Unique Uses for Twitter

I received a funny text from my dad that more or less said, "What is the point of Twitter? Why would I want to know what everybody else is doing all the time?" I thought of this hilarious satire of Twitter, then really thought about the question. True, Twitter is a lot of talking about nothing. But I've found several uses for Twitter beyond shouting into the abyss:

• Linksharing: What use to clog up inboxes is now a short post that people can click on or ignore without burden the burden of opening and trashing an email. I've found many funny videos, news stories, blog posts, and photography projects through links on Twitter. Now, if Twitter would get smart and allow attatching to links to tweets without infringing on the 140 character limit, we could cut out the middle man of url shorteners and become more efficient.

• Condensing thoughts: The 140 character limit is a beautiful thing to practice making writing more clear and concise. Often have I challenged myself to rearrange a thought to fit the limit and found it was better condensed. Good practice for lead writing.

• PR: Public figures from Stephen Colbert to Yaron Brook to my local radio DJ are on Twitter. Twitter is great for promoting a person by updating about TV appearances, events, book releases, etc. Add a link and people naturally will follow.

• Journalism: I've seen several newspapers use Twitter for breaking news, link to top stories, and receive tips from followers in the area. Twitter is a great resource to get instant feedback and story ideas from readers (at least the tech savvy ones). And in light of the shift to online, Twitter is a good place to hook readers and get more hits, which equals more money from advertisers, which means saving the industry.
  

• Twitter Parties: Rational Jenn is the only person I've seen yet participate in a Twitter party, but it seems like a good idea. The general gist is that people with a common interest get on Twtter at a designated time and chat with each other while tagging their tweets. People can follow the tag and learn new things, share links, and meet a lot of new people with a common interest.

• Fan Following: Twitter allows the guilty pleasure of following a show or fan(atic) and geeking out about behind the scenes stories, spoliers, and discussing season finales. Who wouldn't want to read Joss Whedon's comments on Dollhouse, or rumors about which choreographers are coming back this season on So You Think You Can Dance? Not just my geeky self, right?

• Quick Poll: If I'm not sure where to find someone, or am pondering a certain topic, posting a question on Twitter can yield responses from several people and send me in the right direction. This usually pertains to photography questions (i.e. what are the perks of this camera over another?).
  

• Lunch: A group lunch is easily and quickly planned by sending out a tweet. I think it's one of the top reasons the PJ program tweets.
  

First Time Serving

Technically I'm still in training to be a waitress. Yesterday I was supposed to be learning my menu and how to work the ordering screen. So imagine my surprise walking into the training room and hearing my manager say, "Change of plans! You'll be shadowing today."

My natural response was, "Oh, okay. So I'll just be following her around and watching, right? Just learning?"

"Oh yeah," my manager said as she tossed an apron on me.

Oh no. As soon as I met my mentor, she sent me out to get drink orders on a floor plan I didn't know, then to get meal orders from a menu I hadn't studied and then put them into the computer that I had never worked. On my first table ever I spilled tea on one of the guests (just his hands), and alienated another table as I shakily unloaded the wobbling tray I had yet to learn to balance. I was thrown in quick without a lot of padding. I was serving to real guests, taking real orders, delivering real food, and making mistakes with real consequences. But I liked it.

I took to it pretty well. I made no major mistakes (other than marinading that guys hand in tea) and got the rhythm of it down. I was moving for my entire shift and I was never bored. I was really proud of my efficacy, and the experienced servers took notice. Hooray! I won't be fully on my own for about a week or two, but I look forward to it. Apparently there's good money in it, being in such a busy restaurant close to the highway, which is fabulous for buying lighting equipment and maybe a new camera (if only!).

My First Objectivist Roundup!

For the first time ever on Ramen & Rand, may I present the Objectivist Roundup, a collection of blog posts from the week by fellow Objectivist bloggers. Enjoy:

• Benjamin Skipper presents Dr. Dolittleism in Foreign Policy posted at Benpercent saying, "The failure to distinguish between humans and human-like animals may cost us big time in foreign affairs."

• Burgess Laughlin presents Opposite of Exaltation? posted at Making Progress saying, "One way to better understand a concept, such as "exaltation," is to consider its opposite--for contrast."

• C. August presents Supreme Court Roundup posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "I survey some recent commentary on Obama's Supreme Court nomination, looking at his criteria, the actual person he picked, and what the criteria for a justice should be."

• Daniel presents Women of the French Salons, 2 posted at The Nearby Pen saying, "What did the people in the famous French salons do? What were their thoughts on friendship or the code of conduct when people were brought together? And what did these people value highest in the person of another? These questions and more are answered in this, the second part to my review of The Women of the French Salons."

• Doug Reich presents The Equality of the Dead posted at The Rational Capitalist saying, "Leftist environmentalists admonish us to sacrifice our material happines for the sake of their deity - the earth, while leftists of the Obama or Barney Frank variety do everything in their power to incentivize consumption - is this a contradiction?"

• Khartoum presents The Status of Property Rights In India – A First Hand Account. posted at Reddie Reasons. saying, "An account of the unseen effects and the morality of the government seizing the property of its citizens -- with reference to one particular case."

• Kirk Barbera presents The Real Hollywood Ten posted at A is A.

• Miranda Barzey presents Time Management in College posted at Ramen & Rand.

• Non Wels presents To Hire, and To Befriend. Should Government Have a Say? posted at The Undercurrent saying, "Obama recently signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which requires employers to consider race and gender when making hiring decisions. However, this means moral and relevant objective qualifications fall by the wayside in the workplace."

• Ryan Krause presents Out of the courtroom and into the back room posted at The Money Speech saying, " Regulation destroys competitive advantage: Just one more example."

Photo Blog Update

Go check out my photo blog. I shot a wedding recently and some fun portraits.

Time Management in College

I'm a bit worried about next semester in terms of time. Will I have enough time to do all the things I want to do? As of now there are many interests I want to build upon outside of classwork, and I'm not quite sure how to manage them into my life. In the fall I hope to be doing all of these:

• Do good work in my lighting class
• Excel in my other classes
• Take a dance class, either hip hop or modern
• Keep up with my signing by attending Deaf community events and possibly working in the ASL lab
• Work as a waitress
  
• Read
  
• Work on scholarships
• And of course, everyday life stuff like eating, sleeping, and showering
  

In his lecture God Said, Craig Biddle mentions that Objectivists often face not the issue of finding hobbies, but narrowing down their interests to a few serious pursuits. Upon realizing how much life has to offer, we often are interested in many things and want to pursue them all. The trick is to find the ones we are most passionate about, and ones that integrate well with our current values.

I'm currently taking this lesson to heart. Senior year of high school I felt spread thin. I was working multiple positions (editor, photographer, writer, designer, problem fixer) for both the yearbook and newspaper. I was in colorguard half the year and in winterguard the other half. I had AP English (hardest class of my life so far). My schedule was full almost everyday, but my time was written out for me. School, practices, everything had a set time. The difference in college is that there are so many options in various places that all run on separate times, as opposed to high school being the central hub of my schedule. And unlike high school, my classes are spread out across the week with downtime in between, instead of a designated block everyday. I've found these awkward chunks of time throughout the day make it hard to schedule lengthy commitments, like a dance class, but they are good for reading, blog writing, etc.

As time goes by I plan to prioritize my values which should make scheduling easier: higher values take precedence and get necessary time first. If it becomes problematic, I may have to cut back on lesser values, at least temporarily. Figuring all this out now should make a smoother transition for fall.

Why Philosophy Matters

It was past midnight. I couldn't sleep. So I walked to the next dorm room over where some friends were doing homework. One of the girls was studying for a philosophy test, and I picked up her book and started skimming through, stopping at passages that peaked my interest. After reading for about 20 minutes, one of the girls asked me while I was still looking over it. Afterall, I'm not even in that class.

I don't remember exactly what I said. Something about it being interesting, I think.

Then she went on to say that she didn't even bother with all that philosophy mess. She just went about her own life without trying to understand the mumbo jumbo of it all.

And I don't necessarily blame her. Philosophy is seen by many as a a pursuit of higher thinking, of many difficult and confusing concepts that in the end is just a lot of brain work that has little to do with practical living. Philosophy is rarely thought of as necessary to life.

But a good philosophy is vital to good living.

Think about everything you do to sustain and enrich your life. Your work, your hobbies, your friends, your romances, your diet, etc. How you approach these subjects reflects the philosophy that you have consciously or subconsciously adopted as true. Every choice you make in your life stems from that frame of mind.

Knowing that, would you rather live your life by unquestioned sets of rules, or by an examined, well thought out system of guidelines? Philosophy is important in one's life because it determines how one approaches life. It guides our choices and determines whether those choices are better one's life or destroys it. When your life and happiness is at stake, how can you not take interest?