Doug Adams had a story about that, coincidentally involving birds: Aurthur Dent taught himself the language of birds. It turned out that birds are mostly chattering about the wind, and seeds, and who got whose feathers ruffled, etc.

Humans are crashingly boring. We fart, we scratch, we worry about our hair and our petty insecurities.

THE Aurthur Dent? I miss him so...

Darn it Paul, every technologist has to dream about his or her technology making the world a better place. We want to think the Internet will improve how people communicate. If you were around back then, whoever invented television would have instead gone home sulking.

Of course, you would have been right. And maybe that would be a good thing. But stop raining on our parade anyway!

People communicating with eachother IS making the world a better place. It just doesn't always look impressive.

Good point. I should mention my grandparent post should have had a smiley. I meant to make the discussion lively and entertaining, not hostile.

Twitter is small talk. As much as I sometimes cringe at the banality of "How are you?", it's important because it is not important.