A mode of communication that encourages people to place emphasis on highly readable form rather than worthwhile content, Twitter has flocks of fans and nearly as many enemies. Of course in the end it’s the people who continuously write – and read – pointless tweets that are to blame for the bad rep that the service has earned, but since we can always use a good laugh, go ahead and watch Slate V’s vid:

I didn’t realize people hated language this much. What next? Hand signs?  – dammit. That won’t fit in a flap.

[via geeksugar]

Electro-harmonix Bass Blogger doesn’t just try to hitch its wagon to the online star with its name. The maker goes so far to describe the pedal in the following way:“Ultra subtle and perfect distortion creates the perfect dialog with your drummer.”

I wonder if the bassist-to-drummer dialog includes an inordinate amount of comment spam. While it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I heard of a blog that produced a bunch of distorted fuzz, that’s about the only real similarity I can come up with.

If you’re ready to see what sort of blogging your bass is really capable of, you can grab one over on the Old Town School of Folk Music eBay store for just $79 clams.

[via Music Thing]

Up until now, I’ve written 99.9% of Technabob’s 2000+ stories myself. While I really want to be a total control freak, I’ve realized that my readers crave more content than I can handle all by my little old self. That said, I’m certain that at least one of you out there is up to the challenge of finding wondrous new geekery and weird science.

If you’re convinced that you know your stuff in video games, gadgets, electronics, hack & mods, or generally offbeat techie stuff, you could be the chosen one. You’ll need to be able to source (at least some of) your own stories, have a witty, irreverant or otherwise sharp-as-a-tack writing style, and it won’t hurt if you’ve got a little experience cropping and scaling images using Photoshop, Picnik or the like.

I’ll tell you in advance that blogging for Technabob won’t make you wealthy, but it’s a great opportunity to expose your writing talents to tons of people, and if you happen to write your own blog, it’s a nice way to get a bit of extra traffic.

Ready to throw your hat into the ring? Just e-mail an appropriate writing sample or two to tips@technabob.com, along with your contact information, and a brief explanation of why you think you’d be the ideal addition to the Technabob editorial crew.

Especially the part about blogging about diagrams like this one.

You can view the full chart here.

[The New York Times via Ozymandias]

With a few bucks worth of off the shelf parts, an Arduino board, a USB cable and a little code, you too can have one for your website, thanks to this detailed “how-to” article over on Tinkerlog.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While I think the idea is really clever, I think you’d end up throwing the thing against the wall if you have even a mildly popular website. But if you just have a personal blog, or only want to monitor a single page, it could be gratifying to hear the little bell ring every time a visitor pops by.

Ding!

[via MAKE]

The Weblog Awards is a non-profit project that was created back in 2001 to recognize the best in blogging. There are a variety of categories ranging from “Best Computers or Technology Weblog” to “Best New Weblog” to the newly created “Best Tagline of a Weblog.”

So if you like what you see, please vote for us before the end of nominations at 10:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, January 10th. If you don’t, please vote for your other favorites and let your voice be heard. Thanks for your support!