All you need is #love

Conservatives and One Directioners owned Twitter in 2015, which only affirms my long-held conviction that we should #nevertweet. The ranking was released this morning as part of Twitter's year in review. Winners: Harry Styles, #tcot. Losers: all of you.

1. How Apple ruined emoji. Once upon a time, in a country called Japan, those adorable little icons were really trendy. Then iPhones came along and standardized them -- now they're basically passe to the Japanese.

2. The weird linguistics of YouTube. No matter what kind of channel you're watching, performers seem to play by the same rules: high energy, erratic pacing, very looooong vowels. The "YouTube voice" is a linguistic phenomenon, kinda like the style of carnival barkers. Both want to grab your attention -- and both usually work!

3. The best Internet pranks of 2015. One retrospective I will support, happily.

Conclusive proof: CATS ARE EVIL (link)

Pocketable: On playing video games behind bars. (3,122 words/13 minutes)

Postscripts: Iterating grace. Programming poems. Debating the merits and meanings of trolls. How much your spare time is worth and which board game you should play in it. All you need is #love, particularly on the Internet. How a "master algorithm" will change your life. How encryption actually works. What is UP with people torturing Sims & other online characters? When words fail, there's always the new thinking emoji ... because noncommittal puzzlement applies to everything (!).

See ya tomorrow,
@caitlindewey

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