>>>The Greenpeace activists locked up by the Russians said they communicated cell to cell by tapping on a water pipe that ran the length of the block. 'A' one tap, 'B' two taps, 'C' three taps, 'Z' 26 taps!! Probably never heard of Morse, but wish they had.<<<<

Yes, that"s why Russians kept them in there for so long. They would have let them out earlier, but they wanted to give them time to finish their messaging.

Now THAT's funny.

A properly-designed encoding process that tries to losslessly compress information employs "entropy encoding" as one of the steps. This means that a typical message is analyzed to see which pieces are most common, and then those pieces are assigned to the most efficient symbol in the code. So, for example, "e" is assigned to the symbol ".", while "i" becomes a ".." and "t" becomes a "-". By contrast, "q" is given "--.-" which takes a long time to transmit, but that's okay, because there aren't many q's used in typical messages.

Apologies if I'm repeating the obvious, but the reason for morse code letter selections was a revelation to me only when I took a class on digital image encoding some years back.

Brighterside, I was a kid when I got really interested in ham radio, but had a terrible time trying to learn morse code, even to a 5 wpm proficiency level. Only after countless hours of repetition did I finally in high school pass the 13 wpm test for the Advanced certificate. Had a giant 3 element yagi antenna like this one on a tower back then; I'm sure it was an eyesore to the neighbors but they were accommodating. Made contacts all over the world on the 20-meter band with a Heathkit 200 watt SSB transceiver.

By way of example that some ideas aren't really new, back many years ago ham radio operators routinely used shortcuts such as OM (old man), YL (young lady), XYL (ex-young lady, or wife), and QTH (location). So contemporary LOL and ROFL shortcuts just continue with this tradition.

Nothing among all my modern gadgets will equal the thrill of those images appearing on the verichrome film as I see-sawed it in the developer dish under the red safelight. Or the scratchy whistling first radio from the breadboard regenerative one valver (er Tuber) (4 pin triode no. 30). All around 1950.
Brian

I twerk ... oh that was "tweet" ... never mind...

I have to admit, i very much do miss my darkroom days and scorn the lack of hands-on involvement with actual paper and chemicals and scorn the ease and simplicity of today's digital printing.

I have to admit, i do very much scorn the hands-on involvement with actual paper and chemicals and don't miss my darkroom days with the ease and simplicity of today's digital printing.

OK, so i'm fickle.

I've never tweeted, but i do a LOT of instant messaging, a lot a lot a lot a lot. Back in the early days if IM i ended up exasperating many of my correspondents with the rapidity and volume of my typing. With email they didn't really notice because once in a while they'd get a tome from me. With IM i was able to keep their screens scrolling near continuously and would tire them out. Oops.

"I was a kid when I got really interested in ham radio"

Same for me. My exposure to Morse Code came when I got a Telegraphy Kit as a Christmas present when I was 10. It had two Keyboard / Buzzer units and about 20' of wire; and had the code printed on the battery compartment. In 1969 I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was sent to tech school for training on the repair of Aircraft Radio Communications systems. This really opened up my world to International radio communications. Being assigned to SAC for 4 years, I worked mostly on B-52 and KC-135 aircraft. They were all equipped with HF, VHF and UHF radios. HF: ARC-65, and ARC-58 SSB radios. VHF: VHF-101. And UHF: ARC-28 and ARC-34.

When I served a year at U-Tapao AFB in Thailand from 1970-71, I'd be on a work order to replace a bomber's ARC-58 HF radio, and when I finished I'd see how far away I could make a contact for a radio check. At night, with the right weather conditions, I could sometimes reach the U.S. West coast. As authorized by the Air Force, my call sign would be "Air Force plus the aircraft Tail Number"; such as "Air Force 6065".

It was from that experience that I worked hard to learn Morse code and obtain my Ham license.

My reference to Max was that the network could track viewer response instantly.

What amazes me is that the networks haven't really figured this out yet. They have so many billions invested in OTA broadcast that they are blind to the opportunity of owning their own streaming network.

"[I]...network could track viewer response instantly.[/I]"

I don't think they're blind to it. They just haven't done it yet. Maybe the OTA folks never will get it done since the feedback has to return over a different path than the program. Maybe that's why the Today Show has a "Twitter Room".

The IP streaming folks have or will.

Peter,

I've not chimed in here just 'cause the depth and breadth of Luddism seemed so vast, but I happened to listen to a podcast (1hr or so) that's right on topic and good food for thought:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/ Episode 13

There was also a Douglas Adams quote in it that I thought was spot-on:
http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

Rob

Thanks for that Rob - some very good listening.

I went to the same school as Douglas Adams, and love the perspective and humour he gave us.

On average I'd say I'm a quite early adopter of new technology, but first I have to feel that whatever's new has it's advantages for me - that hasn't yet happened with Twitter ... maybe it will indeed take ten years.

Maybe. I see twitter as a 'look at me!!" medium, so first you will have to convince yourself that other people are dying to know that you're thinking about coffee.

Yes Serena - that's one of my reservations - it's a sort of narcissistic passtime.

I'm also a little leery of the concept of "followers" - the question I asked at the top of this thread was what happened if someone got 85,000 replies - but it seems that Twitter is a one-way medium, and unless you agree to also follow one or all of your followers, this does not happen.

Having said that. I have seen it being used as an instant feedback device for live TV, and this seems a good function, maybe dependent on who's letting comments through to the screen ...

>>>>I've not chimed in here just 'cause the depth and breadth of Luddism seemed so vast<<<

Luddites were against new technology, weren't they?

Twitter and Facebook are neither technologies nor new.

It's just programming a demented pet monkey of some mediocre programmer in India could do. The problem is he doesn't have the money to buy all the hardware necessary and hype to go with it. So as is usually the case a few rich white guys did it and it caught on with same idiots who keep reality tv alive. Then everybody else sees $$$$ in it and before you know it some crap app becomes a standard. It's like a snowball that gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down the mountain of idiocy.

I'm against it because it's moronic and it's so 1995.

It's 2013 last time I checked.

Rob, love your three points. Right on the money.

Serena and Peter, I had a mentor who said, "Attention is the true coin of the realm." She claimed that nothing was a stronger motivator than getting attention - not money, sex, power. I think the idea that "the world" is paying attention to all internet posts drives social media in general.

I'm also a little leery of the concept of "followers" - the question I asked at the top of this thread was what happened if someone got 85,000 replies - but it seems that Twitter is a one-way medium, and unless you agree to also follow one or all of your followers, this does not happen.

Many folks join Twitter in order to follow, not to have people follow them. If you have close friends there may be a circle where everyone follows everyone else, but still you can still follow those special (famous?) people who don't follow you.

You can, as well, send a specific message (sort of like eMail) to anyone directly (and, of course, they can reply)

I don't belong to Twitter .. I see no need to clutter up my eMail with tweets (and I don't have a smartphone to read them on either) My eMail is cluttered up enough.

>>> the idea that "the world" is paying attention to all internet posts drives social media in general.<<

Indeed: Look at ME!! But not communication.

Actually I did join twitter because there was something Stephen Fry said that deserved feedback, but his policy is not to read his twits' tweets so at best you tweet only to others in his twittersphere. Similarly all those politicians who tweet during debates. So the majority of tweets are not about communication between people but merely an electronic form of graffiti. Indeed it does give TV shows, add agencies, businesses useful data on how many are looking, but nothing more.

I find it ridiculous that the default behavior of twitter and facebook (and probably others) is to email you a copy of every post that you would otherwise have read on the screen at those sites. Of course, i turn this behavior off the moment i create an account. My parents, however, were appalled to discover the day after joining facebook that there were over 700 new emails in their inbox, all things they had already read. So of course they called me and i logged into their facebook account for them and shut off the email notifications.

"[I] "Attention is the true coin of the realm." She claimed that nothing was a stronger motivator than getting attention - not money, sex, power.[/I]"

For all of the people who prefer attention over money, sex or power, I'd be glad to handle their share of the latter.

Twitter and Facebook have nothing to do with technology. They're the 21st century equivalent of hula hoops and yo-yos - fads!

I wonder if the manufacturers of hula-hoops and yo-yos ever had a market capitalization of (Twitter) 28 and (facebook)122 billion dollars.

There is a difference between market cap and worth to society.

Even Pet Rocks had market value.

and no one ever hacked your rock('s)