Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

International Longest Tweet Contest Seeks Entries

Posted by timothy on from the shannon-sighs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The 1st International Longest Tweet Contest is open for submissions until April 12. It looks to be a take-off of the famous Obfuscated C Contest. So far the record is 4.2 kilobits encoded per tweet, based on exploiting the fact that Twitter actually passes the full 31 bits of ISO 10646 (the international standard that Unicode is based on), not the roughly 20.08 bits/character of Unicode itself."

6 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. still useless by Miseph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Huh, that's weird... I still don't have any use for twitter whatsoever.

    I mean, I guess I could update the entire world every time I eat something or run an errand... but to be honest, I can't see why anyone who doesn't already know would care, and if they did I think I'd be a bit creeped out by it.

    Guess I'm just crazy.

    --
    Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    1. Re:still useless by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Suppose you wanted someone to hear you about how you think Twitter is useless? I suppose you could use twitter to broadcast it. You'd probably get more people to read it than /.

    2. Re:still useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Maybe your life is borring? People I follow usually do more interesting things than just eat and run errands.

    3. Re:still useless by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      By the time the 6 O'clock news rolls around each evening, there's nothing on there I haven't already learned.

      Are you so shallow as to believe that the only people who have anything interesting to share are the people you are "following"? That those few dozen people you "follow" are the conduit by which anything that's important that's happening in the world will come to you?

      It's one thing to use Twitter as a casual communication device among your social circle. To use it as your source of news and information is unbelievably short-sighted.

      Think of what your statement says. "..there's nothing on there I haven't already learned". You are getting less information about the world than the guy sitting in the cave watching shadows on the wall.

      And who still watches the "6 O'Clock News"? 1965 called... Are you saying that before Twitter you got all your news from "The 6-O'Clock News"? You watching Huntley and Brinkley or what?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:still useless by snowraver1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I doubt it, unless you happen to be Brittney Spears, or Kae$ha or some other pop culture icon. Slashdot has many many readers and doesn't restrict you to 140 characters, a feature that also allows you to post an elegant post to describe all about the uselessness of it.

      I hate the word twitter, however it is fitting I suppose. I can't wait until twitter fades away...

      --
      Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
  2. Re:Wouldn't the most efficient form of encryption. by KingKiki217 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't that like entering a pointer as your submission in the 'Most Information in 32 Bits' contest?