Tag: Twitter

Originally posted at Citizen Orange.

The fate of almost a million lives could be decided in the next six hours.  As a voter, as a millenial, as a migrant, as a Guatemalan, I’m writing to say that I will be watching along with the vast majority of those who will determine the future of the United States of America. 

If you already haven’t heard already, Harry Reid is going to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act up as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.  The Senate is scheduled to vote on taking up the Act tomorrow at 2:15 p.m.  If you haven’t called you’re Senator yet in the support of the DREAM Act please do so now by calling:

888-254-5087

It is imperative that you focus on these Senators.  If you’ve called already, call again.  If you’ve called again, ask five friends to do the same.  If you’ve done all that, here are some more actions you can take.

(Cross-posted from The Free Speech Zone)

In the hopes that someone here has kids or grand-kids, those rugrats either know about what i’m going to let you in on or it hasn’t hit their school/campus yet to the point they can’t socially exist without it.

Twitter will be a thing of the past soon as a new twitter-esque social network/microblogging service has emerged to a more mainstream prominence lately.

It’s called Tumblr

It’s been around for a couple of years but 2009 is when it started coming into it’s own.  Check it out and play around with it.

I made mine and it’s in the blogroll as “American Pirate”.  It’s a more personal touch if you actually give a shit about what shennanigans i’m getting into next.  I say that only because today is a day of “student activities” in NYC being run by SDS (tee hee!) so stay tuned….

But, mark my words, 2010 is gonna be a big year for Tumblr.  

Think Iran’s Twitter Revolt was impressive?  Imagine if they had unlimited characters to text, ability to post photos and video on the fly, and even “geotag” where it was happening for those keeping an eye on developments…..or, I dunno, Human Rights groups needing evidence to collect about abuses….ahhh technology 🙂

It will be twittered and blogged.

(I am leaving reporting on Iran’s Revolution itself for worthier minds, and less busy minds, but wanted to briefly address this one angle. I woke myself at 5am to do so.)

Iran has grabbed control of radio and TV communication, predictably, as would our own nation should we ever try to regain control of our own Corporatocracy.

The frightening thing is, this is a template, if you will, of how a Nation must be ready to technologically block information. Every despot and intelligence agency in the World is taking notes and making plans, including our own Internet Czar.

Sure they can shut down phone service, but how to block all the satellite uplinks that drive the internet and cell phones? The images and reports go viral instantaneously across the globe; especially with a young and savvy population. Standing in a crowd, it is easy to get off a one line twitter, so that all concerned can follow the tag and have warning. or hear of new protest plans. Texting will only go to your circle, so the hashmark tag allows anyone who uses it to connect with all Iranians of a like mine.

People don’t talk about it in terms of “the hive mind” for nothing.

When the Traditional Media ^TM seem too slow, or too far from the event, or too stilted, or too unwilling, it’s time for citizen journalism to take over. Journalism in 140 characters is a tough order.  But it works.  And it’s far, far ahead of the Trad sources.

To follow the events in Iran as they unfold, just click this tweetgrid.

This is great stuff.

h/t to TPM for photo

There is a new (well, not really that new) tool for social networking that the Dog is sure that everyone here has heard about, Twitter. This service is based on the idea that you would want or need to communicate with your community in bursts of text that are restricted to 140 characters long. This is not a system that the Dog will ever, under any foreseeable circumstances use.