Twitter Hacks

My new business cards arrived the other day:

It reminded me to share some interesting bits and bobs related to work. The below isn't my full-time job by any means, but it's fun that I have on the way.

The hobby project I invested most time on in the last year was the Twitter mention constellations. I learned a huge amount on the way; I realized how much goes into taking a hack which works on one's own machine to one which works for others; and I'm excited that a 4-foot-square mounted version of my work is on the wall at Twitter HQ.

More recently this was one of mine:

Sad times, no doubt, but it's nonetheless fascinating to see the data behind such phenomena. I was very impressed by SocialFlow's detailed work on the topic too.

More whimsically, I also shared this one recently

in case you were wondering how long you should make your tweets for maximum engagement.

I also did

which (see detail on Flickr) shows the spread on Twitter of an on-air hashtag versus news of a seismic event.

One of my favorites is still this:

for which the context can be found on YouTube.

January 2012 in England

We'd not been to the UK since November 2010 when Lux was just 3½ months old. That trip was pretty straightforward kid-wise: she slept for most of the flight over, and was sketchy enough sleep wise that timezones were somewhat academic.

This time things were different. At 18 months, as you might expect, Lux significantly more fidgety and needy in transit—and the jet lag thing was just crazy. Every day we were there, Lux was wide awake from 1am to 6am; Wendy, me and a grandparent would take shifts staying awake with her. Everyone in the house was pretty much just grazing on sleep for a week.

Fantastic time, though.

Great to see my dad again after the longest I've ever gone without seeing him:

and in turn the longest he's been without hanging out with his granddaughter:

A chance to reunite with my sister's fantastic kids: #1

and #2

and of course my sister and brother-in-law themselves:

I saw my brother Jak (a bit):

Lux got to know her cousins a little:

and I strolled around the English countryside with my mom and Wendy and Lux:

All in all, a wonderful time with my very favorite people.