I’ve noticed a new trend on Twitter lately, one which bothers me a great deal. I’d like to share my thoughts about it now so that you all can help nip it in the bud.

People have been ‘retweet’ing pretty much since Twitter’s inception; that is, they post something on their stream that they saw someone else post. The defacto standard format for doing this is to say ‘rewteet’ (or, more commonly, ‘RT’) followed by the username of the person who originated the message, then followed by the message. Like this:

RT @TeddTheodorLogan Remember the time I asked Missy to the prom?

Lately, however, people have been trying to popularize a new format for retweeting — one which has been largely employed in the blogging world. This new method is to just post the message, followed by (via username). Like this:

The only thing I know for sure is that Joan of Arc is NOT Noah’s wife…(via BillSPrestonEsq)

See, what “(via so-and-so)” actually means, is “I heard about this content by way of so-and-so,” and has been used for years to denote that the link I’m blogging about came to my attention because someone else blogged about it, and is designed to sort of give the person who found the content the credit. This is only used when you’re linking to a story that’s written by someone other than the person you heard about it from — to give sort of ‘scoop’ credit to someone who found it before you did.

When you retweet, in almost every case, you are simply quoting the person who said something. You didn’t hear it ‘via’ them. Your readers are hearing it ‘via’ YOU. (Granted, if you are retweeting a retweet, then ‘via’ could be properly used — but you’d have to say it’s ‘via’ the person who originally REtweeted it, rather than the person who tweeted it — which is of no information to the reader.)

If you really don’t like the ‘RT username: message’ format — and for this I don’t blame you; it’s clumsy and non-intuitive — I suggest you do it the same way people have been attributing quotes since the dawn of written language. Like this:

“Four score and seven BEERS ago…” -abrahamlincoln

With your help, perhaps this gross misunderstanding of the Latin language can be wiped from the face of twitter.

Know what the world doesn’t need? Another freakin’ Captain America movie.

Just because Hollywood keeps making PUNISHER reboots, and they’ve now managed to reboot both Batman and Hulk franchises, TWICE — not to mention a pending Superman reboot — doesn’t mean we need another Captain America.

I’ve decided that, from now on, only the first incarnation of a comic book film will be acknowledged.

For instance: I did indeed see The Punisher, and he was played by Dolph Lundgren — and it was terrible. I also saw The Fantastic Four, which was produced by Roger Corman — and really, REALLY, terrible. Batman’s greatest weapon was shark-deterrent spray.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Hey Google,

It’s me again.  Since our last conversation, I’ve realized something else you could do to make our time together in Reader more productive and less angrifying.  Know how I share lots of stuff in my “Shared Items,” despite only like 4 people seeing them?  Well, it’d be really helpful if I didn’t have to be subscribed to my own Shared Items.  I mean, I shared them.  I don’t need you showing them to me again. (Despite that one time that I accidentally saw something cool in there that I forgot had gotten there because of me, and went ahead and shared it again.  Sharing an item from my shared items… that’s classy.)  At the very least, could you make sure they actually get marked as read after I read them?  I perpetually have 11-or-so “new” items in there that I’ve seen a hundred times.

Seriously, Google.  I’m beginning to think this conversation is one-sided.  Don’t make me start writing to SkyNet instead.

Last night, longtime reader aerospace conducted some research into my complaint against the unbelievability involved with how the Terminatrix controlled vehicles in “Terminator 3”.  As it turns out, I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

The Terminatrix’s ability was “forming complex machines,” not necessarily just controlling machines.  In order to drive a car remotely, all she’d need to do is send some of her nanobots into the car where they could form the machinery required to move the steering wheel, manipulate the throttle, etc.  I’m still not convinced that she’d make machinery to pull the gas pedal down rather than just adjusting the throttle from the engine compartment — not to mention that she could never have enough leverage from within the steering column to pull the transmission lever down — but at this point I’m just nitpicking.  I know better than most that “nobody likes a nitpick,” so I’m declaring that my complaint with the movie is completely invalid, and apologize profusely to the film’s creators for my mistake.

That said, in her comment explaining this, aerospace brought to my attention another complaint I once had, about which I had completely forgotten.  In the “Terminator” universe, the abilities of the Terminators get better and better as technology in the future progresses.  But they inexplicably send the new upgraded Terminators back in time to a point AFTER the failed previous attempts.  The logical thing to do would be to keep going after Sarah Connor EARLIER in time, would it not?  Why keep trying forward in the time line when you know she’s going to be expecting it?

Remember how in “Terminator 3” the Terminatrix could control electronics, enabling her to use them as an extension of herself?  Remember how when it came to vehicles they’d do the David Fincher zoom-through down to the circuit level, showing that she’s taking control of it only to zoom back out and show the shift knob move by itself, the gas pedal depress to the floor and the steering wheel turn by itself?  That bugged the crap out of me.  For me it was exactly like in “The Never-ending Story” when Sebastian got to the part in the book where Sebastian got to the part in the book.  (“That’s IMPOSSIBLE!”  Both his response and mine.  Luckily he was all alone in his school’s attic; I was in a crowded theater and got simultaneously ‘shhhhh’d and snickered at.)

Compare with the film “Maximum Overdrive.”  Shift knobs move by themselves, steering wheels turn without assistance, and gas pedals depress to the floor, seemingly without any cause.  This was perfectly acceptable.  AWESOME, in fact.  I’m not entirely sure what the difference between these two examples is, but I suspect it to be the explanation of how it is working.  In “Maximum Overdrive,” there really is no explanation.  For all we know, there are invisible beings sitting at the wheels of the vehicles.  We know that an alien race is using Earth’s machinery to “sweep out all the roaches,” (those roaches are us) but there’s absolutely no attempt to explain it.  In “Terminator 3,” on the other hand, they go out of their way to explain it, even using flashy graphics of electrons following circuitry.  The problem, though, is that electronics don’t work that way.  I could buy the steering wheel, since most modern cars have “power steering,” but the shift knob?  There’s no machinery for the electronics to activate to get them to move.  To me that was just plain stupid and it spoiled the whole movie.

Do these types of things bother other people, or is it just me?  None of the other unrealistic things  in the film — time-travel, cybernetic organisms, Claire Danes  —  bothered me in the slightest, while such an inconsequential thing completely ruined it?  Is that a normal human response?