YJL

I just read this news about Twitter filed a lawsuit against five spammers. This post title explains what I had thought when I read the news, but according to The Guardian, Facebook and Google have already done the same thing with successes. I don't have an eye on Facebook, but I am pretty sure I didn't read any news about that from Google's blogs.

Twitter posted about this on its blog, which I hadn't read for about two years. I like that, make a strong stand. Clearly showing their action towards spammers.

Go Twitter! Sue the hell out of those disgusting people. Wasting their skill, coding programs that abuse other people and systems. The governments should try to build up criminal cases against those people! Darn it!

I never understand companies like Google who doesn't try to show and to execute their principles of how they deal with spamming issue. I see nothing from Google, occasional blog posts do not really count. If you have read Google products' Google Groups, you can often see spams being dealt only after days, sometimes, they just flush out of first page of posts and everyone forgets about that.

Indeed, there is a flag button. But that's your product's supporting forum. Okay, community support! Such a shame, using customers to help other customers. Some of those contributors don't even know what they are talking. And the blogs of theirs which still allow commenting, you often see well-designed spams slip in, passing Blogger's spam filter. Which is fine, the filter can't be 100%-effective, but you should have someone really read comments! Hire more people to run the forums and blogs, Google!

No one would think you are a bad company when you take on spammers. You are terrible when you are quiet about it even you are doing something behind. Just yell it loudly, for garsh's sake!

Sue them, then donate the money, that's how you boost your public image.

Yesterday, I was watching a stream. The broadcaster received a Twitter following request via Facebook post (or something, not sure what that is called on Facebook). The screen showed the caster clicked on the link to the requester's Twitter page. The next ten or twenty seconds, the viewers watched the caster trying hard to find the "Follow" button to follow which had been under cursor for most of time.

As you could imagine, viewers were laughing so hard as I was, or ROFL or LMAO for short. Even I has stopped using Twitter almost two years ago and the layout has been changed quite a lot, I still could spot that button right away.

Recently, I found out a very interesting fact. Even someone in their sixties, they may be good at using Facebook but not be able to take care of their Windows operating system. They may be tapping like a pro on iPad, having some awesome apps installed by themselves. But never heard of or used RSS feed.

People seem to get used to be in a certain circle or website. For example, the Facebook. They are so used to it and somehow can't have a concept that they can also follow/subscribe to same group of people on other websites. Everything has to be provided or accessed via Facebook. If something is mentioned by someone, some will ask for a link.

Day after day, you will see same people ask for same thing again and again. They never learn to receive the new updates from other website which is the original source. It looks to me as if everything has to be on Facebook and only, or they would be completely unknown to those people.

Do people really have problem using other website which they are not familiar with? Certainly not, just too lazy to click.

I had used Facebook for some time and de/re/activated my account for two times at least. I just couldn't get the idea of Facebook. It's not social, in fact, not really any of social networking websites is real socializing, they are social networking, but not social.

Well, maybe they are not for general purpose, but for people to hook up someone for sexual purpose in my feeling. Nevertheless, it's still possible you can use it to find your high school classmate or long lost friends.

I also tried a few times on Google+, but never got into it, not even tried to add someone to the circles. The more I used these websites, the more I feel it's the sea of messages or posts or updates or whatever you call it.

We are buried in those messages. For me, I am afraid that I may be missing something important, something has real value. Not just that kind of chit-chat or j/k or LOL messages. It's not like I dislike those, life without those will be boring, but I don't want those to mess up with real message, either.

On Google+, you have a slider to filter the amount of messages. I know I definitely wouldn't want to try that because the chance of missing a message. I guess you can make sure someone's message will always be shown, but you never know if you remember to maintain the whitelist. In many case, it's human error of user's. They forget to set or update certain message.

You must be either having a crystal mind or giving no about what you may miss if you want to use social networking correctly, or it will just be obstacle in social life.

Email, phone, and letter are better than those.

I was checking if comments were imported correctly on Disqus, I checked one of my post and saw this reaction:


The translation by Google Translate (probably only 50% correct):

Japanese strong man to write the script /2010/05/bash-oauth.html + library. However, over the wall still has to ... ... RT @ beyondwdq: @ dickeny this ye do? Even before direct user name password authentication is, now I can not

I am not complaining or anything, just wondering why this Twitter thought I was a Japanese. I don't know Japanese, therefore I couldn't have any posts written in Japanese. In fact, I have never talked about Japan or Japanese in this blog. My name is written in Chinese Pinyin, definitely don't read like a Japanese name.

I am a Taiwanese if you want to know.

After 918 days of being a Twitter user, 114 days with my second account, 9605 tweets¹¹, now I have left Twitter.

The reason is quite simple: it took me too much and I couldnt really make something useful out of 140s.

About two weeks ago², I started to use FriendFeed to post my updates. I got much less responses on FriendFeed than on Twitter, but I still think FriendFeed is a better place for me. I dont want to be limited by 140 rules with only plain text. I want to have a close pattern to real discussion, not just the reply mess or the RT mess.

The last week, I have been more productive, I almost posted one posting a day, coded everyday, buried in bugs. I read more and thought more and deeper. Time was still not enough but I was using time, not wasting time. I pressed F5 less and stayed in Vim (text editor) more. I used to do system update less than every 24 hours because I was too bored for waiting tweets show up, now I rarely noticed that I didnt update yet.

Please dont get me wrong, its not as if Twitter is a bad or poor service. Its just what Twitter is is not for me anymore and I am not a person have good self-control power, my willpower is pretty weak. Its easy to be distracted and too many tweets to read them all. I only had followed 20 users, I felt that already. I think following peoples organized thoughts might be better, such as blogs.

However, I am not totally leaving actually, because I still have some unfinished business on Twitter, but I dont read tweets anymore, at least not those without me being mentioned.

[1]	(1, 2) 4399 tweets from livibetter plus 5206 tweets from lyjl at the moment I tweeted I am leaving.

[2]	http://friendfeed.com/livibetter/b0bf1915/friendfeed-is-better-than-twitter-in-many-ways is gone.

After 4397 + 1 tweets livibetter, I decided to have a new Twitter account lyjl.

I want to have a shorter username, livibetter has 10 letters, too long, lyjl only has 4 letters, much better!

I created a new account instead of changing the username, my reasons are:

• Search Engines or some Twitter related websites store your tweets URIs, if you just change username, then 404 will be seen. Twitter doesnt redirect for you. Keep them untouched is a better for me.
• Even some websites are smarter to use API, they use your numerical Twitter ID and grab latest username, then generate a tweet URI dynamically. What if they have http://example.com/user/livibetter, that would be stored by Search Engines, then again, 404 will be seen.
• Another benefit from creating new account is you dont have to change your Twitter username in other websites profile page in hurry. You just leave a last message on old account, people can still reach you if they do read.

The only drawback is tweet wont go with you to new account, they stay where they are. And your former followers may never follow your new account, because they dont read really or just happen to miss your last tweet on old account. But its good time to know who reads your tweets seriously.

If you dont care about 404 issues, then just change your username.

Sometimes, I like tweeting in code instead of plain words. So I tweeted this:

exec('class Me:\n def drink_beer(self): self.has_headache = True') ; me = Me() ; me.drink_beer() ; print me.has_headache #BEER

exec is a statement not a function¹.

I had tried to use eval() first but it only accepts expression so exec seems to be right one to use because it accepts statement, well you can feed it with a entire source file actually. If we just give our code, then the code will be executed in current scope.

I do this is because I need to have one-liner code, you dont have \n or <br/> on Twitter³, I just wrote it for fun. If you want to use eval() or exec in real program, you must use them with care.

[1]	This would work because a tuple with only one element is not a tuple but the element unless you append with , after that only element2. So it is evaluated like exec only_element.

[2]	A single item tuple must have a trailing comma, such as (d,), from documentation.

[3]	Actually it has \n but you have to go to HTML source code, atom feed, or json via API. In the representation of HTML, \n doesnt give your line break.

Twimonial and Let Secrets Out (LSO) are my 7th and 6th GAE apps, it created both in a month. I decided to post about them because I couldnt get anyone to use them.

You can read about why I created LSO in its blog, the code is licensed under the modified BSD. Here is a screenshot of it:

As the title describes, its a place let you post your secrets, anonymously. I believe I created for good of the world, but I just could get it to the people who need it.

Twimonial is an webapp to let you read or add testimonial about other Twitter users. I got the idea when I saw someone tweet a Follow Friday recommendation. Its just a list of username, I wondered would anyone really follow by just seeing that? I really doubted, at least, I would not follow. And a screenshot of it:

So I thought what if I could read more about those Twitter users? Then, that is testimonial. And here comes Twimonial. The code is not released, its not because I didnt want to. Its because why I wasted my time again. Not really much people are interested in my stuff. The only code I got someone (probably only one) to use is BRPS, which might be the only thing I could say I made it! I think I should also mention a failure of mine, I Thank.

If you are interested in participating or giving feedback, free feel to contact me or leave a comment. If you would use any of them, I just want to say you are the best!

PS. I also submitted a link to reddit for Twimonial.

More than a week ago, I decided to temporarily stop using, reading, or writing on Twitter, FriendFeed, and MSN. That's a torture and inhuman! First 24 hours of this idiot idea is the hardest time. Even you know only few people would read your tweets, you still want to tweet. You just want to let the word out, doesn't matter if others read them.

It's a expression way, a life pattern. Something triggers your mind, being organized in your head, then being expressed via typing.

I wouldn't try this again, although this my second time. Now, I have many things have to catch up.

Don't dare to try!

After sharing on Twitter for about a week later, we now have FriendFeed IM. Combination of these two features is the new Twitter IM.




Here is my settings of FriendFeed:




Even this is better than nothing (official Twitter IM), but I don't like duplication. For those like relaying message to everywhere might be a good thing to do. I only tried this for writing this blog post.

A screenshot explains all:

I track these keywords on Twitter:

anyone OR livibetter OR linux OR fedora -mccain -obama -biden -palin

I track "anyone" because I think anyone who needs a hand would ask anyone comes to help them. So when I read a tweet which I know the answer for it, I will check that Twitter user, follow them (not always), and reply with my answer.

I believe anyone suddenly gets a response from unknown person may feel strange. 140 characters is not really enough to reply and introduce myself as well.

Besides Twitter, I also have a browser tab staying in FriendFeed's public page.

I don't have many things to do in current state of my life. I have not many desire for myself, therefore I think if I can fulfill for someone else, that will be making two people happier at least. However, I am really looking forward to reading something very thoughtful, insightful, or potential within those asks. For example, asking an implementation of a new idea, which can significantly improve the efficiency of something. But all I have replied are "what is the link of XXX?", "doesn't anyone know YYY?", etc.

When I take an action for a plan iff I will use the result or I know someone definitely will use the result. By tracking on Twitter, I actually seek the audiences of their own ideas.

People may make stuff for money, ideal, fame, or something I couldn't imagine. I know I do for fame, just want to see lots of people using my stuff. Unfortunately, that haven't happened.