Stuffleufagus

I know the title makes no sense at all, but it is something I’ve been working on for a couple weeks.

Uber means "super", "hyper" or "overkill".  Twit is what you do when you use Twitter.  Some people prefer Tweet, but I see no reason why you would "Tweet" on Twitter and not "Twit" on Twitter.) So I want to build a Super, hyper, overkill Twitter app.  But make it "uber-easy" to use.

Actually, I don’t want to build a Twitter App at all.  I want to build a common framework that allows Twitter Apps to share a common set of extensions that increase the power/flexibility/usability of Twitter.

ubertwit is a Twitter Client that is (mostly) in the design stage right now.  There are a LOT of Twitter clients, so why build a new one?

I’ll let the proposed feature set explain why:

• Peer 2 Peer via "Super Nodes".  My Twitter friends and followers will all share their data between their clients instead of each of them hitting the Twitter servers for updates.  Each client will poll the Twitter service, but at much less frequent intervals.  This is good for a number of reasons - the Twitter servers don’t get hit by as much traffic, and more important, by using the Jabber protocol me and my friends can still communicate even if the Twitter service is completely dead.  Even if it disappears. Even if it disappears forever.
• Groups.  Some people don’t like the idea of Groups on Twitter.  Honestly I don’t think Twitter managed groups are a good idea either.  I want user-defined groups.  I want to be able to sort my conversations in certain ways - pretty much allowing me to focus on a group at certain times - yet not affecting my overall "stream".  Ideally I could open "group windows" that follow certain people, or topics, or locations - based on my immediate interest.  When the conversations in these windows "blend" the windows would do something, like blend in a similar frame color, to let me know that my conversations are merging.  And I could either move or copy any of these people or topics (tracks) from one window to another with a simple drag and drop - just like I was moving a file, or a folder.  I envision groups working by people forming groups.  And although groups CAN be marked Private they still follow the current Twitter model.  If I create a a private group and send a message to it, the messages go out as Twitter Direct Messages (if Twitter is alive).  Otherwise they go our as point to point messages on Jabber.
• The ability to rename (or at least set tags on) my contacts.  I would follow a lot more people if I knew what the context of my relationships meant to me (let me use my own "social graph").  I’m sorry - I can’t always tell who "alph732a" - just like I don’t expect ALL of my Twitter friends to remember who kr8tr is.  A mouse-over that contained some other info would be very helpful.
• A threaded conversation view that works.
• The ability to "mute" someone for 30 minutes.  Basically it causes them to not appear in any of your groups/timelines.  As someone said, it is a "Time out".  Steve Gillmor thinks nobody will use this.  I think a lot of people will
• A smart algorithm that suggests new friends based on things I talk about (gestures I make) and who I interact with most (more gestures), and who their friends are that may be talking about what I talk about.
• Along with the above, give my friends/followers the ability to @F2F (friend to friend) me to someone - as an introduction.
• Geo-Location service built in.
• "Favorite Friends" list.
• Ability to push a Tweet to a group of Twitter people in a given Geo-location (within 5 mile radius, etc).
• An open API for the Twitter client.
• A "skin-able" client.
• An open source project that invites any and all to come and play - with platforms that communicate equally with each other.

This is a partial list.  I have more items that I haven’t yet figured out how to implement. Everything above I think I know how to build.

But I am still in the "just playing" stage with the code.  I would love to hear suggestions for more features, a different approach to building the "ubertwit", whatever.

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written by rob

Someone convinced me today that I might be able to make enough money off of ads that this site pays for itself.

And if this were an $8/month blog, I wouldn’t consider advertising.  But my hosting costs are about $90/month.  My blog is not the only one hosted on my account.  In fact, there are currently 17 domains on my account.  Many of them are people that have a voice, but not the means to run their own hosted blog.  So I give them space here.

Since I am not going to ask any of my friends that share the site with me to pay anything, I am going to try ads.  Hopefully you will be able to ignore them (just as you do on Google, and every other web site).

And if you read the site in an RSS Reader, you won’t see the ads at all.

And if you just started reading, please don’t stop.  If the ads don’t pay, I’ll stop them.  And if they do, you’ll be helping a dozen people keep their presence on the web.

Besides - who knows when I’ll actually have time to add the ads?

written by rob

I haven’t written a story in some time.  So here is one. Kind of.

In 1995 I was a Mayor.  Of a Military Community on Fort Shafter in Oahu, Hawaii.  I can’t remember how large the community was, but it was at least a few thousand people, I think.

Anyway, being a Mayor of a Military community wasn’t very taxing.  I wore the white hat.  As the civilian mayor I just did good (or tried to).  We had the Military Police and the Military Chain of Command to deal with the unpleasant side of things.  As well of the Command Sergeant Major - an intimidating person no matter what base you are on.

When I first got to Hawaii my son entered the first grade.  He had to ride a school bus about a mile.  And he had to have two quarters every day.  One to get on the bus, and one to get home.  Parents could not pay in advance, not even in the morning for the afternoon ride.

As you might imagine, it is difficult for a 6 year old to hang onto a quarter all day, every day.  They are upside down on the monkey bars, wresting with their friends, etc.

Since I walked my son to the bus (and many parents let their first graders wait unattended), I quickly realized I needed extra quarters.  Every day 4-5 kids would not have bus money.  So I paid.  The bus driver was a regular, and she knew me very well - she knew I paid for a LOT of kids, not just my own.

And that is exactly why I was so irate when the school called me one day and told me that I had to come pick my son up because he didn’t have bus fair.  The school buses and the bus system were not controlled by the school.  A private transportation company (or the Honolulu bus system - can’t remember) ran the school bus system.  And eventually the bean counters realized that the bus driver wasn’t bringing back as many quarters as she should - even with my help.  So they pressured her into enforcing the "no quarter, no ride" policy.

We had one car, and my now ex had it.  The school was a mile away - down the mountainside.  Which meant I had to walk with (carry) my son uphill for a mile.

The next day I began a year-long campaign to get the rules changed, and to allow students to pay per semester.  Eventually they agreed to "bus passes" which you purchased (at no discount) in advance.  Still not a great solution for first grade kids to have to carry anything, but since the bus drivers had a list of who had paid, it was much better than carrying two quarters.

It took a lot of phone calls and letters but none of that really worked - until I found that telling the schools that "the mainland figured this out decades ago" caused some reaction.  I guess they didn’t like to be second to the mainland.  Whatever.  Life got easier.  And I was saving about $2.00/day giving quarters out to neighbor kids.

I can’t believe so many parents put up with that crazy system for so long.

It reminds me of the US Tax Code.  Nobody knows why it is what it is.  It just is.

And nobody thinks they can do anything about it.  So few try.

I really wish more would try - I wish they would let their candidate, and their elected official know that they are tired.  Tired of a confusing tax code.  Tired of spending so much money collecting taxes.  Tired of being surprised by what they owe, or what they are getting back. 

Our contribution to maintaining our government should not be a surprise to us.  We should know today, tomorrow, and two years from now what we are going to pay.  This is a simple math problem that has been corrupted and broken by politics.

I don’t think there is room for politics in our tax code.  Our tax code should be simple.  And it could be simple.

If only people demanded that.

written by rob