almost witty

As some of you will have no doubt noticed, I had set my Twitter updates to appear on my blog every 24 hours via Loudtwitter. I set this up partly because there can be weeks that go by when I don’t update my blog - or can’t get my thoughts out in coherent sentences - but the simplicity of one-line blogging updates is probably preferable to an occasional drought of content.

However, I’ve now received my first complaint from a loyal (and uber-important!) reader.

So, loyal subjects and readers, I’ve disabled the Twitter updates on my main blog (although they’ll still appear on t’other blog). If you’re obsessed with the minutiae of my life, you can always follow my Twitter or Facebook updates direct, or let me know what you think!

These are the Twitters I sent over the last 24 hours…

• 18:57 is spotting David Duchovny in my workplace. Shame I just left work. #
• 20:16 is watching the best Top Gear episode. Evah. #
• 06:48 New blog: Links for 2008-07-29 [del.icio.us] tinyurl.com/5tjgrq #
• 12:40 is slowly coming down from The Dark Knight. But by Deity, it was a long film! #

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Fair play to whoever runs Cuil’s press relations - they’ve managed to get coverage in pretty much all the mainstream press I’ve seen today, including the BBC. Very impressive, considering the number of companies who have claimed to be better than Google at searching, but doing nothing more than aiming a slingshot to Google’s Goliath.

However, I think the next time before they launch their press releases, they might be advised to do a little more work on the search results and their engineering resiliencce. An ego search for Andrew Wong on Cuil does retrieve my LinkedIn profile - but attaches a picture of a totally different person. and a Chinese athlete. Try to run another search, and then you’re told that Cuil’s servers are over-boiling. Which you never get on Google, it has to be said.

During the media hullabaloo about Chinese bodyguards over-zealously protecting the Olympic flame in London against Tibet protestors, I managed to keep my mouth shut. I agree the Chinese government is treating Tibet in a disgusting way indeed - but you know what? Name me a country that’s hosted the Olympics that has a lily-white human rights record. Aside from Canada. But I’m not expecting to see Iraqi/Iranian/Irish protestors trying to blow out the Olympic torch when it arrives in London in 2012. Why not?

The media hype and protests seemed to die down in the wake of the Chinese earthquakes in May (disappointingly named in the American fashion - 05/12 - but that’s another blog post), and as the Olympics hype machine gets into full swing (by dragging up painful memories from my past), these protests seem to have been quietly forgotten. Which I think is reasonable - everyone’s had their say, can we please now get on with the illusion of world peace through sportsmanlike competition?

But no. I spent my Saturday night reinstalling Vista (hey, the next three summer weekends will be spent drowning myself in alcohol in a theatre, a wedding in a castle and a park) and reinstalling software programs. Except when I came to using my usual text editor of choice and got told instead to Boycott Beijing, on the grounds of their suppression of the rights of cyber-journalists. Which is all fine, well and good - except I’m pretty sure the rights of journalists are being suppressed everywhere - even in the United States.

Besides, how can one person who wants to use a text editor Boycott Beijing? By not watching it on TV? By ignoring one of the few occasions when the world does genuinely get together?

So I’m doing my own, equally pointless bit of politicization - by boycotting Notepad++ because they’re telling me to do something. What next? Google advising people to give up smoking?

These are the Twitters I sent over the last 24 hours…

• 12:18 is surprised that the British way of spelling judgment is shorter than the American way! #
• 16:57 Is watching british people quibble over the softball rules #
• 22:37 is appearing on ITV4 in the next few minutes… #

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