An author at Damn Interesting signs up for a Mefi account having been linked on the blue

January 3, 2007 7:12 PM

Neat! Metafilter links to an article on DamnInteresting.com, creator of DamnInteresting and author of the linked article signs up for Metafilter account.
posted by jonson to MetaFilter-related at 7:12 PM (64 comments total)

Nothing like a Hot Pastrami!
posted by stirfry at 7:18 PM on January 3, 2007

So can we refer to him as 'Metafilter's own', now?
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:18 PM on January 3, 2007

I ♥ damninteresting.com. That is all.
posted by ninjew at 7:20 PM on January 3, 2007

Damn Interesting is a great site. It has been linked to here many times (including by me). Where do they get this stuff? Yes, the information is out there, but they filter it really, really well.
posted by caddis at 7:25 PM on January 3, 2007

I hear there are people reading MetaFilter now.
posted by cillit bang at 7:37 PM on January 3, 2007

Hot Pastrami, yeah! [sound]
posted by mediareport at 7:40 PM on January 3, 2007

My birthday is National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day. Top that.
posted by BeerFilter at 7:41 PM on January 3, 2007

I hear they have MetaFilter on the Internet now.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:04 PM on January 3, 2007

BAN HIM! What are we talking about?
posted by ND¢ at 8:05 PM on January 3, 2007

Where'd you hear that, dirtynumbangelboy? It's totally unconfirmed, speculative information, hush-hush. Nobody is supposed to know.
posted by cgc373 at 8:06 PM on January 3, 2007

Does anyone else get all helplessly exposed-feeling when new people say things like 'I've always loved MeFi". There...are....people out there....watching us.
It's enough to make a man tear his hair out and run around screaming, "Who are you!?!? DO I EVEN KNOW YOU?! WHAT'S YOUR NAME? WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!?!!! Is he rich like me?
posted by carsonb at 8:18 PM on January 3, 2007

"
posted by carsonb at 8:19 PM on January 3, 2007

[this is damn good]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:19 PM on January 3, 2007

Mmmm. Hot Carl Pastrami Sanchez!

(Please ignore me, Alan, I'm not quite right in the head.)
posted by loquacious at 8:20 PM on January 3, 2007

No, you're quite left.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:21 PM on January 3, 2007

Yay! This is one of the most awesome things about the internet.
posted by frecklefaerie at 8:46 PM on January 3, 2007

Truly a great site. And if Mefi isn't quite providing the platform for your extended writing skills, DI is always looking for authors.
posted by peacay at 8:55 PM on January 3, 2007

So we have the Woz, Adam Savage, John Hodgeman (he's a member, right?), Dan from dansdata, Alan Bellows, and of course Miguel Cardoso. What other celeb's and Interweb personalities have graced the blue?
posted by quin at 9:11 PM on January 3, 2007

Dave Gorman (doesn't seem to have appeared on America's radar much, yet, though, other than the Daily Show), also briefly.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:12 PM on January 3, 2007

I think we totally need Dan Savage here. And, hmm, John Cleese would be great.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:18 PM on January 3, 2007

Am I the only one seeing the gold star next to Effigy2000's name in the posted by line? Either way what is it for?
posted by Mitheral at 9:50 PM on January 3, 2007

What the hell! MY STAR. MY GOLD STAR, NOT YOURS.
posted by loquacious at 9:52 PM on January 3, 2007

see here, it's the return of the gold star
posted by caddis at 9:53 PM on January 3, 2007

The royalty and real celebrities amongst us will never blow their cover of course. They're slumming; asking about freakishly fast growing bodyhairs.
posted by jouke at 9:57 PM on January 3, 2007

Ah, I stopped reading that thread three comments too soon.
posted by Mitheral at 10:01 PM on January 3, 2007

Yeah, it's a pretty good star. I mean, it doesn't spin or anything, and other people have stars just like it. But it's still pretty good I guess.
posted by jonson at 10:02 PM on January 3, 2007

dirtynumbangelboy : I think we totally need Dan Savage here. And, hmm, John Cleese would be great.

I've always found Dan Savage to be incredibly irritating and totally readable. I think he would be a fantastic addition to this forum. And if you have some sort of in with J. Cleese, holy hell, get that man a membership. Shit, if he needs it I'll pay the $5.

We have seen celebs come and go here, but MeFi would Win if John fucking Cleese was a member.
posted by quin at 10:46 PM on January 3, 2007

I don't think he could withstand the biting wit and sarcasm.
posted by Dave Faris at 11:33 PM on January 3, 2007

What other celeb's and Interweb personalities have graced the blue?

Joe Clark who, with a user number that low has been here for a good while. Okay, so he might not have been on TV (IFAIK) or up there with Woz, but he is well-known in web development circles, and a nice guy.
posted by TheDonF at 11:47 PM on January 3, 2007

Well, pretty much everybody who was anybody in the early bloggy days has accounts here, whether they've used them in yonks or not -- Kottke and Megnut, the Trotts, Dave Winer, Ev Williams and all the rest of the team that created Blogger (including Matt, of course), Stewart and Caterina and Eric from Ludicorp ((amongst others?) who created Flickr), many, many more folks of Web note who I can't think of right now.

Most of them haven't been seen here (at least by me) in quite a while, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:02 AM on January 4, 2007

... including andy baio of waxy, cory doctorow of boingboing, andre torrez of fight club, etc
posted by jonson at 12:04 AM on January 4, 2007

Indeed woocha.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:07 AM on January 4, 2007

And jonson and me, of course.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:08 AM on January 4, 2007

Jeffery Zeldman, Dean Allen...
posted by timeistight at 12:14 AM on January 4, 2007

err Jeffrey
posted by timeistight at 12:17 AM on January 4, 2007

I heard the guy who runs blort.meepzorp used to come round these parts fairly often.
posted by jonson at 12:22 AM on January 4, 2007

I don't think he could withstand the biting wit and sarcasm.

Now that was dry.

He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious!

The good man probably doesn't have the free time to waste trading paltry jibs with the plebian likes of us, but hot damn if it wouldn't just be the icing on my cake to have my piss so thoroughly taken by one so esteemed at the dark arts of the barbed pen.

Like, seriously. My life would be complete if only to wither under his scorn. Game over, dude.
posted by loquacious at 12:31 AM on January 4, 2007

He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious!

By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers Metafilter, by February 1966 2007, controlled London and the Southeast of England.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 12:39 AM on January 4, 2007

DINSDALE. DINSDALE? DINSDAAALE!
posted by loquacious at 12:45 AM on January 4, 2007

On my wee home network, the desktop is named Dinsdale and the laptop Spiny Norman. I am a geek.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:50 AM on January 4, 2007

"And finally, he asks--could he please have his job back."

Even bloody radio commercials are funny with a healthy dose of Cleese.

Am I the only one who thought the "Golden Frying Pan of Belgrade" was hilarious? Even if it never caused me to buy a single bottle of Schweps Raspberry Ginger Ale?
posted by maxwelton at 2:29 AM on January 4, 2007

*begins preparation for an assualt on stavrosthewonderchicken's home network*

DINS-DALE. DINSDALE! DIIIIINSDAAAALE. DINSDALE.
posted by loquacious at 7:01 AM on January 4, 2007

a healthy dose of Cleese.

Also, that just sounds wrong. A healthy dose of Cleese? What in the smuck is Cleese or a Cleese?

Clap? Cheese? Clap-cheese? A healthy does of clap-cheese, is that what you're saying? It is! Good god, man, get to a doctor!
posted by loquacious at 7:04 AM on January 4, 2007

The S/N ratio is a lot better when famous people stick to pseudonyms. Whenever anyone with anything that could be called a fan base participates in a forum an awful lot of people start trying to get his/her attention. I remember how USEnet groups that a well-known person (such as the person the group was about) participated in consisted in large part of messages written "TO" that person, and if you were over the age of 12 and tried to put yourself in that person's shoes and read very much of it, could see why most of them left. The days when they could participate as themselves pretty much expired around '96 or so.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:34 AM on January 4, 2007

Like when Billy Idol posted on alt.cyberpunk.
posted by Mid at 7:58 AM on January 4, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhah *nerdsnort* hahahaha *snort*
posted by loquacious at 8:03 AM on January 4, 2007

Sorry. Man, I almost forgot about the "cyberpunk" Billy Idol. Thanks. That was some funny shit.
posted by loquacious at 8:06 AM on January 4, 2007

TheDonF writes "Joe Clark who,"

Oh, that Joe Clark. I was only mildly amazed when I thought it was Joe Clark.
posted by Mitheral at 8:26 AM on January 4, 2007

Lore.
posted by ODiV at 8:28 AM on January 4, 2007

Me.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:18 AM on January 4, 2007

The hilarious thing is that Lore has zero posts here, but I steal damn near everything from Table of Malcontents, the blog Lore runs (as a job, he works for Wired).
posted by jonson at 9:18 AM on January 4, 2007

Well - I guess I'm really more of a celebu-taunt.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:19 AM on January 4, 2007

I was posting on MetaFilter before I was famous.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:47 AM on January 4, 2007

The hilarious thing is that Lore has zero posts here, but I steal damn near everything from Table of Malcontents, the blog Lore runs (as a job, he works for Wired).

What would you have him do, self link? Seriously, when you're running stratospheric goodness of that particular loft and velocity, what the hell else are you supposed to link to?

The mind just boggles. And it makes me glad I'm mostly easily amused.
posted by loquacious at 9:58 AM on January 4, 2007

Well - I guess I'm really more of a celebu-taunt.

CELEBU-TAINT!
posted by loquacious at 9:59 AM on January 4, 2007

"CELEBU-TAINT!"

No more cracks from the penii gallery, thank you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:01 AM on January 4, 2007

ARGH PUN BAAAAD

*dies*
posted by loquacious at 10:35 AM on January 4, 2007

CELEBU-TAINT!

Celebu-'tis [/Frank McCourt]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:53 PM on January 4, 2007

I am totally out of the loop in things bloggerly -- until this thread, I don't think I'd actually heard of DamnInteresting.com or Table of Malcontents. I geek-fail, and am a fuckbag.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:08 PM on January 4, 2007

I, for one, am truly sorry Edith Frost doesn't participate any more. She's so great.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:39 PM on January 4, 2007

stav, both of those things (table & damn) are REALLY good, you should definitely peruse the archives of damn interesting especially.
posted by jonson at 5:43 PM on January 4, 2007

I'm hungry.
posted by homunculus at 7:08 PM on January 4, 2007

Want some pancakes? I could shape them like little people.
posted by loquacious at 8:20 PM on January 4, 2007

you should definitely peruse the archives of damn interesting especially.

Y'know, I was all prepared to totally hate Damn Interesting when I first found it, but it really grew on me.

It might be dumbed-down and detail-sparse somestimes but that's kind of the point, and it's done well. I consistently find the writing better, more engaging and much less insulting than, say, Popular Science or Popular Mechanics - both of which are similar fare in my mind.

But Damn Interesting is just much, much better, and really handles the intentional, intelligent "dumbing down" and the sort of literary depth-of-focus lock with panach, much like a geekier Huell Howser (Californians and PBS hardcore know instantly who I speak of, and why.)

Which is to say it asks and answers all the right "dumb" questions, because sometimes it's the simplest of questions that achieve the most profound responses.
posted by loquacious at 8:26 PM on January 4, 2007