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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In response to an offlist comment by one of our long-time smart guys, I wrote this:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>{… stuff deleted…}<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Note that there has been a shift from scholarly papers to shorter and less-formal scientific and engineering society papers, to internet group posts to realtime chat to whatever the young hipsters use a lot now: tweets? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Note that the time and thought invested in creating those communications decreases steadily with each of those steps.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>The time and thought invested on the receiving end decreases too. Recall back when we used to study an article or a book and talk about it a lot for weeks or months? Some professional society papers had enormous impact, and the others in that field kept a copy and spent hours studying it. In the peak of internet groups, we had occasional posts or threads which got a lot of attention.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Note Scientific American articles from the 1960s. Compare to Scientific American articles today. It isn’t a criticism of the magazine. Try it: go look at those old time articles and note that it is damn hard to maintain concentration on the topic necessary to get thru those today. Note that we now have a constant awareness of the opportunity costs associated with investing a few hours in studying a fifty-year-old Scientific American article. Science is faster now. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>But what is the counterpart to that in tweets? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>I really don't know, for I do not tweet. It just sounds too undignified. Furthermore, I really cannot express my thoughts in 37 characters or less (or whatever the absurd limit is. I can't do it! I am too not hip. I really mean it: I just can't express myself in haiku-length posts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>But hey, I am an open minded sort, so I propose an experiment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Today and tomorrow, let us suspend the usual posting limit for a purpose, to make a point. Write in the cramped space allowed by twitter. (What is it please young hipsters?) Haiku is fine, whatever you want, but keep it to the twitter length limit. Let us try to discuss philosophy, science, tech, the usual ExI banter in tweets.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Note: back in the old days, we used to discourage one-line responses, for it encouraged posts with too-little thought. Now we are temporarily encouraging it to see what we get as we suffer collective reduction of attention span. Today and tomorrow, post away on this topic, within the twitter character limit, no restrictions. If you quote previous tweets, that doesn’t count against your limit; only your response needs to be limited in length. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>The usual twitter abbreviations and murder of traditional spellings R L-owd, N-K-raged even. R U hip?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>