NASA invited me to the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to attend a special NASA Tweetup (#nasatweetup) for the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch of the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle launched on Monday, November 16th at 2:28pm EST from launch pad 39A.

Here are my launch day photos & video that I uploaded live from the press center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which is located 3 miles from the launch pad.

As part of the NASA Tweetup, we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, stopping by the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF), Apollo / Saturn V Center and ended up with an amazing visit to a close up view of launch pad 39A with the Space Shuttle Orbiter in place on the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) ready for take off.

While touring Kennedy Space Center, we drove by a gigantic eagle’s nest (as big as king size bed) which has been home multiple generations of eagles for over 45 years. KSC is part of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is also home to alligators, wild boar, black bear, manatee, Florida panthers and over 330 species of birds.

Photo Gallery: NASA Tweetup Space Shuttle STS-129

NASA photographer Carla Cioffi has been shooting a bunch of great photos of the STS-129 NASA Tweetup and uploading them to NASA HQ Flickr account.

More Coverage:

- The Associated Press

- Central Florida News 13

- Space.com

- Star Stryder

photos by Scott Beale

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Adam Koford, aka “Ape Lad” had been creating an awesome series of avatars for his Twitter account. In keeping with Twitter’s 140 character limitation, Adam has been restricting the design of his avatars to the shape of the default Twitter bird avatar.

Here’s the an example of a default Twitter avatar for comparison.

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Twitter is in the final phases of rolling out their new Lists feature which allows you to create custom lists of Twitter users.

In conjunction with the release of lists, a new Twitter Lists directory Listorious has just launched, providing a way to discover some of the best lists on Twitter.

Speaking of Twitter lists, here’s a few lists I’ve created for San Francisco resources, Laughing Squid guest bloggers, Laughing Squid vendors.

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photo by Scott Beale

Last night at the Full of Win Happy Hour at Citizen Space, in the yellow section of their bookshelf I came across the “Twitter For Dummies” book written by Laura Fitton, Michael E. Gruen and Leslie Poston. I was thinking we should organize an event were we do dramatic readings from the book. Who’s in?

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The Twitter account Fake AP Stylebook, a wonderful parody of the AP Stylebook used by journalists, provides humorous style tips for proper writing, with the disclaimer “If you use this you will get fired”.

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Nick Douglas recently made an appearance on The Martha Stewart Show to talk about his new book “Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less”.

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Dom Sagolla, who was one of the original members of the team that built Twitter, has a new book out, 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form. The book focuses on helping people get the most of out writing messages for Twitter, Facebook and other social media that involves short form communication.

The advent of Twitter and other social networking sites, as well as the popularity of text messaging, have made short-form communication an everyday reality. But expressing yourself clearly in short bursts-particularly in the 140-character limit of Twitter-takes special writing skill.

In 140 Characters, Twitter co-creator Dom Sagolla covers all the basics of great short-form writing, including the importance of communicating with simplicity, honesty, and humor. For marketers and business owners, social media is an increasingly important avenue for promoting a business-this is the first writing guide specifically dedicated to communicating with the succinctness and clarity that the Internet age demands.

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Here’s the archived video stream of The Comedy Panel at last week’s 140 | The Twitter Conference which took place in Los Angeles. The panel was moderated by Jason Preston and featured Tucker Max, Loni Love, Chris Hardwick and a surprise, unscheduled appearance by professional wresting champion The Iron Sheik, who recently joined Twitter. Don’t get him started about “that fucking Hulk Hogan”.

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MC Johnson Films presents Twitteleh, a new version of Twitter specifically tailored to Jewish mothers. Twitteleh provides answers to these three important questions:

1. Where are you?

2. What have you eaten?

3. Are you wearing a sweater?

Have you Twitteleh’d your Mother today?

A ten tentacle salute to Michael Lyons for the tip!

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The Washington Post has a hilarious series “Twits” featuring dramatic readings of Twitter updates by celebrities. The videos were created and directed by Liz Kelly who runs WaPo’s Celebrity Blog.

via NewTeeVee

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photos by Scott Beale

Here a few photos I’ve shot at 140 | The Twitter Conference in Los Angeles.

Photo Gallery: 140 | The Twitter Conference

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photo by Scott Beale

Pee-wee Herman made a surprise appearance at the Ad.ly Launch party following the first day of 140 | The Twitter Conference in Los Angeles. While there he made his first ever Tweet on his brand new Twitter account @peeweeherman.

Following his debut Tweet, Pee-wee was a guest on The Jay Leno Show.

The Pee-wee Herman Show is returning as a live stage show for a limited engagement starting November 8th at The Music Box @ Fonda in Hollywood.

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photo by Karen Burch

On Friday Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey gave a great talk about the history of Twitter at Webster University in his hometown of St. Louis. He hinted about the next project he’s working on which involves the healthcare and the financial industries.

via Chris Hardwick and Alyssa Milano

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Helvetwitter, a simplified Twitter client by Jose Frichter, inspired by Helvetireader (Google Reader) by Jon Hicks and Helvetical (Google Calendar) by Ad Taylor.

Twitter success is based on the simplicity of the service. However, the website, as well as various standalone Twitter clients are becoming more and more cluttered with useless features and other junk. Therefore, I stripped it to the basics and now it’s the first twitter client I am happy with.

via swiss miss

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Twestival SF (Twestival = Twitter + Festival), a fundraiser for Operation Smile via 140 Smiles, takes place this Friday, September 11th at Horizon in San Francisco.

Twestival goes local. Participants will gather to raise funds for Operation Smile via 140Smiles.org.

OperationSmile.org mobilizes a world of generous hearts to heal children’s smiles and transform lives across the globe. Their network of volunteers works worldwide to repair childhood facial deformities including cleft lips and cleft palates.

140Smiles.org has been created to raise funds and awareness specifically within the twitter community. Referencing twitter’s 140 character limit, 140 Smiles seeks to improve the lives of 140 children in need.

Advance tickets are now on sale and the event will be broadcast via Justin.tv.

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Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

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28 year-old Justin Halpern lives with his 73 year-old Dad who says some funny stuff, which Justin then posts to Twitter at @shitmydadsays. The account has been so popular it already has over 100K followers in less than a month.

UPDATE 1: MyHogtown tracked down one of the guys behind @shitmydadsays

UPDATE 2: Mark Milian interviews Justin Halpern, the guy behind @shitmydadsays for the LA Times. Justin now has a book deal based on his Tweets quoting his father.

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“Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less”, a new book by Nick Douglas featuring a collection of “the Funniest Tweets of All Time”, has just been published.

Sometimes, what happens on Twitter shouldn’t stay on Twitter.

Twitter Wit is the first ever compilation of Twitter aphorisms and witticisms, celebrating a medium that has enabled millions of users to broadcast their lives and quips within Twitter’s 140-character limit, thus reinventing wordplay in the tradition of Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde. This collection includes hundreds of the most memorable and hilarious tweets to date, demonstrating that inside every moment is a joke waiting to be written.

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140 | The Twitter Conference, which focuses on the developers, businesses and community involved with the Real-Time Web, takes place September 22nd-23rd at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The conference featuring a great line-up speakers and sessions.

The conference organizers are offering Laughing Squid readers a 10% discount on the event. Just enter 140squid when you register for the conference.

I’m planning on attending the event (Laughing Squid is a media partner) and will be in LA for the whole week. I’ll probably end up organizing a couple of Drinkups (one Westside and one Eastside) the weekend after the conference.

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Jason Scott’s cat Sockington just passed one million followers on Twitter. To celebrate this occasion, MC Frontalot wrote a “Sockington 1M Theme” song.

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