Bits & Pieces

(via Newshoggers) Watch in HQ if you have high bandwidth.

If you spend any time at all online, and especially on Twitter, you know the widespread use of “epic fail” as a perjorative indicating not just a failure, but a failure complete in its wrongness. The derivation of this term is covered in some detail on today’s New York Times’ On Language column.

In a few years’ time, the use of fail as an interjection caught on to such an extent that particularly egregious objects of ridicule required an even stronger barb: major fail, überfail, massive fail or, most popular of all, epic fail. The intensifying adjectives hinted that fail was becoming a new kind of noun: not simply a synonym for failure but, rather, a derisive label to slap on a miscue that is eminently mockable in its stupidity or wrongheadedness. Online cynics deploy fail as a countable noun (“That’s such a fail!”) and also as a mass noun that treats failure as an abstract quality: the offending party is often said to be full of fail or made of fail.

Also related to Twitter is today’s column by Virginia Heffernan regarding the use of #hastags on the service.

(Via Tehran Bureau, which you should follow on Twitter here)

The United States State Department asked Twitter operators to delay a scheduled maintenance downtime in order to allow the service to continue providing critical communication in Iran during the protests over a contested election. Talk about a seal of approval for a service’s necessity.

The U.S. State Department contacted the social networking service Twitter over the weekend to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that could have cut daytime service to Iranians, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

By the way, Andrew Sullivan is running a constant stream of the best info from Iran on his website The Daily Dish.

Check out Visible Tweets. Search for a topics and watch the animated tweets matching your search. Pretty cool.

A freaking cat gets 500,000 followers in three months.

By the way, a similar thing happened recently on last.fm.  A cat group took off like crazy.

(h/t TechCrunch)

According to Valleywag, talks are underway.

Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it’s Apple that’s closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million.

A source who’s plugged into the Valley’s deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.

Harry McCraken doesn’t think so.

Great syllabus and overview of a new required course for the well-educated: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era (via McSweeney’s). Excerpt:

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new “Lost Generation” of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.

There was a serious security breach on Twitter yesterday. It apparently has now been closed.  Full details here.

Update: The problems are continuing. Best advice is to access Twitter via a third-party tool.

Rumors are spreading that Google is in talks to acquire Twitter. This would be a very big deal. One of the amazing things about Twitter is that it is a vast repository of real-time information. Adding Google’s search strengths to the Twitter platform would have huge value.

I am sure you have at least heard of Twitter by now. Many of my friends are asking about it. To save time, I simply point them to this handy guide to all things Twitter.