I've toyed briefly with the idea of microblogging (or, even, microphlogging) a few times. I think cat sums microblogging up pretty well. cat writes[1]: > I could just roll in, spray 140 characters and take off, like > some asshole yelling from his car as he cruises past. A few years ago, a certain friend (Hi, you) suggested that I might enjoy Twitter. Which was probably true. But, after thinking about it for a moment, my reply was, "but then I wouldn't have so much to share with you when we hang out." I'm sure we wouldn't run out of things to talk about, but at the same time I'd enjoy sharing the interesting tidbits of my life in person so much more than putting them into some online void that people occasionally peer down into to see what's there (and maybe throw things into themselves). Recently, again, while pondering what to do with a new gopherspace (at grex.org), I thought about starting a microphlog, in addition to this, my... macrophlog. If I started a microphlog/microblog, people who read it would fall into two categories: * People who know me * People who don't know me There isn't really enough room in a microblog for people who don't know me to get something interesting out of it. You could consider it a form of constrained writing (no doubt people have done this) and occasionally come up with this gem of literature that fits within the limits. Probably not that often for me. I like being able to build up a bigger, fuller picture of an idea, not just because I want others to get something out of it, but because I get something out of doing it myself. I'm achieving that while writing this, and I've been doing it with some of my other exploratory writing at the moment. Those last two sentences wouldn't fit in a Tweet. What about people who know me and read my microblog because it's written by me? It would be more like a keyhole, rather than a window, into my life. The cracks are what lets the light shine through. What does that mean? Without any context, you might be wondering about my cryptic life and the pottery course I haven't told you about. I actually like the above quotation in relation to someone I like. It's their imperfections--quirks--individualities--call them what you like--that make me appreciate this person. Perfect would be a lot less interesting. 221 characters, but more importantly, I wouldn't have gotten there without writing this whole piece. [1] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/cat/phlog/fs20170616.txt