What The Twitter Album Will Look Like!

A Fun Project? I Hope So!

I'd love to start a new project. If you want to participate, it's so easy!

Simply take a photo of yourself standing by something you like in your hometown. Could be your house, a park, a monument, building...anything you like. Or if you'd prefer, just take a photo of it without you in it, lol.

All you'd have to do is take the picture and email it or load it up to TwitPic or something accessible like that and DM the link!

If you want to email it, please include your Twitter handle so that I can put it on your pic, or if you can edit it yourself, just tag your pic with your Twitter handle (like @lippyjimmy)

Click here to email it to LippyJimmy@Gmail.com

API

We hear the term "API" a lot more these days, particularly when things on the web go wrong. "API Limits Reduced", "API Limits Exceeded" etc.

So what is an "API"?

From what I've read, "API" is a set of codes and rules that allows a program to interact with another program. For example, Amazon.com released its API so that Web site developers could more easily access Amazon's product information. Using the Amazon API, a third party Web site can post direct links to Amazon products with updated prices and an option to "buy now."

TweetDeck and Seesmic are API's that interact with Twitter. If you use Twitter.com you're familiar with how you "do" Twitter. Looks like this:














Now if you use TweetDeck, you can change the way you "do Twitter". It looks something like this:













Well when you use something like TweetDeck, it's a program that is interacting with Twitter, it's databases and such, and bringing you your information through its own interface. The interface is the actual program that you are using on your computer. There are API's for phones, computers, etc, and the app designers have to use certain coding to make it all work.

Now as far as API Limits are concerned, the limit applies to how many times you can get updates from Twitter using the program. Updates mean things like status updates, DM's, @replies, picture posts and such. For argument's sake, using the above "Amazon" example, say a million people were to click on an Amazon like on someone's blog at the same time; the API limit would likely be exceeded, and Amazon would likely suspend the interactions between its own site and that blog.

With things being so busy on Twitter lately, World Cup activity and such, the best way for Twitter to keep its own site from crashing would be to implement ways to slow down traffic (avoiding "over-capacity" and the "Fail Whale" from appearing). One of those ways is to lower the API limit. That's what is currently in effect.

Hope this helps!

Entertainment 2010?

I think about resolutions every year come the New Year. They're pretty boring to make, so they're definitely not going to be interesting for someone else to read about. But come this time of year, I always think about how I'd love to see things change in the world, and make a wishlist of resolutions I'd love to see happen.

I would normally not have gone to see a movie like "Avatar". The whole fantasy genre generally doesn't appeal to me. I wasn't a fan of "Lord of the Rings" and films like that. However, I might go ahead and see this picture this time around. I applaud the creativity and imagination that went into the making of what is apparently a very good film. People are raving about it, and for all the right reasons: imaginative, creative, intelligent entertainment.

I'd love to see a trend like this take off. I'd love to see people who are responsible for creating Hollywood entertainment get back on the right track. I can only speak for myself, but I've pretty much had my fill of celebrities who are basically idiots, movies about idiots, shows about idiots, and most of all, news about idiots.

Once a week, it seems, there is the latest "controversial" entertainment item. We play directly into the hands of people who are basically producing garbage. We protest, we object, we scream and yell, and the idiots get rich as a result. We take bottom feeders by the hand and lead them directly to the head of the table.

When I was a kid, I liked bathroom humor. I just thought that there was a time when you were supposed to graduate from that sort of stuff and move on to something a little more intelligent and provocative. For my own purposes, "provocative" meant "causing thought" or "stimulating the mind". Provocative wasn't supposed to mean "purely offensive" or "completely idiotic". We pay a fortune in this country for our entertainment. It's about time the people who are cashing in actually earn their take.

"Avatar" is a good start. Let's get some talent back into the mainstream.

Time and Time?

For some reason, I have a map of the US Time Zones. It's pretty large, and neatly folded. I don't remember buying it, and I'm not sure how it got in my closet. But it fell off the shelf when I was looking for something totally unrelated.

Anyway, I was looking at it, and I was wondering about something: the borders of the time zones are illustrated in distinct color patterns, and they are fairly clearly defined. What I was wondering is, how small an area actually separates the zones? Are there places in the US where one side of the street it's 8 PM and you go across the street and it's 7 PM?

How cool would this be? You miss a TV program that you wanted to see. You get home as it ends at 9, and you're all mad that you missed it. But wait! It's 9 in my house, but it's only 8 at Larry's across the street! You could run over and bust in, commandeer his TV set, and watch your program! Happy Happy Joy Joy!

And this coolness doesn't have to be limited to something as trite as a TV program. No, you could make some serious use of this time-advantage. Look: you roll over in bed, it's 8:30 AM. Dammit, you're an hour late for work now! But no! Again, it's over to Larry's! Jump in bed, roll over...it's 7:30! You've got plenty of time! And if Larry is a congenial neighbor, he won't kill you for being in bed when his wife is there, and hell, you have time for a leisurely breakfast to boot.

Of course, if you live on one side of the zone, and your job is on the other side of the zone, and you're me, you'd be out of work in no time, because you'd never figure out what time you have to get up and go.

I actually do have too much time on my hands