Twitter, Facebook & Grumpy Old Limey's First Tweet

So I just twittered my first tweet or is that tweeted my first twit or perhaps hash tagged my first "@" sign - who in the heck knows? Could we not just call them messages and have done with it? Anyway whatever it was I just did it. And what in the heck is a hash tag anyway [anyone who can give me a short review of Twitter terms please comment on this article and let me know; it would help me be a little less of a dumb-***].

And it was monumental in it's significance.

"How so?" I hear you inquire.

Surely the first of anything done by the "Grumpy Old Limey" must be highly significant or is that too self agrandizing? Of course it is. It was monumental in its insignificance and pointlessness. I have no followers so I posted/sent a message [yes I called it a message] to no one. Since a message is a means of communication [albeit on Twitter a cramped one with a 140 character limit] by definition it requires two major players. The individual who has something to communicate and the individuals(s) being communicated to. With the second part of the equation missing - the "no followers" bit - I guess it was more of a "non" communication; just something sent out there into the eternal and vast data store of the musings of the world we call the internet.

And what's with that darn 140 character limit? Worse still I have also fallen foul of the character limit on Facebook [420]. I think in the back of my highly informed and modern mind I knew about the Twitter one and maybe there is even a valid reason; just maybe. Seems Twitter is aimed primarily at mobile devices, cell phones, PDA's and the other chains with which we members of modern society bind themselves. So, if everyone was tweeting a novel five times a day perhaps the cellular networks that are already straining under the weight of ever increasing bandwidth usage might simply come crashing down. But what of Facebook - it's a flippin' webpage - a little more text won't be a problem; after all most webpages eat bandwidth with images, embedded audio and video streams not text. I just don't get it unless it is designed to deal with people just like me with the mantra "Why use 10 words when you can use 100". And why 140 or 420? Why not 137 and 651?

I looked on wikipedia [yes I know not always the font of all knowledge] and found this related to the significance of 140.

In mathematics 140 is:

• An abundant number and a harmonic divisor number.
• It is the sum of the squares of the first seven integers, which makes it a square pyramidal number.
• In base 10 it is divisible by the sum of its digits, which makes it a Harshad number.
• The sum of Euler's totient function φ(x) over the first twenty-one integers is 140.
• An odious number because it has an odd number of ones in its binary number.

In other fields 140 is:

• The Twitter entry-character limit, a well-known characteristic of the service.
• A film, based on the Twitter entry-character limit, created and edited by Frank Kelly of Ireland.
• The age that Job died at (Bible, Job 42:16).
• The atomic number of Unquadnilium, a temporary chemical element.
• PRO 140 antibody found on T lymphocytes of the human immune system.
• Telephone Directory assistance in Egypt.

Mystery solved; the inventor of Twitter was an Egyptian who had a propensity for forgetting telephone numbers.

What about Facebook. Wikipedia again; this time on the significance of the number 420.

• 420 is the sum of four consecutive primes (101 + 103 + 107 + 109).
• 420 is a zero of the Mertens function and is sparsely totient.
• It is a pronic number, and the smallest number divisible by the numbers 1 to 7, and as a consequence of that it is a Harshad number in every base from 2 to 10 except base 5.
• It is a 141-gonal number.
• 420 is also associated with cannabis.
• 420 also refers to a con-artist, trickster in India and Pakistan, see Section 420.

Ever have one of those "Ah Ha" moments. Obviously Facebook was conceived of in a cannabis induced flash of brilliance.

Anyway if you give a damn about what The Grumpy Old Limey has to say on Twitter [and I have no idea whether I will be filling the airwaves with bird calls or as silent as a Dodo] you can

Oh and by the way what was that first tweet?