Pandemic fear

Here's the brilliant, funny xkcd on the topic of swine flu and social networking.

Wrecked the boat. Totaled. Everyone dead. FAIL

If Homer's Odessey Was Written On Twitter (HolyTaco.com)

He spins, he tweets, he scores

Twittering the tournaments (via TweetGrid)

Twits and tweets

Could this be the world's best Twitter feed?

Hat tip: David Pogue (@pogue)

Tweets during the Super Bowl

The New York Times builds an information display of Twitter chatter during the Super Bowl.

This one was taken at halftime, obviously

Hat tip: Tarus

Who reads this blog and also Twitters?

Are you on Twitter? Out yourself in the comments if you like. (No obligation.)

Cable outages and Twitter

We get our Internet connectivity through Time Warner Cable in New York City, and while our cable TV service is out right now, data is chugging right along.

The customer service phone number is overwhelmed, so I suspect this is a major outage. But how can I find out?

Over at Twitter, I searched on "cable" and restricted results to a 25 mile radius of the city.

Yeah, cable's out. Ugh.

Yes, I know that once the cable outage is over the search above will give less interesting results.

Follow you, follow me

Buck found something very cool: A Twitter/Google Maps mashup callled twittervision.

Yo mama

Oh my. An election-related game of the dozens breaks out on Twitter:

fernandorizo: hey twitter, @anildash , @mathowie , and @loresjoberg are saying hell of yo mama jokes up in here. no limits no knuckles style, exactly.

loresjoberg: @anildash Yo mama so fat, when she suspends her campaign they have to bring in a crane.

loresjoberg: @anildash Yo mama so ugly, Sarah Palin knows how to field dress her.

fernandorizo: @anildash yo mama's such a ho, she said she'd sit ON Ahmedinejad with no preconditions

loresjoberg: @anildash Yo mama so fat, she got an endorsement from General Mills.

loresjoberg: @anildash Yo mama's so ugly, Obama said "You can put lipstick on a pig and it would look a lot like yo mama on dollar margarita night."

anildash: @mathowie Your moms so nasty Joe the Plumber had to tell her to stop "sharing the wealth".

gesteves: @anildash, yo momma’s so fat, John McCain looked into her eyes and saw three letters: KFC.

anildash: @fernandorizo well played! Your mama so nasty Bill Ayers wouldn't pal around with *her*.

Service Journalism 2.0

San Diego public radio station KPBS FM was knocked off the air when the wildfires raging in their area burned down the power lines feeding their transmitter.

But they're not only broadcasting again over another area station, they're leveraging technology to create superb, computer-enhanced situational awareness for people in the area.

I've seen the future and it works.

KPBS is maintaining an incredibly useful Google Maps-based data site for people in the area, and also offering regular status updates via Twitter (which can send information to a variety of platforms, including mobile phones.)

This must be a complete godsend for anyone who's trying to keep up with the latest news and understand how it might affect them.

(Here's the link to the KML file if you want to view the area in Google Earth.)

Twitter

Twitter is kind of fun.

After you register, you can send Twitter an IM or a text message from your cellphone, and anyone can check your "current status" at the Twitter site or wherever you've embedded the right code snippet.

Like over there in the sidebar. :-)

Hint: Click the arrows to see the recent history - and if you're a Twitter user (or inclined to become one) please let me know so's I can "friend" you.