How ReTweet Looks

Here’s an example of a 140-character tweet:

And here’s how it looks when someone else retweet it:

The retweeted message looks just the same as the original. However, Twitter truncates your message for RSS feed and phone notification (SMS):

Note that the end of the message gets truncated.

The Optimal Tweet Length

If you’re expecting people to retweet you, in order to preserve your entire message, you should use less than the 140-character limit. What’s the optimal tweet length? The formula is 140 characters minus the length of “RT @yourname: ”.

To make it easier, use the following calculator. Input your Twitter username, and it will tell you what your optimal tweet length should be:

Optimal length: 126 characters

Some people say 110 is the optimal limit if you also want to consider manual RT or added comments. But there isn’t really much room for comments, is there?

Twitter

R2-D2 was really an Imperial mole

Everyone thinks he was some great robot hero but he wasn’t. He was just a mole working undercover for the Empire. He knew all along who Darth Vader really was, but did he say anything to anyone? No. Why was this? Because he was secretly getting his orders directly from the Sith Lord! (Read more)

Found via Abstruse Goose.

This was shared on “What’s Hot in Google Reader” over the weekend. I pondered why, it was not even funny. But then it hits me: the punchline is a self-referencing joke.

It may not be intentional by Jim Davis (or whoever writes Garfield these days…), but it’s pretty funny cause it’s true.

Life is constantly changing, but Garfield comics has not. It’s been stuck in a loop. In endless cycles of repeated jokes. Therefore, as Garfield says in the last panel, “This must not be life”.

Just end it already, it’s dead!

Full Moon high up in the sky

Mahajamba, Madagaskar

Near Jakarta, Indonesia

Icy Aral Sea

And in case you’re wondering: yes, these pics were taken from the space.

I love you too, Google <3

So, it’s still not that far from the New Year’s Day, hence the title, and I have two resolutions:

1. To blog more

Recently I feel that I actually enjoy setting up WordPress and doing its Themes (not designing, more like the coding aspect) more than the actual blogging.  In 2009 I only made 5 blog posts here, and I’ve also recently just setup a new photoblog ( still working on the theme). My goal for 2010 is to blog at least once a month here, and to post at least one photo per week (average) on my photoblog. I still have a lot of backlogged photos that haven’t been post processed.

So little time, so much to do…

2. To watch the IMDB Top 250

I thought about this after watching In Bruges last weekend. I checked IMDB after watching, which I do quite often when I like a movie, to check the director’s other works. I noticed that the movie was in the Top 250 list. Another one I just recently rewatched, Good Will Hunting, is also on the list.

I realize that it’s not the perfect list: a lot of good movies are not in the list if they’re not popular enough and the list is always changing. So why IMDB’s top 250? Well, I gotta start somewhere, and IMDB’s list is the most accessible one to me.

Methodologies

I thought of 3 ways in doing this:

1. The easy way: watch all movies in the list made in the 80′s and above (easier to find) that I have not watched
2. The normal way: watch all movies in the list that I have not watched
3. The hard way: watch all movies in the list

I think I will go with the normal way, unless if some of the old movies are really hard to find.

I’m going to start from bottom up. I saved the current list in a spreadsheet. When I actually finish the list someday, I will make a diff between the new and old list to get the new movies.

I currently have already watched 74 movies in the list within the last 8 years. I excluded those movies I watched when I was younger, as I now I have pretty different perspective in movies and life.

I usually don’t have much time in the weekdays, and I only watch 2-3 movies max in the weekends. So, if I have no trouble finding the movies, and I can watch 2 movies a week in average, I should be able to finish this list in 88 weeks (around fall 2012). Maybe I’ll move on to this list after.

I’ll try to update in a few months on my progress.

Again: so little time, so much to do…