Comments on: The Small Chats

By: MM

MM — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:12:41 +0000

I’m a dedicated technophobe and anti the social websites, the world needs more like me…. and less who love trivia for trivia sake…. In the UK being called a ‘Twit’ is a derogatory term, and twittering (Wittering), is pointless and inane conversation, so what does that make the users of twitter?

By: HannahP

HannahP — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:46:05 +0000

GTD is super. I started using it here at the recommendation of Stephan Wissell…notessensai to the rest of us!

I have to admit, I don’t follow it too religiously, but when things get a bit much, then I revert back to the GTD templates.

Good luck with it!
Han

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:13:33 +0000

@Dianrez it can work for some, not for others.. it all depends on who you are and what works for you

@MM possible…

By: MM

MM — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:33:36 +0000

I don’t have ‘friends’ on Facebook either, lol………. I don’t bother with it, I don’t ‘do’ social sites none are deemed safe…. fantasy friends aren’t my thing really, I prefer the real kind I can see and talk to. I think it is each to their own, no doubt at ages 14-30 it’s the bees knees, but to anyone else……. Twitter I gather is a means of tracking people down who link up to it, so some civil liberty issues here I would have thought ? isn’t there a ‘map’ system that shows where the caller is making the call ? Bad enough everyone hacks into FB and Bebo without that. What JG was on about could just as well be done on a mobile phone, anyway these are people obsessed with online gimmicks and technology really… these things you can and many do, manage quite well without… I ‘don’t care’ for twitter really

By: Dianrez

Dianrez — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:37:35 +0000

Fascinating. Small talk seemed to me a neurotic filling up of the air just so hearing people can keep a minimum of noise around them…like background music that keeps so many addicted to the radios that they bring to the office. Twitter would be the cyber equivalent of that…but as a visual medium, wouldn’t it compete with other tasks such as editing manuscripts or tweaking spreadsheets? Would it add to the multitasking one already does (against the advice of computer-based professionals?)

On the other hand, it gives the deaf worker a leg up in equality when one can join in the endless small talk that flows around the workplace. Having Qs and As constantly available on call, keen. Let’s see more articles on how we can all join in the Twitter community.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:32:26 +0000

more about "ambient intimacy" can be read over at Leisa Reichelt's blog. @MM you may want to search for "Who cares? Who wants this level of detail? Isn’t this all just annoying noise?" and "real life" in the post.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:37:18 +0000

@Kevin Aires, twitter as a radio, that’s fascinating! it’s like deaf’s radio.. I should steal ETS’s public display and fix it to the ceiling

@Andy S-C, “ambient intimacy”!?? a deaf studies PhD student (me?) is gonna love a thesis on this

@MM, it’s very important to me to stretch my network to new people and Twitter is how I meet useful colleagues of colleagues like you have friends of friends on Facebook. It’s not just all about deaf trivia…

@JGJones great story there, I hope you were ok! I use Twhirl, phone’s Opera Mini (to read updates when I do), and TweetSMS where it costs me 5p to receive replies and direct messages to my phone’s SMS inbox, and 0p to send updates and direct messages. It’s well worth it bearing in mind that TweetSMS sometimes deliver updates to your phone 6 hours later! I.e., not to be used for crit sits. I’m giving them the benefit of doubt that this will be improved in time to come.

By: JGJones

JGJones — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:44:48 +0000

MM – poor advice there…I’ll have to agree with Ben…in my case Twitter wasn’t just for small talk too…

While I was in Spain, having burnt my hand badly just before leaving Ireland, I needed fresh bandages, but couldn’t find the Spanish for it in the book, so I twitted it to Twitter. Within a few minutes I had a dozen of texts from Twitter from all of the people following me all giving me all the Spanish translation I needed to show to the chemist to get fresh bandages. Any other method couldn’t be as quick as that Hardly pointless nonsense unless you don’t get it.

Ben – one major downside to Twitter is the inability to get mobile updates since they pulled it for UK. I’m happy to subscribe to it to recieve mobile updates as I know how useful it was. I wonder…on your linux based systems, you use Gwibber or something similar to follow updates?

By: Kevin Aires

Kevin Aires — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:42:26 +0000

Sounds great! I’m not completely sold on Twitter, but as a home worker, I do agree with the comment from Andy SC of “ambient intimacy”. Malburns mentioned to me that he using a tool that reads out twitters and he has it going as a kind of background radio station, so blind people would be able play too.

By: MM

MM — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:56:36 +0000

Great, just what we need, more deaf trivia lol…… bluddy ‘ell if the above is an example of trivia, you move in some funny social circles lol.. Do these people discuss Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the issues of quantum theorem displacement, to pass the time or what My advice is avoid twitter, FB and Bebo and get a life instead with real people (I know it is old fashioned but…) Isn’t all this the sole domain of bored students and under 30s anyway ? Surely ‘deaf’ twittering (not that I would ever use it), is totally different to hearing ? Mostly it is question and answer little else… I thought the main advantage to being deaf is you stuck to basics and didn’t waste time with trivia, it was our main advantage, now we are all drowning in a sea of pointless nonsense….