William Shatner is once again poking fun at another fame-seeking Alaskan. If you remember, several months back, the veteran actor and musician lampooned Sarah Palin by reading her tweets to a beat poetry rhythm. He’s turned his attention towards Levi Johnston, onetime Palin family member. Something tells me this is the least of Levi’s worries. Reports have leaked that his upcoming possibly full-frontal photo shoot for Playgirl has hit a little bump: he’s worried about his penis size. If you cannot stomach the pictures fear not: since I am a card carrying homosexual dedicated to journalistic integrity I will take one for the SUNfiltered team and report back my findings. Until then, enjoy Mr. Shatner above.

photo by giant_mice_kill_rabbits

A new study has found that 36% of people under the age of 35 Tweet, text, or check Facebook right after sex. For the over-35 group, that figure drops to only 8%. Are we totally giving away which side of the 35 dividing line we are located on when we say, Seriously, people? That’s really what you want to waste your post-coital warm fuzzy glow on?

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What if everyone’s current favorite micro-blogging service, Twitter was available when various historical notables were around? What would Joan of Arc tweet? Abraham Lincoln? Johannes Gutenberg? Well, Historical Tweets takes a peek into the 140-character limit archives and share snippets from the lives of these historical figures and others. Speaking of Twitter, you can follow SUNfiltered at twitter.com/Sunfiltered, and shameless plug warning: yours truly at twitter.com/mattrod. Did you see what I did there?

[Via]

I’m someone who definitely kisses and tells. I have been all my life and usually it turns my partners red with embarrassment and sometimes red with anger. Additionally, I’ve never been popular with guys who seek “discretion” when hooking up. FYI: “discretion” is code word for “I have a boyfriend.” I am really dangerous to those guys.

Even though I am happily partnered now I still can imagine what it must be like to with a click of an iPhone being able to share my sexual conquests with the world. Part Twitter and part Loopt, the technology of I Just Made Love (mentioned earlier by Em and Lo) allows you to brag about those encounters. You can choose the city, street, and even building you got laid in. And of course you can choose the position.

It’s for the voyeur who wants to know what others are doing and where they’re doing it. And, of course, how they’re doing it.

Mashable, the blog about social media, has compiled a list of cool Twitter visualizations. Below is a video example of Just Landed, a geo-visualization of tweets containing the words “Just landed in…” As Mashable explains, “It finds the tweets containing the phrase, checks for the location they¹ve landed in, and the location they were sent from, and shows all this on a 3D map of the world.”

Just Landed is the work of Jer Thorp, a Canadian artist and educator. You can read more about Just Landed on Thorp’s site, blprnt.com.

Visit Mashable for several more Twitter visualizations.

Along with playing a useful role in sociopolitical upheavals, Twitter also seems to be fertile grounds for the development of memes, such as this latest one involving Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra after he tweeted the following specious comment: “Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.” It’s similar, except not at all. Having tossed this giant softball in the cyber air, Twitterers started taking the proverbial swing at him. Talking Points Memo collected some of the home runs…

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It seems safe to say that no technology can be deemed truly mature until people are using it to cast judgment on others’ appearances (that, or to try and get a date). The founders of Twitter can breathe easy, then, now that Hot Tweeters (a sort of “Hot or Not” for Twitter) has arrived.

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Image: NASA

On its 39th anniversary, Earth Day still feels vital to me, but I know that some of you out there think that its time has passed. Every day should be Earth Day, you say. Choosing just one, single day to say you care about the planet we call home — what good is that?

The first Earth Day came at the end of a decade in which social activism drove this nation’s political agenda. Moved by a desire to create that better world, we got together to fight for change the only way a large group of like-minded people could: we laced up our shoes and walked side-by-side. When you have to get together in person, well, you obviously need a specific day to meet up. And that day turned out to be Wednesday, April 29, 1970.

Some of us who fought for this country’s first environmental protections make the mistake of assuming that because young people today are less likely to be found marching down the National Mall as the shopping mall, that they must not care as deeply as we did when we were young. But apathy has not replaced idealism. Idealism just looks a little different these days.

This generation uses new tools to express itself and influence political decisions. They connect with one another in more ways than we could have imagined back in 1970: blogs, email petitions, YouTube videos, Twitter and Facebook. They’re finding new ways to express their political views, and they do it every second of every day.

Lately, I’ve come around to their way of thinking. I’m still standing up for environmental protections for the places I hold dear, but like so many of today’s new activists, I’ve hung up my marching boots and taken to the blogosphere. You’ll find me expressing my views at the Huffington Post, NRDC’s Greenlight, and Sundance Channel.

So what good is Earth Day? It’s a day that reminds us to take a stand every day and fight for the places we hold dear. So today, pause for a moment and take full advantage of the unprecedented array of tools we have for connecting with others and expressing our views. Speak up on Facebook, or Twitter, or go one step further and join me at NRDC’s Greenlight. In today’s world, you’re a reporter too. Stand up for the people, creatures, and lands that inspire you to protect the environment. Reach out and tell the world about what’s happening in the places you hold dear. Make your voices heard.

Mediabistro’s Webnewser blog has an exclusive interview with Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau about the media world’s obsession with Twitter. Trudeau, who generally thinks the microblogging service is a useless time-suck, devoted a recent series of strips to the Twitter experiments of the hapless journalist Roland Hedley. Here’s what Trudeau has to say about real-life tweeting journalists:

What amazes me is that these folks have voluntarily elected to add a new hour-a-day habit to what presumably were pretty busy schedules to begin with. Many of them Twitter about their apparently exemplary parenting, so you do wonder why they don’t turn off their Berrys and recover that hour for the family — or at least make themselves a little more present for the people they’re actually with.

Look, all of us are narcissists to some degree, but most find it embarrassing enough to at least try to hide it. What Twitter and its social media cousins do is disable inhibition. We expect narcissism from our movie stars and politicians and teenagers, but it’s a little surprising to encounter so many otherwise personally modest journalists oblivious to how they’re presenting.

Read the interview here.

Trudeau has been posting to a real Twitter account for the fictional Roland Hedley.