“Follow the tweets!” — Barack Obama on his new Twitter account #dad https://t.co/AsKqGeZUz5
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) May 18, 2015
Reminded of my fav exchange from @samsteinhp Obama interview
"You're not on Twitter"
#flipflop http://t.co/DmKkq8nMRw pic.twitter.com/zqcISR3XDg
— William Jordan (@williamjordann) May 18, 2015
why won't Obama show a little goodwill and fav a few Boehner tweets? it's like he doesn't even care about getting immigration reform done
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) May 18, 2015
(Yes, this is snark)
Calls himself "Barack." So disrespectful. @POTUS: Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! 6 years in, they're finally giving me my own account.
— Matt Bai (@mattbai) May 18, 2015
(But this — it’s Matt Bai, so maybe not?)
RIP Twitter pic.twitter.com/4rW08zwcb9
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) May 18, 2015
Apart from flavor-of-the-moment media platforms about which NOBODY CARES DAMMIT, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
aimai
Ok,I LOL’d at @billclinton “AFAF.”
Just Some Fuckhead
I think the only thing worse than Twitter are these hideous mashups of twitter conversations.
Elmo
First night of a weeklong biz trip to Chicago. So I’m in the hotel bar, already +2, picking stuff off the menu at random because food is my sole entertainment when I’m on the road.
Well. Food and Amazon Prime streaming video of stuff my wife wouldn’t be interested in.
And wine, of course.
FlyingToaster
The problem comes in when President Huckleberry Graham starts tweeting.
Nothing good comes of this.
[the only social media I can stand is twitter; bobic is probably right.]
Elmo
@aimai: Yeah, that was hashtag achievement level expert.
Corner Stone
The FLOTUS poke was sick burn.
Unabogie
That was classic.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You mean they are supposed to be conversations? WTF?
#FML #WhatAreWeGonnaDoNow #KeepRollinRollinRollin
Bonnie
@Just Some Fuckhead: I with you on that.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elmo:
Sole entertainment because you don’t have time or energy for anything else, I assume? A lot of the museums and such have late hours (like 8 pm) once a week.
Baud
I can’t even imagine the amount of angry spam this account is going to get.
geg6
Prepping to work the polls for my friend who is running for Register of Wills in tomorrow’s primary. I don’t expect him to win, given the horrible corrupt machine our county Dems are, but we need more people to challenge these fuckers and, if they do, one of them will eventually win. Eventually.
Elmo
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Correct. I have a ton of work to do on between meetings.
lamh36
posted on last thread, but it’s more relevant here:
Ok, so I see lotsa of people tweeting @POTUS, do they NOT realize that EVERY tweet to this account is being archived?
I mean I noticed this when I saw @POTUS first tweet. It say so on the page.
Reading this Gawker post made me LMAO at people really seem NOT to understand how the internet works sometimes.
The White House Is Archiving Every Tweet Begging @POTUS for Sex
M. Bouffant
Your First Amendment at work: First time I checked @POTUS there were plenty of replies/tweets at him. Next time I looked they’d all disappeared, like magic.
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No. Even worse are the people who do a whole series of numbered tweets, so they’re effectively making a short blog post one sentence at a time. Then somebody assembles them into a slideshow. If you can’t say it in one or two tweets, you’re missing the whole point of the medium.
Germy Shoemangler
Anyone addicted to ancient color photos? Here is a collection from 1910s to 1930s.
Pogonip
Hello shaper-uppers, sorry I did not report in yesterday. It was a horrible crappy week with very little in the way of program-sticking. I hope everyone else did better than I did–I bet you didn’t do any worse!
Baud
The world went to hell when we stop using cuneiform.
BruceFromOhio
bwahaha, I think this is hilarious, and I just fucking hate Twitter and everything about it. I could see the four of them (Obamas and Clintons) running dizzying rings around the rubes this way.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: Even people I like, like Billmon, tire me the F out with that tweet storm BS.
Eric U.
I have one of these new-fangled twitter accounts, but I don’t know how to use it. Which makes me feel old and pathetic. Or disinterested. Something like that
Tree With Water
Maybe if the president had skinned BP alive like the corporation justly deserved, instead of looking forward and not back, its criminal negligence might yet be at the forefront of everyone’s political consciousness. The people of the United States would have cheered had that corporation been dismantled, as it damn well should have been.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: Yes, there’s one shot of some folks sitting by a river, and the river is a silky blur.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: I hope you don’t have to wait too long. Maybe someday we can 3D print new organs for ourselves. That’s what the science magazines tell me, anyway.
Elmo
@Pogonip:
I gave myself a pass today because travel and flying and packing were too much to cram into a morning even without my treadmill.
Tomorrow without fail!!
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
That’s all very well, but you do Juice.
Frankensteinbeck
@Tree With Water:
You… are aware that the president is not all-powerful, and that there are things like ‘laws’ and ‘courts’, right? He can’t actually just break up a company because he thinks they were naughty.
Pogonip
@Elmo: You and me both! I’ll root for you!
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water: Man, you are just all over the damned place. Can’t you just pick a fucking box we can put you in, then appropriately castigate you for your views?
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Congratulations on being on the list. The first step of many, I assume, but obviously a necessary one. Please keep us as posted as you feel you want to.
@Germy Shoemangler:
Either 3D printing, or growing new organs from stem cells. I believe there’s some promising research going on there as well.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman:
I started not long ago (juicing) so I feel like the youngest in the family. I am intrigued sometimes when commenters talk about dear-departed trolls or front pagers who retired from the game. I feel like I missed a bunch of wild stuff.
Is there a balloon-juice greatest hits link somewhere?
Gravenstone
@efgoldman: You comment on this rathole. Are you really that much better off? =P
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
As I understand it, they were operating at an ISO speed somewhere around 1, which would let you do use an exposure shorter than a second in direct sunlight- which most of those pictures seem to be. That’s still very slow by modern standards, and they mention that a tripod would be absolutely required, but the multi-second stuff was mostly the early technology in the 19th Century.
Germy Shoemangler
@SiubhanDuinne: From what I understood, the frame is 3D printed, and then the stem cells attach to the frame. Then the frame is discarded or dissolved?
Debbie(aussie)
@efgoldman: In anticipation of a future gift, I wish you all the very best.
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: There should be. The mustard, the mopping, some incident where Cole was trapped on the roof, or maybe it was a tree, the Best of Tunch. I hope Cole sees this and starts a Classics category.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
This dude is NUTS. http://jezebel.com/the-new-mad-max-film-is-so-feminist-my-scrotum-killed-i-1705273679
chopper
@Germy Shoemangler:
god i hope not.
Germy Shoemangler
@Pogonip: Sometimes someone will mention some old troll by name, and others will chuckle and nod in a sardonic way. It all goes over my head, but I find it entertaining nevertheless.
Are there many front pagers who no longer… page?
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
FYI: In an exchange with Valdivia I discovered that FYWP doesn’t even like Cato. Go figure.
sharl
@efgoldman:
Congrats! Like someone already said, hope you don’t have to wait too long.
Gravenstone
@Tree With Water: You do realize that the president, as an individual or as an official role cannot flay corporations, regardless of how “deserving” they might be? Or does the concept of “due process” completely escape your monomaniacal worldview?
I swear, you don’t just want a unicorn, you want the whole fucking enchanted forest.
jl
@Germy Shoemangler: Thanks. Beautiful pics. Things were in color back then? I thought everything was in black and white, just like the photographs! :).
Baud
@efgoldman:
Hope you get a good one!
Frankensteinbeck
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
I can’t tell if you’re being snarky! This is a satirical article poking fun at the MRAs who are so angry at the new Mad Max movie. I just saw that movie, and it’s awesome, and yes after Max, the next six most badass people are grannies. Furiosa might be more badass than Max. It’s kind of hard to tell. They’re both pretty amazing. Also, the movie specifically says several times that women are not objects. So, you know, the MRAs are having hysterics.
Germy Shoemangler
@jl:
I’m convinced people in the future will think we lived in a flat universe because our photos and videos were not 3D (except for a few action and sci-fi films).
EDIT: Looking at one of the old photos from 1930 of young ladies on the beach, I find myself falling in love with a young woman in the far right of the frame. She looks contemporary to me, like a time-traveler who wandered into the shoot.
Germy Shoemangler
@Frankensteinbeck: What amazes and gladdens me is that this film that is generating so much excitement was written and directed by a 70-year-old.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think you’d probably wind up with a mix of the two. The 3-D printer would create a matrix that could then be seeded with stem cells that would grow into the organ. That would give you results much faster than trying to grow from a small cluster of cells.
Gravenstone
@Germy Shoemangler: Take a dive through the archives some day. You’ll return wiser, scarred mentally and emotionally, but wiser.
ETA: and check the dropdown of front pager contacts. Then contrast it to the number of actual active front pagers.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steeplejack (phone):
It’s the name of a departed troll who was banhammered. I suspect a lot of the mysterious vanishing posts are due to forgotten troll nyms.
Mandalay
@Germy Shoemangler:
Not quite ancient, but here are some great colorized photos from WW2:
http://www.vintag.es/2015/05/50-breathtaking-wwii-photos-look-like.html
Warning: That web site can suck hours out of your life.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Maybe it’s time to clean out the file, then.
JPL
@efgoldman: Many decades ago, a friend had a kidney transplant and she is still doing great. Hopefully, the time comes soon because life gets so much easier.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Congrats.
satby
@Elmo: Hey! I’m in Chicago on Wednesday, how about a Chicago meet-up ? Anyone else in? I’m only an hour away, so if another night works better that’s ok too.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Germy Shoemangler:
Don’t bother. We peaked with that first live album.
chopper
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
hence my plan to come up with a troll named “the”. get banned and watch the fun fly.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: “The,” then “an”, then “a”, and finish up with “of.”
satby
@efgoldman: Wishing you the best on that and that you get it soonish, if possible.
Germy Shoemangler
@Steeplejack (phone): I took a peek into the archives and found something from 2002. Cole complaining about insomnia. Comments were turned off.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Frankensteinbeck: I meant in a good way.
Guess my snark fu is not strong tonight.
satby
It was a beautiful day, I puttered around the house getting some long deferred stuff done and hearing from friends all over the world. Now sitting on my deck with a nice merlot watching the hummingbirds bicker and feed at the two feeders and the dogs try to catch frogs in the pond.
Life is good!
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
then add “john” and watch cole lose it.
chopper
@Germy Shoemangler:
that’s probably the best post and comments we’ve ever had here.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Even better than the credenza one.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
I would suggest naming yourself “fuck”, which gets used a lot more frequently around here.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
But were the helicopters laughing?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Ah, that explains it.
different-church-lady
THANKS OBAMA!
Starfish
@Germy Shoemangler:
Read some entries in the Lexicon including the one on peak wingnut.
I was surprised that crazification factor is not in the Balloon Juice Lexicon.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: “Clinton”
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: They never laugh, the humorless fuckers.
Elizabelle
@Germy Shoemangler: Thank you. Look forward to the color pics.
@efgoldman: Great about the list. Fingers crossed for you.
And you do facechat with the darling granddaughter, so you are not a total Luddite.
different-church-lady
@Germy Shoemangler: I [heart] you!
Elizabelle
Just noticed the first lightning bug of the summer. Out on deck, thinking we might get rain, but it seems to have blown over. Again.
It’s cooler, though.
Kay
I like Twitter. If you’re interested in one specific thing you can find an expert (or obessive) on that specific topic and that person then interacts with other obsessives and they all link to what they’re reading on that subject.
I don’t even have an account and I follow certain people all the time. It’s weirdly efficient and focused. You’re not really reading what they say. You’re reading what they link to.
Shana
@Elmo: Check out Heaven on Seven. They have a location just off Michigan Ave. near the Marriott, but it may be closed for renovation. The original location, on the 7th floor of an office building in the Loop (hence the name) is open for dinner during the renovation I believe. Great cajun food. The chef/owner trained with Paul Prudhomme.
Germy Shoemangler
@different-church-lady: A window into a lost world. I love them.
Elmo
@Shana: THANKS!!!
Chris
@Roger Moore:
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish: Look up “27 Percenters.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Roger Moore: Also I bemoan the proliferation of picture memes. I have a theory that Egypt started with an alphabet and the full-on written word but eventually devolved into tweets, then picture memes then finally hieroglyphs.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kay: Now go spend your Twitter cash, you filthy propagandist.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
I feel as if everyone on Twitter should remember Pascal’s Apology for writing a long letter because he didn’t have time to write a short one. Tweeters should focus on pith rather than immediacy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Pith like with frogs?
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
I’m glad to hear the news nonetheless. Here’s hoping you don’t have to wait too long.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Especially the ones who need replacement kidneys.
danielx
@Germy Shoemangler:
If there’s not, there ought to be, just like there ought to be a list of TBogg’s greatest hits.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Got that right. Can you tell me anything about cystoscopy, other than it’s a pain?
tybee
@Germy Shoemangler:
very cool. thanks.
Kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I like mildy “famous” people (in a specific area) because they’re all business. I don’t want to hear about the airport you’re sitting in or what the weather is or what you’re eating or (worse) planning on eating. If I’m not mistaken all that belongs on Facebook, which I don’t read.
the Conster
Twitter has tomorrow’s news today, and it goes around and through the gatekeepers. It’s conversation and information sharing that goes on without any filtering from the MSM, which is universally reviled. I like the immediacy of it. It’s truly the hive mind.
different-church-lady
@the Conster: Right — because the hive mind is so much more trustworthy…
the Conster
@different-church-lady:
compared to what?
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: FWIW, I laughed at that.
Botsplainer
@Germy Shoemangler:
She doesn’t quite belong, does she?
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Congratulations, and I sincerely hope you’re wrong about the ‘nothing’s going to happen very soon’ part!
Kay
@the Conster:
I like that about it too. It’s egalitarian. If media people go on it they have to respond to the angry mob because they’re just like everyone else. :)
Renie
@Germy Shoemangler: After checking out old posts don’t forget to email John in CAPITAL LETTERS, he loves that!!!!
/snark
the Conster
@Kay:
Yup. I had a back and forth with Jay Rosen today, and the feedback around CNNs report that Lindsay Graham was going to announce a run for president by announcing a 10,000 troop “surge” to quickly train the Iraq army to fight ISIS was gratifying to see. I don’t need to wait to hear what the Morning Joe sock puppets tell me about Lindsay’s serious plan for the Middle East.
Kay
This is why Twitter is good- I give you David Frum:
He goes on to call for importing “super elite” people.
I feel like he would be less true to himself in a more thoughtful, measured medium and then we wouldn’t know how horrible he is ! :)
Zinsky
@Just Some Fuckhead: Amen, JSF.
danielx
@the Conster:
Yeah, that’ll work. We’ve been training those guys for ten years, and what they seem to be best at is donating their equipment (paid for by you and me) to the bad guys. Yet another Huckleberry brainstorm…on the other hand, you can’t really blame him for looking at the current crop of Republican possibles and thinking “why not me, I look as good or better than these assholes..”.
Kay
@the Conster:
Did he write the thing about how media are horribly compromised and conflicted on Iraq and “access journalism” and they can’t get past it? I think there’s truth to that.
In a weird way I think “data journalism” is an over-correction, maybe a response. “We can’t trust any of the things powerful people tell us because we keep getting bamboozled so we’ll just analyze these charts!”
the Conster
@Kay:
It was about what I felt was his misplaced concern that ABC wouldn’t let Stephanapolous report on any of Clinton’s campaign. I said who cares – anyone who asks about flag pins is not going to be missed.
Kay
@the Conster:
It would be a horrible distraction anyway because they’d just end up talking about him for 6 months. It’s a bad idea.
Ultimately I think they have to decide whether they’re media personalities or reporters.
the Conster
@efgoldman:
That was my point. There is no value to Stephanopolous, when there are any number of useless hacks who can ask that kind of question.
the Conster
@Kay:
There are no reporters on national broadcasts any more – there are talking hairdos without a thought in their heads, or there are corporate hacks like Jonathan Karl, Sheryl Atkinsson, Andrea Mitchell. That’s why I like Twitter – I follow reporters, who will never be seen on your TV.
tomtofa
@Germy Shoemangler:
I felt the same way about this young lady from 1913.
PaulW
It’s not that he tweets. It’s a question if he retweets your sh-t forward, ’cause THAT will matter.
Answer back, dammit. I’ve sent five tweets to ya, boss.