The Origin of the Term “Thong Rig”

On the 28th of December 2010 a twitter conversation transpired between a number of people that resulted in the birth of a term. That term is “Thong Rig”. To be “Thong Rigged” is to have the auto correct change the spelling of a word resulting in you looking like an idiot.

We have all had that happen to us, especially those of us using Apple devices like iPhones and iPads. The auto correct can be somewhat unkind at the best of times. This conversation however was one of the funniest I have ever had on twitter. Making it funnier was the fact that my wife (@Kate_Gray) was sitting right next to me as it happened. She was laughing her head off.

This is an attempt by myself to reconstruct that conversation as best I can. It is unfortunate that the timeline in twitter will only go back 7 hours. So I had to construct this using links and trying to remember what happened. So it might not be 100% perfect. But what it does do is convey the general idea and I don’t think the meaning is lost.

Have a read and you’ll know what we are talking about when we say; “You’ve been thong rigged”. Thong rigging also has it’s own hash tag #thongrig so feel free to use it and spread the meme.

Many Thanks to:

• @Kate Gray
• @Jameswilliams90
• @Space_Cadet
• @Fifikins
• @BZB
• @Superspeechie

for the damn funny experience!

Back on the 28th of December 2010

The_Rooster: PLEASE follow @Kate_Gray she has so few followers she is checking up on what I tweeted like a freaking day ago!!!! Please save me….

space_cadet: My wife @Superspeechie has 4 followers, me, my brother, his wife, and Julia freakin’ Gillard…please follow my lovely wife 🙂

The_Rooster: @space_cadet: retreated in sympathy mate

The_Rooster: @space_cadet make that retweeted – stoopid auto correct

The_Rooster: Ok now she is covering up her iPhone not wanting me to see her tweets… Before they are tweeted geeze

BZB: @The_Rooster @Kate_Gray This is going to be fun *makes popcorn, gets comfy* ;D

Kate_Gray: @The_Rooster go bite me can’t keep up with those people i’m friends with

The_Rooster: @Kate_Gray but your quoting my bloody tweets!!! Not the interesting people

Fifikins: @The_Rooster @Kate_Gray Twitter is not a place for domestics 😉

Kate_Gray: The things that @The_Rooster talks me into

Fifikins: @BZB My money’s on@Kate_Gray (sorry @The_Rooster!)

BZB: @Fifikins I’m with you!

Kate_Gray: @The_Rooster I have better thongs to do and someone has to look after the lifs

jameswilliams90: @Kate_Gray @The_Rooster damn autothongy!

space_cadet: @Kate_gray btw, whats a “lif” 😉

The_Rooster: Shit a bloody brick now there is a book going on who the winner is going to be. She might wear the f^*%ing thong but I wear the pants baby!

space_cadet: @Kate_gray @the_rooster lol – thongs to do 😀

The_Rooster: @Kate_Gray ROFLMHO that’s gold and the old auto correct bit you rig on the arse!!!

BZB: @The_Rooster Bwahahahaha!

space_cadet: @the_rooster bit “rig” in the arse…wow – snapped!!

jameswilliams90: @Kate_Gray @The_Rooster damn autothongy!

jameswilliams90: @space_cadet @the_rooster @kate_gray don’t want to get your thong caught in the rig…

space_cadet: @jameswilliams90 for sure – getting anything stuck in a thong rig, arse or not, is gonna give you the shits. Especially if you have lifs!

space_cadet: @the_rooster @Superspeechie my rig never gets stuck 😉

superspeechie: @space_cadet pretty cool though. Julia is interested in my tweets lol

The_Rooster: @space_cadet @jameswilliams90 yeah byb gosh those lifs can be a pain in the rig

Fifikins: @The_Rooster do they fit you rig on the arse?

The_Rooster: @Fifikins the are no rigs on my arse just for the record….

Fifikins: @The_Rooster that’s what she said 😀

jameswilliams90: @The_Rooster @space_cadet @kate_gray *crying*

Kate_Gray: Laughing so much have tears in my eyes

The_Rooster: @jameswilliams90 @kate_gray she’s wetting herself….

Kate_Gray: @space_cadet kids

The_Rooster: @jameswilliams90 @space_cadet @kate_gray yeah it was that funny here as well

space_cadet: Bed time – night all.

jameswilliams90: @space_cadet night night, don’t let the rig thongys bit.

Kate_Gray: Going to have to watch that auto correct or fix up my typing on small keyboard

The_Rooster: @Kate_Gray excuses excuses…

I hope that goes some way to explaining Thong Rig…

Feel free to follow me on twitter @The_Rooster

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Late Night twitter

People love and use twitter for lots of different reasons. But I found this quote today from Leo Laporte, of TwiT fame:

“Twitter late night is kind of a swinging place, full of insomniacs, the caffeinated, and Australians. I dig it.”

leolaporte

Pretty much sums up twitter up-late. The other thing is that us Aussies must be making an impact on the twitter scene. There is certainly a big contingent of Aussies out there that are twitter nuts, so hop to it and see what you are missing. Or check out the Global Geek Podcast twitter special, all about twitter. We even talk about this very aspect of twitter – the light night twitter goings on from Oz.

Part of why I love twitter.

The_Rooster my updates are protected but add me and I might just follow you too 🙂

Twhirl Updates, Now Integrated with FeedFriend

I love the concept of lifestreaming. Initially I used Tumblr, but then specific web apps started to turn up and I checked them all out and kept coming back to FeedFriend. With the release today of the latest update to twhirl, the popular twitter client now owned by seesmic; my decision to use FeedFriend was consolidated.

It took a while to work out that the latest iteration of twhirl now incorporates FeedFriend. So now, once set up you get a window just like the twitter one but in it is the feed from FeedFriend. You can see everything that your friends are doing, blog posts, tweets and everything else that they have added to their FeedFriend account right in Twhirl!

Although I rave about the virtues of RSS this is different. FeedFriend summarizes all my friends social networking and blogging activities in one place. Not only do I see updates as they happen, but it is content that I would follow more closely if I could. Now I can. I am interested in what they have to say but as you know my RSS reader can look like a train wreck at times and I miss things. Now I don’t have to.

But it doesn’t just stop at being able to see what they are doing but I can also comment on them as well. The comments go to FeedFriend and not the place where they were posted though. This might mean on average fewer page views over time. But I do have to read the post and that you have to go to the post to do. Video however is displayed on FeedFriend. So I am more likely to comment in FeedFriend. Which is also part of the functionality of the new FeedFriend feature in Twhirl.

There is no doubt for me that this feature has changed my online life. I am going to be able to be more involved with the conversation and more inclined to do so. It has consolidated my online friends and people that I like and enjoy to watch. It makes the content more relevant. twhirl is becoming a killer app.

One thing that I thought was not that clear were the instruction on how to make the magic happen. So, quick summary here.

1. Download twhirl, you will also need to install Adobe AIR Runtime. You’ll be prompted to do so if you have not got it already.
2. Go to settings and Click the “Open Accounts”. Here you can add your twitter accounts (and yes multiple accounts for twitter are supported).



3. Now the cool FriendFeed stuff, use the pulldown menu to select “FriendFeed” and enter your FriendFeed user name (it is the one that appears in your URL for FeedFriend).



4. Click “Connect”, you will be prompted to enter your remote key. If you don’t know it there is a link to get it – or try this one. Get your remote key
5. That is it, your done. You will now see a separate window with your FeedFriend friends feed in it

Hope that helps some people.

I have noticed that the FriendFeed servers are under a bit of strain, timing out and being unavailable and other interesting errors. Maybe the timeline for FriendFeed doesn’t update as it should, like mine is tending to do. But I am sure these problems will be fixed in time. I am excited about these changes and new features. Loving it, the seesmic and twhirl teams deserve a slap on the back, thanks guys. Keep up the great work.

There is a video from Loic on the new features but the instructions are not that great but listening to Loic is. Feel free to add me to FeedFriend, I think I am going to be using it more!

Twitter Poster, How Influential are You?

There is a bit of buzz on twitter about a new site called twitter poster. The sites purpose is to visually represent the degree of influence that twitter users have. The size of the image relates to the number of followers. I guess that would mean it is better to have fewer followers and more influence, not sure.

There are different editions of the site, a twitter poster (.com) but also versions for Australia and Mexico (?). I checked out the Aussie one and it turns out that I am in the poster, as well as characters like Michael Specht and Kodo. Yet Cam Reilly is on the .com. I think that the dot com might be a global poster, so I guess that is good. But Cam doesn’t rate a mention on the Aussie version. It might have something to do with your profile.

If you use twitter it is pretty interesting and might get you connected with some interesting people. Yet I am not sure what gets you on the poster, I am not a heavy user of twitter yet I am there. There are obvious ones on the poster like Scoble who tweets everything. So go hard and try and get on the list, if you find out how then let me know. Diversion finished.

.com version here