Tweet from bash shell, with length check

.bashrc

# $ tweet Hi mom!
#
# Put this in ~/.bashrc or wherever.
# If it doesn't work, make sure your ~/.netrc is right
#
# (Thanks to @anildigital and @grundprinzip for curl-fu)

function tweet {
  string=$*
  LEN=$(echo ${#string})
  if [ $LEN -gt 140 ]; then
    echo "You talk too much ($LEN chars)"
  else
    curl -n -d status="$*" https://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml --insecure &> /dev/null
    echo "tweet'd"
  fi
} 

.netrc

# put this in ~/.netrc
machine twitter.com
login USERNAME
password PASSWORD