Editing 491: Twitter

{{comic
| number    = 491
| date      = October 20, 2008
| title     = Twitter
| image     = twitter.png
| titletext = If long tooltips / cut off for you / then upgrade from / Firefox 2 / Burma Shave
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays off of an old shaving cream product's {{w|Burma-Shave}} advertising campaign employed on American highways from {{w|1925}} to {{w|1963}}. These ads used short poems, each line arranged sequentially on a sign along a highway, the last line always being "Burma Shave," the name of the shaving cream. Originally, these ads only described the product, but others included driving safety messages.

{{w|Twitter}} is a messaging service where your messages are restricted in length, so to get a longer essay sent, you will need to break it up in smaller fragments — like the {{w|Burma-Shave}} messages, although the whole of the text of this comic is considerably less than 140 characters and would not need to be broken up on Twitter.

[[Cueball]] gets five messages from Twitter on his device that give the following message: On Twitter feeds - An odd regression: - Ancient memes - Find new expression - Burma-shave.

This relates that this old way (ancient-memes) of getting a message through when only having a limited space now again (an odd regression) flourishes on Twitter feeds - Burma-shave...

{{w|Firefox 2}} had a long standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text were shown as a tool-tip, creating a "Burma-Shave" effect of only being able to see some of the text. Unlike Burma-Shave, where you would see the rest of the text as you were driving down the highway, Firefox didn't actually show you the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, and you would be able to see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball with a handheld device sits on an office chair.]
:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: On Twitter feeds

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: An odd regression:

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Ancient memes

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Find new expression

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Burma-shave

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]