From my own point of view, I continually say lines from movies, expecting people to understand their applicability to the current context, but given that I often find myself looking at a lot of confused, blank stares when I say these things without explanation. Consequently, I show the image on the right as context. It's a scene from the movie Groundhog Day. In this scene, Bill Murray's character is going to kill himself for the "Don't drive angry! You should never drive when you're angry"And that's pretty much what I would say about tweeting when you're angry: don't do it.
In any event, the problem with the 21st century's super efficient social networking software is that that they really are super efficient. Within milliseconds of tweeting angry, not only did I receive tons of replies, but I also saw multiple retweets. And so not only had I spread my perhaps ill advised tweet (really, if you haven't seen it, it was not horrible, just perhaps ill advised) amongst my own connections, I found it amplified on some super connected networks that some of those in my own networks maintain like large herds of psychic cattle. Amplified beyond belief.
And so I quickly found myself deluged with dozens and dozens of emails inquiring, offering and wondering. Amazing.
Now, the good news about all this is that I found out that I have a lot of very good friends out there who care a lot about what happens to me. I found out I have even more good acquaintances and business associates who also care about what happens to me. And people who I haven't really even met before - friends of friends and people I just know through email or remote collaboration on various projects - who also care about what happens to me. And people who have commercial interest in what happens to me.
So, that's all great. Overwhelming, really. And that's part of the problem. See, back in the last century - heck, back at the beginning of this century - it would have taken at least a week for such information to make the rounds. And before such things as super efficient social networking software, probably very few people would have heard me say something like that anyway.
Consequently, the amplification and feedback is also a bit hard to deal with. When you are in a mood and doing something that may or may not turn out to be rash, you probably don't want to have a super efficient social networking infrastructure laying around like a nuclear bomb with a hair trigger. It's just f'ing dangerous.
Now, granted I'm no Julia Allison, Dave Winer, or "Bob" forbid Robert Scoble. But all of this has been a very interesting lesson to me on the two edged sword that this century's software technology has casually made available. All I can say is thank "Bob" there aren't incriminating pictures involved.
Oh, and the title to this post? It's another one of those lines that I say every once and a while which garner blank stares from those around me. It's a line from my favorite Woody Allen bit, The Lost Generation:
I mentioned before that I was in Europe. It's not the first time that I was in Europe, I was in Europe many years ago with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had just written his first novel, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said that is was a good novel, but not a great one, and that it needed some work, but it could be a fine book. And we laughed over it. Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter Picasso lived on the Rue d'Barque, and he had just painted a picture of a naked dental hygenist in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Gertrude Stein said it was a good picture, but not a great one, and I said it could be a fine picture. We laughed over it and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald came home from their wild new years eve party. It was April. Scott had just written Great Expectations, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said it was a good book, but there was no need to have written it, 'cause Charles Dickens had already written it. We laughed over it, and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter we went to Spain to see Manolete fight, and he was... looked to be eighteen, and Gertrude Stein said no, he was nineteen, but that he only looked eighteen, and I said sometimes a boy of eighteen will look nineteen, whereas other times a nineteen year old can easily look eighteen. That's the way it is with a true Spaniard. We laughed over that and Gertrude Stein punched me in the mouth.
Actually that scene was not the umpteenth time that Bill Murray's character kills himself -- it was the first time.
As always, you are correct. Fixed in the post.