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Design social media social networking software twitter

“A $44 billion version of MySpace.”

The beautiful Twitterific icon, designed by The Iconfactory. Rest in peace.

My longtime friend and former collaborative partner Craig Hockenberry bids a dignified adieu to Twitterific, Twitter, and his mom … and calls for a standards-based universal timeline. — The Shit Show

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"Digital Curation" art direction creativity Design Desktops editorial Fun interface Layout links Microblogging music Nonsense social media software The Mind User Experience Weird

Rediscovering music

Apropos of nothing in particular, I present my all-time listening (first 5.25 rows) and more recent listening:

Drag slider: at left, my all-time listening; at right, more recent listening.

Because I’m weird that way: Sometimes I’ll listen extensively to a particular artist from my collection whom I might not have played in a while, simply to bump them higher in the mosaic or reposition them for a more pleasing composition.

If Spotify exposes you to new music, Last.fm helps remind you of great music in your existing collection that may have slipped your mind. (Not an advertisement. I use last.fm and get great pleasure from how it helps me discover and fuss with my music, as I once spent hours in the old days stacking and rearranging my LPs and tapes.)

And that’s how I stay out of the pool halls.


Public Service P.S: If you do decide to try last.fm, please, by all means, pay the small monthly subscription fee if you can. Doing so supports the under-resourced team that keeps the service going. It also removes the ads, making the site usable (the ads are a nightmare), and gives you the option to view your music as a visual grid, like those shown in my screenshots. The grid-view makes the site. It gives you, not just a visual record collection, but a visual artist collection, if you’ll allow the conceit. I love it.

An earlier version of this post also appears on my Facebook stream.

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Community content ethics Fascism Lite social media

Resist revenge tweeting.

The people have removed a tyrant. I feel the joy and wonder of a newborn thing.

My relief is so intense, it’s physical—my body has begun a slow unkinking, cell by cell, muscle by clenched muscle.

But I’m resisting my urge to be publicly clever about Trump’s defeat.

Because, darn it, Joe Biden calls on us to be better.

Yes, many on the other side, if they had won, would exult in rubbing our faces in it. Yes, it should be our turn to hurt them.

But isn’t that how we got here? Tribalism and ridicule of the other?

Isn’t resentment at being looked down upon by better educated, more privileged people part of what led to Trump’s victory in 2016?

There’s lots I could say about the racism and cruelty of many Trump supporters that would justify rubbing their noses in Trump’s defeat.

And after our country’s narrow escape from Fascist authoritarianism, the desire is strong to punish those who, knowingly or not, carried us to the precipice.

But an eye for an eye—well, you know.

Today, how I contribute to my nation’s healing is by taking this really fine tweet I just wrote, and deleting it, unposted.


Photo by H Shaw on Unsplash. Hat tip to Button Monkey for his friendship.

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