For the next few hours or days (or..?) all hell can break loose on Twitter, as a little hole was opened that makes it possible for greater-than-140-character tweets to break out into the wild.

Here's an example of a fat tweet so you can see what it looks like.

And here's a screen shot in case at some point in the future that gets truncated (as it seems likely it will).

Here's how it works.

1. Twitter has a new url-shortener, called t.co.

2. When it displays a tweet with a url that was shortened by t.co, it expands the url, so you get to see the url it is pointing to. That way you know in advance where you're going. This is a good thing, it's one of the nice things about the web that url-shortening screws with.

3. But t.co doesn't check to see that the thing you're shortening is actually a url. You can shorten things that aren't.

4. t.co doesn't have a 140-character limit for urls.

5. So when it shows the full url, it shows as many as were there. Even if there were more than 140, and even if it wasn't a url.

6. Heh.

Update: I whipped up a little web app to show how it works.

Reuters - A manager at Apple Inc has been charged in California with taking kickbacks he received after leaking corporate secrets to Asian companies that supplied iPhone and iPod accessories, court documents showed.

AP - Hundreds of couples donned sailor hats and nurse's caps and smooched in Times Square on Saturday to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.

AP - The government official overseeing the Gulf oil spill response said Saturday he wants additional tests done before ordering BP to finish drilling a relief well that will help plug the runaway well for good.

Cancer. I don't like typing that word. My sister goes to work every day and cuts cancer out of people's bodies, and I can't even type the word "cancer" without cringing. My sister looks people right in the eyes and tells them whether they'll live for another year or die in a few weeks -- and I watch shows about rich housewives for a living.

Von Finanzsorgen geplagt, vertraut der Klub gezwungenermaßen auf den Nachwuchs. Zvonimir Soldo braucht dringend Erfolge. Der Trainer hat das System umgestellt und spielt nun mit einer Raute, damit Lukas Podolski hinter zwei Spitzen agieren kann.