A.J. Walker

writerer

Twitter Engineering

I've loved Twitter for the many years I've been on it. I joined as Zevonesque in February 2009 and then created RealeLiverpool in December 2013. Incredibly both accounts have somehow accrued over three thousand followers each. Like I say, incredible.

It was through Twitter that I found the various writing challenges that have sprouted up over the years and through these that been involved in things like the Flash Dogs. People who don't use Twitter only hear about it in terms of the poorly curated news (and in the case of our local paper that means using it for all their news rather than having journalists (sadly)). But hearing about stars or politicians who've sent out a Tweet about something in the news is not really what it is about. It is so much more than a news app – or news creator.

And now we are in this strained situation thanks to the strange and rich ego of Musk. I absolutely love the Space-X stuff. Don't care much either way about Tesla. But what is he doing with Twitter as a play thing? Can't he stick to real engineering challenges rather than social engineering?

The $8/month that Musk has expressed as a cost to keep the blue ticks is not relevant to me at the moment. But it is unclear what it will mean in the longer term in relation to what effect it will have in the algorithms: and therefore what will show in my timeline. I want to really just want to see the people I follow (and by extension what they think is worth seeing) rather than adverts and 'news' that Musk and Twitter make me see.

I'm hoping this turbulent few weeks on Twitter proves to be nothing more than a horrible aberration. I can but hope.

Masto11 Masto1

Not sure, of course, yet about the open source app
Mastodon, but have created an account in case it becomes the new place to be. If it becomes so much bigger (and it looks like it will) then it may well become a boss place to hang out. We shall see. If you are over there too you can find me on:

@Zevonesque@mastodonapp.uk

To top off my I.T. day I've also installed 'Ventura' on to the laptop. Go me!

Ventura1
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Time To Plant A Tree

In these days of multi social media hangouts creating a place where the links to all of them are in one place is a neat idea. I’m not sure how late I am to the Linktree party but I’ve arrived and I’m glad I have. The set up is quick and clean. No messing about. As simple as it should be.

Set it up on Thursday night and put the link in the Bios in my two
Twitter accounts and my two Instagram pages - one each for my personal Zevonesque account and for my Real Ale Liverpool (Realeliverpool) accounts. As well as having links to both sets of Twitter and Instagram it of course has a link to the website (i.e. here) and to the YouTube Channel.

ZevLinktree

Haven’t yet linked it to Goodreads or anything else and I may well not. Goodreads seems to have become a more problematic place these days. And obviously I’m not on TikTok or Facebook. These Linktrees must be pretty tall trees for some people. Anyway, in short, you can find me more easily than you could before. ‘Hurray!’ I can hear the cheers from here.

If you’ve got multiple hangouts on the internet thing then I can thoroughly recommend getting on Linktree and connecting those buttons.

One thing I’ve noticed on my
YouTube Channel is that it is predominantly me reading poems at the moment: I’m going to call this my ReadMeSpeakMe period. I need to get strumming some new songs to rebalance the channel.

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Voice Activation

It's funny how you can find yourself doing things out of the blue. This week I came across #ReadMeSpeakMe for the first time. I dare say I'd seen it lots across Twitter over the months, given the people who are involved with it, but it hadn't hit home. It seems a really neat idea. Each week they post a poem for people to read, record and post to see how the poem changes with different readers. I'm assuming all the poets are from within the Twitter writing community as opposed to Keats and Wordsworth (you never see them on there). Anyway, yesterday I decided to give it a go for the first time. The poem (below) was 'Arrival At The Sea' by Juan Antonio Garcia (@NoosferaMedia).

Arrival to the Sea

It took around eight attempts to get it down. And there were a few issues. Firstly there was how to record it. I'd have done it on my iPad ideally as I'd have more options for saving it. Unfortunately I couldn't read the poem on the phone to record on the iPad, but could do it the other way around. I never got around to printing it out. Then it was time to put it up on Twitter. But the 80 seconds of video made quite a large file. Whilst it would have gone up on Twitter (I think) it was taking a while. I couldn't change the size of the file on my phone directly. I had to download an App to compress it, which I sorted next.

So all in all with multiple attempts of recording it, then messing about with uploading it and downloading a new app and what not, it probably took me about an hour to get it sorted. I suppose on my next attempt it shouldn't take as long with the app sorted.

That said, this week's poem has gone up today and it looks like it'll take a few attempts. It's good to see it's from someone I know on Twitter though. The poem is '
Epoch Song' by Margaret Lonsdale (@fhaedra). And yes, I will be giving it a go. If you fancy trying it then get yourself over to @ReadMeSpeakMe and maybe I'll see you there.

Epoch Song


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Mo Music

A day that should leave me feeling a bit more relaxed one way or another, but we'll see.

Updated my mate's business website. Nice to get that boxed off in quick time. In other news I managed to get around an hour or so playing the guitar which was nice. I've got a bit of a sore back at the moment - I think a trapped nerve - which has left me a bit pins and needled on my fretting hand which isn't ideal. Recorded 'Shed a Tear (for the lonesome)' using the Blue 'Snowball' microphone and iMovie. The movie is a bit dark and freckly as it was getting dark out and I was only using the computer's iSight camera. At some point I'll see if I can attach or use my Lumix instead - would be better for image quality and flexible recording.

Yesterday I received a Twitter message from
Getintothis to tell me I'd won a couple of tickets for a gig tonight at Sound on Duke Street. There's three or four bands on with the headline act being 'Allusinlove'. Looks like it may be fun. More music and on another school night. Unfortunately most the usual suspects I'd go with aren't available tonight so looks like I may be there on me lonesome - awww!

allusinlove

Suppose I better get ready for popping out for some tunes then.
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Back to the Future

I realised today that I've been away from Facebook for over 5 months now, how that has flown. The only tenuous link I still had was my GoT avatar which I have grown used to, but I think it is time to go back to the pre-FB avatar; to my very own Liver bird with Pen which I so painstakingly created. So farewell Tyrion Lannister 'the Imp', hello again Liver bird 'the Pen Wielder'.

LBPen300

It's also a little nod to getting back to some more writing. That's the hope at any rate.

At the same time I've moved on from the artwork from Weird Ales (Vol.1) to a photo I took some time back in Snowdonia. So it's all change on Twitter but in a back to the future kind of way.

Twitter Banner
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Links and Buttons

Updated the home page today with a few big black buttons to link through to photo and Twitter accounts. I already had the Twitter links but the old links were a bit bleary with the screen grabs of my various avatars. Gone black and basic with these buttons - makes them easy to see and easy to change. I've added the Instagram link as I know lots of people use it now and whilst it's owned by Facebook I've retained the photo app. I've had Flickr for years and it's rammed with loads of photos in it from various trips both around the world and around the ale trips in the UK.

zevonesque Flickr160 Instagram RealeLiverpool

Maybe I'll add a YouTube button at some point ... if I get around to adding Class Song Of The Day to it (or updating it).
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Facebook Analytica

The news about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica over the last couple of days is fascinating and concerning but in the end it comes as no surprise, does it? I've been on the edge of leaving Facebook for a few years and have spent time deleting many old posts in the past. These days I only put an update up there two or three times a month - other than 'Class Song Of The Day' which is linked with the zevonesque Twitter account - so it will be no great loss. The thing that stops people leaving, or at least puts any pause on it, is the risk that you're cutting ties to friends who have no other easy way to contact you. Of course if you're really friends then you will have one way or another to keep in contact (at the very least just ask a mutual friend) - unless you are just using it to cyber stalk. It may be hard to believe but we all lived perfectly well in the days before Facebook with nothing more than a little book with telephone numbers scratched into it, scrubbed out, rewritten and slotted with post-it notes.

Anyway, long story short I am going to delete my Facebook account sometime this week; maybe even today. End of.

Facebook Farewell

Facebook: useful when it started but won't be missed at all at this point. Sorry to anyone who can't find me easily ... er but I'm still all over the www like a rash with a website and Twitter so you can find me with a wee bit of a google anyway. And of course Class Song Of The Day can still be found on Twitter - just search #ClassSongOfTheDay - I'll see about putting a decent page or two on the website too. My biggest fear is losing all my Words with Friends data, but if that disappears in to the electronic ether then so be it.

Links to my Twitter accounts are on my Homepage, you patently don't need the link to the website: you're here!

awalkerorg

The Cambridge Analytica affair is not the reason I'm leaving it's just another nudge in the right direction.

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