Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Who to follow on twitter?
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I’ve had a difficult relationship with twitter over the years, I don’t tweet a lot but I’ve found it tricky to build up a good list of people to follow who I actually want to hear from. For example I’m not interested in Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump, but I am interested in Thich Nhat Hanh.
I’ve had several stabs at this and I think I’ve finally built up a little shortlist of people who I actually like hearing from and find interesting. I thought we could all share and see if there are any gems that we can glean.
Here’s some highlights of my list...
BBC Click
Sam Harris
Joris Luyendijk
Brian Cox
Stephen Fry
The Humanist Alliance
Thich Nhat Hanh
The Dalai Lama
Neil deGrasse Tyson
1
Comments
What's 'Twitter'....?
You dont know?! Where have you been living...
A short overview for the non technical then. Twitter is a micro blogging service. You make an account, and you write short posts, up to 280 characters which can include links and hashtags. People can follow you and you can follow them, which means you see their posts in your feed. You can also search all of Twitter, by hashtag or keyword.
It’s available as a website or an app. It tends to be very fast moving, with topics being ‘trending’ in the searches for a few hours or days at most.
Unlike Facebook the accounts are very lightweight - you don’t store photo’s or have different levels of friends or activities. It’s free, the service pays for itself through promoted tweets, and many companies and agencies have some form of activity on Twitter.
I use Twitter for a variety of things, but I find myself constantly shifting who/what is and isn't in my feed. I love yoga, but I dislike most yoga things in my feed. It just is so...anti-yoga to always be advertising and competing with other yoga people, lol. I hate politics on Twitter and don't follow that. I do find I often get the first glimpse of a big news story on twitter before anything else. It makes it an interesting way to observe the media, because you know they have people who follow twitter to find those stories, but they'll avoid major stories if Trump is doing something interesting, for example. When the big fires in CA were going on weeks ago, they were happening for hours before anyone reported on them. It's just interesting to observe the media in action choosing what we find interesting.
Anyhow, some of who I follow that are remotely Buddhist related:
Bad Buddhist
Bodhicitta Sangha (my teacher/sangha)
RandomActsOfKindness
HelloHumanKindness
People Of Earth
Buddhism&Psychology (which is part of the course on coursera)
Lions Roar
Thich Naht Hanh
Dalai Lama
Most of what I follow is weather or yoga related. Some nutrition stuff.
Just unfollowed a bunch of people looking through my list, lol
Yes, of course I know...!
In a self-imposed twitter-free zone....
...You lost me at 'micro-blogging'....
Ah, see. There's the problem. I am an anti 'fast-moving' individual. There's an awful lot to be said for the quill. And Conqueror Wove.
I'm also Anti-Establishment.
Now where did I put my blotting paper.....?
I mostly use it to forward/promote petitions I sign on-line.
But I follow too many!
Los Angeles Times (they have pics of the devastating fires)
The Simpsons
Audubon Society
ABC News
Cheshire Cat
HughJackman
All sorts of random funny informative tweeters.
What indeed.
As laid back lays we can indulge or ignore. If it is trending, I know it will be unimportant in a few days and irrelevant in a month ...
I am a cyber-Buddhist. Working on a portable raspberry pi powered chanting box at the moment BUT I get twitter just by sitting with what I laughingly describe as ‘my’ mind ...
I kind of like what I heard Gil Fronsdale say he used to do at times in his life. In order to follow the news but not get so worked up by it he would read papers and magazines that were weeks old.
To me the day to day news cycle is way too frantic and caught up in the drama of it all. I've more or less stopped following the immediate stories and started listening to several weekly news and politics podcasts. By following weekly sources I feel like the commentators are usually able to take a breath between stories and take a more reflective and broader view. And I'm still reasonably up to date and informed.
Reminds me of a relative of mine who used to do the same, and finish reading by saying "Well, thank God THAT'S not happening today!"
Sounds like a great idea for an app @federica. twittered out, broken news, untrending, timeface etc
I am on twitter but use it sparingly.
When I come across a quote or a haiku I like, I tweet it.
But lately I am sort of fed up with so many apps and media technology that serve more to miscommunicate than to communicate.
Now and then I check Facebook and Twitter, but in general I prefer the good old books.
Indeed @DhammaDragon
Words from a millenia olde sage (ye Buddha) worth more than following twits.
I find twitter for the most part a bit boring. I occasionaly go on it and i see some good art though. I guess the other thing its useful for is keeping up with the news or learning interesting facts. But I think the character limit on twitter is a big limiting factor on it's usefulness. And social media in general is a lot of noise.
If you like bbc click I reccomend bbc future.
Also there are many good science twitter accounts. National geographic can be good too. I generally prefer to go directly to the websites for the news though its more engaging.
It's more or less like fb - which I got out of a long time ago. Twitter isn't boring, BUT thing is, it's easy for me to skim and zero in on the topics I'm really interested in. Heck, I don't even understand fully what a hashtab is and how and why to use it, so I don't get all in-depth into Twitter, just use it for promoting the many petitions I sign. I'll try bbc future.
@Carameltail Twitter recently doubled the character limit. In some ways it's nice and in some ways, it loses something. Trying to find a way to say what you needed with limited space. it makes you have to think about your words more. But even a 280 character limit that is the case to an extent.
@karasti
It's certainly different sort of limit. I think I read something like it's part of an effort to get more people/twitter competitors with a longer limit.
I only use twitter to retweet really or reply so I havent really tested the limit to the full yet. I think soundbites are good for some things but you also loose the essence more significant messages but I suppose I've seen people link offsite for that.
@silver
Ahh FB don't really trust that site then again most tech companies have some questiomable practices often there to keep the service free or for marketing. I also think it can be a showcase often of people seeking to get approval and is in someways unhealthy (depends who you have as a friend on it ofc). I think its a good tool to keep in contact and good for a few other things. But I rather have a seperate thing for messaging, news and photos.
I primarly have fb to keep in contact with some plus messaging, events and such.
And yea twitter can be a good promotional tool to reach out to people.
I mostly follow poets on twitter but Brad Warner is a good person to follow in regards to Zen and other wonky musings.
Haemin Sunim is a good person to follow as well.
IMO, there's too much self-promoting going on on Twitter. Then, there's too much stuff in my e-mail concerning Twitter posts. Is there a way to turn that stuff off?
Nice ideas above. Thanks.
yeah. unsubscribe, or mark as spam.
I’ve turned off all email notifications from Twitter and have my email address marked as private, so I get no email about my twitter activity. It’s not necessary because they have an inside-the-service sharing system too.
i don't get any email or notifications from twitter or fb at all. I only want to see their stuff when I choose to visit the site. The longer character limit is nice from a business aspect. There are people who choose to do customer requests/support requests via twitter and the character limit makes responding a challenge, so the longer limit is nice there at least.
I try to mostly limit my observing just the main tweets. I rarely get into any comments because people just like to find something to hate at every turn. Made that mistake yesterday and watched the Twitterverse tear apart a kid. Tearing people apart is never ok, but Twitter more than anything seems to thrive on that kind of outrage and hatred. For how much liberals claim they have it all figured out, they are just as bad as their so-called "enemies" in the way they talk and behave. The amount of justification people find for being awful humans is interesting to observe in a horrifying train wreck sort of way.
I have turned off notifications from Twitter activity, yet keep receiving notifications.
Including transcriptions of the private messages people send me, which is quite a nuisance, given the fact that I share my email adress with husband and son...
Time for a separate email just for social media stuff. That's what I've done.
I have 7 email addresses. One for my household bills and services, one for online purchases, one for my work correspondence, one for my own dog Behaviour stuff, one for my knitting stuff, one for this website, and a social/family and friends one.
I never let one stray into another.
I must be the only dumbass in the world who can't create a separate email address.
I have created a new one, and have Microsoft every couple days pouncing all over me, asking to confirm cellphone and optional email address, and other stuff.
I would like my new email address to be unrelated to the one I already have....
It would seem to be that the only way to manage that would be getting myself a second cellphone number.
no, just get a gmail address. It doesn't have to be the same server... I have 3 gmail and 4 hotmail...
I have to try again...
Then, some apps require to have access to your media files, identity, etc.
I wonder if ultimately all addresses can be tracked down to the same account as long as we use the same devices, such as tablet and phones...
Looks like I have no knack for trolling...
I have 2 gmail accounts, for work and personal, that are linked together and I can easily and quickly switch between them. BUT if you link them, you will get notifications the same for all of them (as far as I've been able to work out anyways). So when I choose notifications to be on, I get them for both gmail accounts. I don't think there is a way to choose to get them for one account but not the other. But I could be wrong, I haven't looked too in-depth for it. Android phones don't make it terribly easy to manage anything but gmail, but at least if you do use gmail they make it easy since they own android, lol.
I can't imagine managing so many email accounts! :O You must be an organizing whiz, @federica.
I'm anally methodical. I have a reputation for it at work. people laugh at me (good-naturedly) but guess who they come to if they need to find anything, or to lay their hands on something otherwise elusive?
Hello....?
I bet you remember all those "special places" you put important information so you don't lose it! That's my peeve for today. The number of times I take something important, and put it somewhere special so I don't lose it. I feel like the little kid in Look Who's Talking where he sets his car down and says to himself "This looks like a good place for this. Yeah, right here." and walks away. I do that with tax forms, applications, bills, car license paperwork, school stuff for the kids. I will be on the phone and write a bit of information down and never find it again. I have a pile of notes next to my computer, but none of them is ever the one I need. At this point half the house should be designated a "special place" but I still can't find anything.
My email is well organized though
I can't stand when my inbox has irrelevant stuff in it.
Ditto
Yup. It's called a waste-bin! Although I would hastily add, we don't USE it as a waste bin - all receipts, bills, letters in need of current attention, 'important' notes - they all go into one bin. I do, however, sort them within the bin, into consecutive piles, which does mean pulling them all out from time to time and adding/subtracting any required or relevant paperwork.... But it's a great filing system! Any paperwork/figures/messages are all in there!
Large picnic basket should work for that!
...You even GET irrelevant stuff...?
lol mostly stuff like, say, an email for tracking a package. As soon as it's delivered, I delete it. It's only irrelevant once the package is received. My son has every single email he's ever received in 10 years. His gmail is like 267 pages long. He doesn't use folders or labels or anything, they all just sit there, everything from his acceptance into college to tracking for something he ordered 5 years ago. His bedroom is much the same. But, he finds stuff he needs faster than I do, so, there's that!
My kids don't remember a time before mobile 'phones.
Is this a good thing or not?
Discuss.
No because it makes me feel old ???