The More We Know, The More We Don’t Know

The Epistemological Wonderland that is Weinergate continues its incredible journey through uncertainty with today’s story from Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily iPad app:

But according to data provided exclusively to The Daily from TweetCongress.org, a nonprofit website that captures each member of Congress’s Twitter feeds in real time, the shot seen round the world was transmitted using TweetDeck — a popular Adobe desktop application that links up with social networking sites. A review of Weiner’s Twitter stream from May 27, the day of the crotch pic, shows that Weiner had been posting only from TweetDeck — one of many ways to post messages to Twitter — that entire night.

If you’re not familiar with the Twitterverse, TweetDeck is one of the most popular third-party Twitter-posting apps — so popular that Twitter itself just bought it. It’s like providing the damning evidence that Weiner drove a Chevy.

And, as blogger Joseph Cannon notes — we’ll be nice to him this time — TweetDeck will automatically create a yfrog image account for you if you tweet a photo. Weiner was already using yfrog for legit photos, and it’s not unreasonable to presume he never set it up directly — he just posted a photo via TweetDeck one day, and there it was.

So what does all of this prove?

Well, nothing.

All the confirmable evidence remains consistent with Weiner posting the crotch shot himself. And all the confirmable evidence also remains consistent with somebody guessing a easily guessable password for Weiner’s Twitter account, chanting “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good”, posting the photo via TweetDeck, and declaring “Mischief managed”.

Then again, the latter reference involves waving a wand. Perhaps we should stop there.

30 Comments

I have Tweetdeck on my computer, my iPad, and my Android phone. Maybe that’s my crotch shot and I did it! Kerning!

Is it cut? Is he hung?
Does he come complete?
The feisty feisty Demrat
Always kicked them in their seats

He was pure like snowflakes
No one could ever stain
The memory of that Demrat
Could never cause me pain

Days go by I’m lookin’ through an online news source
And there’s that Demrat Congressman on that pic Tweet

CHORUS:
My blood runs cold
The wingnuts have just over sold
That Demrat is in Weenie-gate
Demrat is in Weenie-gate

@ManchuCandidate: Two lines in, I thought you were doing Dr. Seuss. Which would be highly appropriate.

@blogenfreude: Geek fact error: “a popular Adobe desktop application”.

The desktop version of TweetDeck is built using Adobe Air (a Flash derivative), but it’s not an Adobe app. It was created by an indie Brit company.

Indie until a week or two ago, that is, when Twitter bought it.

But that’s an irrelevant detail. What amazes me is how many reporters and bloggers think a piece of evidence speaks for itself, when there are equally plausible and conflicting explanations for how that evidence exists.

This ain’t sophisticated philosophy. It’s basic logic.

@nojo:

“Oh the Things You will see” borrowed from Seussical..
Oh, the pics with clothed dicks!
Oh, the weenies you can see
If you’re willing to see…

Think mind bleach!
Or a winger with a boner!
Or an asshole with issues…
If you open your mind,
Oh, the thinks you will find
Lining up to cause you issues…
Oh, the dinks you can’t unthink
When you think about…

“Your Body is an Epistemological Wonderland”

#BadPhilosophyLoveSongs

Hard to believe that dick belongs to a Democrat.

Old SNL sketch, Aykroyd as post-Playboy interview Jimmy Carter: “I’d like to talk to you tonight about sexual performance in the White House.”

See also JFK, Bubba, Gary Hart.

I still haven’t moved past the gray undies.

@SanFranLefty: Probably Jockey – they’re actually pretty comfortable.

TJ/ What the hell are proximity sensors and integrated digitizers on an iPhone 3G (S mebbe)? My SIM card was fackacta, and I fixed it, but I fucked up the ribbon for the audio thing that lets me hear people yapping (ribbon #3). Speaker phone and headphone audio work. I just want to replace the ribbon, but I might have to replace the screen and the digitizer.

ADD: Ah. Yes. I tore up the proximity sensor the nteenth time I open up my phone. I still have no idea what a digitizer is except that it probably translates touch screen stuff into code the phone understands. I just need the ribbon thing.

@JNOV knows Dick: The proximity sensor is how the iPhone knows you’re holding it to your ear, so it can turn off the touchscreen.

An “integrated digitizer” could be pretty much anything.

@blogenfreude: Comfort has nothing to do with it. A well-dressed man should be photo-ready at all times. Do we need to talk manscaping?

BTW. Are you the photo expert or dodger? One of you was describing a point-n-shoot camera in the $300 range (there was an E in the name?) that sounds just what the doctor ordered.

Since I expect to be making jail visits in the near future I don’t want anything too bulky.

@JNOV knows Dick: Huh?

@Benedick HRH KFC: Not me. I prefer to lug around enough lenses and other crap to give me neck pain.

@Benedick HRH KFC: It’s the Pentax I got for my niece … hold on a second …

@Dodgerblue: This one: http://www.pentaximaging.com/digital-camera/Optio_WG-1_Black/ you can drop it, get it wet, anything – that’s why I got it for my niece. And you might be a klutz. And it’s 14 megapixels for 350! Let me know how you like it.

@blogenfreude: Darling, one has been trained at the barre. One is not a klutz. But many thanks. The waterproof droppy thing might come in handy while escaping through sewer lines with my lover visiting buddies half-naked, breaking rocks on chain-gangs in jail. Thanks, bro. Manhugs to ya, big guy.

Best iFixit title Ever!

My drunk friend slept with my iPhone and peed in his pants.

My iPhone 3GS was pee’d on by my drunk friend who slept with it the other night at a party. He didn’t tell me till the next afternoon which the camera was still moist and foggy. So i dried it up but idk if he tried turning it on. Two days goes by and nothing works, so i decide to open it up and look at the logic board and the copper contacts attached to the battery are corroded and have like little dark spots. i sprayed little amounts of contact cleaner and cleaned them up brand new but nothing. I’m charging it now but still no luck.

I’d totally not fuck with that thing.

@nojo: Yah. I think the same cable also controls the earspeaker. The gold foil part is bent to hell. I found a replacement part for like 5 bucks $3.19 (not OEM, but, whatevs). If it’s the connector (and I don’t think it is b/c that seems to be the only thing I haven’t fucked up yet), guess I’ll learn to solder.

@Benedick HRH KFC: I’ll be opening up my iPhone repair shop soon. First I’m going to learn to make vegan soap. Olive oil and lemongrass. I’ll send you a bar if I don’t burn my eyes out with lye.

Wait. Are we still talking about that guy’s dick? We should mash this scandal up with Caribou Barbie’s Ride on Paul Revere. Meh.

@Benedick HRH KFC: Has one gone en pointe? We should dance. Seriously. We’d have a great time. ‘Catt can come, too. We always need a fatty wingman.

@JNOV knows Dick: Catt is not that fat!

As one svelte American to another should we really be dwelling on the size of Catt’s ass? Yes it’s huge. Enormous. I was just outside watching the moon rise and I thought: What does that remind me of? But that doesn’t make him any less gay. I doubt there’s anything that could manage that. Obviously he’s sensitive about not being able to fit into assless chaps and I think we should respect that. His days on the pole having strangers stuff dollars in his jock may be over and though it might be a pity that he’s allowed himself to blow up like Kirstie Alley mainlining Krispy Kreames he still has his dignity. As a human. A gay. An overweight American. We still love him. Some of us.

@Benedick HRH KFC: ROTFLMAO. (I’m happy to report I haven’t typed that in years. Maybe Catt needs to try it. As exercise. The rolling. For his arse. Such as.)

@JNOV knows Dick: Maybe we could hug him. If we could get our arms around him.

@Benedick HRH KFC: I was going to suggest we join hands. How long are your arms?

It takes something like 40 people holding hands to encircle the base of the General Sherman tree. Catt has 40 friends, right?

@JNOV knows Dick: 40 friends who LOVE him. And I quite like him. Though I’m not sure I’d be up to helping him get into his new pair of skinny jeans. How do we spell CGI?

What I did not know was that he was one of Ann Margret’s backup dancers back in the day. Catt was the one in the back row in the gold lamé pants and cerise shirt. Go go times.

@Benedick HRH KFC: I may have mentioned something — I think the Canon S95 is one of the nicest pocketable point and shoot cameras on the market right now. Might be on the spendy side for what you want, but it’s a fine, fine camera. I own a G11 (G12 is the current iteration), which is pretty much the same thing as an S95, but decked out in photo-nerd drag.

@IanJ: Darling, one works in the Arts. Money’s no object.

One has a Sony Cybershot that can’t photograph green.

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