Reminded of the “Kurt Vonnegut goes to buy an envelope” quote. One of the best expressions of the joys of careful and deliberate inefficiency I’ve read.
Posted as image because the alt text has a higher character limit than a toot so I can paste the whole text as actual text there. Weird huh.
@aegir this is absolute gold.
On the alt text vs post character limit, I would guess here that the visual aesthetics of a Very Long Post are not so great to someone who is not impacted with low vision, but if they are, and are using a screenreader, most everything is words, so no difference.
On Mastodon a picture is worth 1500 characters 😀
@privacydingus @aegir Ya but they can automatically add a read more link which solves the aesthetics issue.
In the spirit of a most humble request, I seek your attention, dear developers of the resplendent platform known as #Mastodon, to engage in a #discourse pertaining to the limitation of characters bestowed upon us. 1/5
Much like the young Oliver Twist, who in his unassuming innocence dared to ask for more, I find myself standing before the mighty creators, the architects of this digital edifice, clutching an empty bowl of limited characters, seeking a kind gesture of magnanimity.
"Please, Mastodon," I beseech in earnest, holding out my Overflowing bowl of 500 characters, "may I have some more?" 2/5
The intricacies of human expression, akin to the winding alleys of a Dickensian London, oft require more than the prescribed number of characters to resonate their full worth. To capture the symphony of thoughts, the harmony of words, and the rhythm of language, might we not need a broader canvas, a more liberal leash? 3/5
In the same spirit that implored young Oliver to ask for more, I appeal to your sensibilities to understand the predicament that brevity often poses. Words, like wayward children, yearn for space to frolic, to express themselves without the stern hand of confinement.
Thus, I make my humble plea, hoping that my request, much like Oliver's, would not fall upon deaf ears, but lead to a thoughtful reconsideration of our collective constraints. 4/5
More characters, dear developers, would indeed be a boon to us all, helping to expand the narratives of our thoughts and ideas, allowing our digital voices to ring out more fully in this vast virtual world you've created.
With all due respect and hope, we ask you, dear Mastodon, "May we have some more?" 5/5
@franksting @ludibriumventis @aegir Yeah, he was going out to wander around.
I don't really know why people find it a profound quote tbh, you can bulk order envelopes and still "go for a walk" whenever you like, minus flimsy excuse.
@aegir nice story!
About picture+alt text, I think doing a thread is better
With picture+alt text there is no easy way to translate the text, whereas with threads you can just click on mastodon's translate button.
with picture + alt you can't even copy paste and translate with another translate website
@aegir Brilliant! I now have a new favourite expression: farting around. Faffing around just doesn't have the same ring.
Is it very bad of me that I thought as I read: he might not want 100 because they'd clutter up the place (particularly if he feels he won't need another one for ages), but that says more about me than anyone else. Those cupboards have to hold a heck of a lot. And that's me missing the point of the story.
Thanks for posting!
@aegir my teenage daughter is a computer!
She absolutely hates us dancing!
(Never have we danced so much😄)
@aegir "We're here on earth to fart around" is brilliant. I have the same conversation with my partner often. "I'm going to pick up (thing), I'll be back in a few." "Why don't you just order one/have it delivered?" Because then I'm denied the joy of being out in the world, of singing Jefferson Airplane at the top of my lungs as I drive, of impulse buying ice cream I happen to walk by.
That said... I manage to do a fair amount of farting around on computers, too.
"We're here on Earth to fart around."
That, and likely the whole quote, is going in the #ClownWisdom file.
Thank you!
@aegir The computers will do us out of that.
So it goes . . .
Credit to Chat-GPT done in the style of Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, the revered wordsmith and maestro of human foibles, found himself in the heart of New York City on a sunlit Tuesday afternoon, in need of a single envelope.
@aegir The owner, Mrs. Adler, a stern-looking woman with wise eyes, looked up from behind her desk. "Do you need assistance, Mr. Vonnegut?"
"Just a single envelope, Mrs. Adler," he replied, his gaze still riveted by the quill pen, which seemed to echo his thoughts on the deliberate inefficiency of the past.
Narrative a lot like the brilliant essay “Street Haunting” from Virginia Woolf, only she goes to buy a pencil…
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