardware in the house - iPad v1. So I thought I'd try the new split keyboard in iOS5 to save my thumbs - and feel like I'm suffering tennis neck instead. Left - right - left - right - ouch!

Anyone else?

A belated Happy Birthday to our gracious host.

Note on terminology for Twitter's new guest:

Twitter (n) a microblogging application Witter (v) to use Twitter

Charlie, Happy Birthday. Hope the sushi and beer were good.

I too follow people I find interesting or erudite (that's you, Dawkins, Fry, Cox, Boris (as mayor) ...), comedians too, and friends (both meat and cyber) and musicians (who are trying to get awareness and think having more followers will help them [shrug]). Oh ... techy stuff too, like new scientist.

Not sure how useful it is, 'cos I don't read it that often, but when I do there's usually something in there to make me laugh, something to make me ponder, catch up with some friends/artists ... enough to get me back again in a few days.

Beer good; sushi place, alas, had a kitchen engineering failure. Will try again this evening.

Steven Colbert also twats

I got a reply from my Twitter enquiry about the kitchen engineering failure, over three Tweets: "Great news- this has now been fixed! There will, however be a limited menu for today due to ongoing problems. We're working as fast as we can to fix them, we promise! Hopefully by the end of today!"

Happy Birthday, belated. How do you define "kitchen engineering failure" in a sushi place? Dead refrigerator and spoiled fish?

Beer: I'm assuming something other than Kirin or Sapporo? Personally, I like a nice cold Nigori Sake with sushi (fishless in my case).

Dead cooking range. (A surprising amount of Japanese food -- if you're expecting raw fish on rice -- requires cooking. And I have a weakness for oyakudon and duck gyoza and various other fried stuff.)

Should have thought of that--fridge was just the 1st thing to come to mind. A good/old friend of mine has a sushi restaurant in western Colorado, he grew up in the business, so I should've known better.

Happy birthday Stross! :D

I have a (dusty, unused) Twitter too, so I'll be sure to subscribe!

I'm trying to imagine whether there is any feasible way to make sushi itself without cooking the rice. And I don't think there is.

Now, pure sashimi, fine. But Feorag might end up a bit hungry.

Well, the rice is generally made in electric cookers rather than stovetop, but, yeah, it ain't sushi without rice. fwiw, my friend is also working on a vegan/gluten-free restaurant, which is being held up by bureaucratic creep. So, in the unlikely event the Strosses found themselves in that area they can eat.

Udon rules. Gyoza Rules. Chicken yakitori ... well, yer getting the idea! I'm also a big fan of the Katsu - Chicken Katsu Curry with a bucket of prawn katsu on the side ... Mmmmm!

Sushi is OK in small doses, but a whole meal of it is too much ... mostly too much stodgy rice! (By 'whole meal' I am of course referring to quite a large quantity!)

I also rather like Tepanyaki ... although it does seem to be unbelievably expensive in the UK!

Wow. There are actual posts on there - I was under the impression it'd just be links to new blog articles. And thanks for that sheep video - I just lost 2D6 SAN points. I knew it was more than 1D6 when I started giggling at work.