evhead headed

March 6, 2009 7:44 AM

evhead headed to the White House today.

As Ev himself puts it -- in a Twitter message, of course -- "[this] must mean they're *really* out of ideas

posted by clavdivs to MetaFilter-Related at 7:44 AM (89 comments total)

...what
posted by odinsdream at 7:45 AM on March 6, 2009

what
posted by schyler523 at 7:46 AM on March 6, 2009

1) MeFi's own evhead
2) Link to said tweet
posted by Plutor at 7:47 AM on March 6, 2009

wat
posted by xbonesgt at 7:48 AM on March 6, 2009

what
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:49 AM on March 6, 2009

Twitter is over capacity.
Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.

Oh, what a shame.
posted by odinsdream at 7:52 AM on March 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

sorry, forgot links.
posted by clavdivs at 7:56 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think we need a new flag: what
posted by grouse at 7:56 AM on March 6, 2009

Wow.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:56 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Is it just me or does the "what" meme hold the record for getting old faster than any other internet meme? Or does starting a post with "is it just me or" still hold that record?
posted by bondcliff at 7:57 AM on March 6, 2009

who
posted by DU at 7:59 AM on March 6, 2009

I think it is this guy and he is going to the White House for an actual meeting related to the economy and is soliciting suggestions for what he should say. When I first saw this I thought you were letting everyone know that some mefite I had never heard of was going on one of those tours of the White House and I was going to chastise you somewhat.
posted by ND¢ at 8:00 AM on March 6, 2009

I didn't know he was a member here of old.
posted by cashman at 8:01 AM on March 6, 2009

In case you are wondering, ev is Evan Williams, who was instrumental in starting Blogger. And Odeo. And Twitter.

I detect a pattern. His next company will be called ESP, and it will allow you to pass messages to people simply by thinking about them.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:02 AM on March 6, 2009

Ok, if I read ND¢'s post correctly, are you saying that the government is soliciting advice on the economy from the guy who runs Twitter?

We are so fucked.
posted by odinsdream at 8:03 AM on March 6, 2009 [20 favorites]

I guess I'm all out of fucks to give.
posted by Skot at 8:04 AM on March 6, 2009 [12 favorites]

I went back and read evhead's first post. It's funny. Like 5 total comments, none rrelating to the content, all discussions of a pony request.

So was twitter ever posted to projects?
posted by cjorgensen at 8:05 AM on March 6, 2009

Is he going to bring back souvenirs?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:06 AM on March 6, 2009

I guess I'm all out of fucks to give.

I gave at the office.

Also, this guy is almost exactly one year older than me and I've never started a SINGLE overhyped internet service. :(((
posted by DU at 8:07 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ok, if I read ND¢'s post correctly, are you saying that the government is soliciting advice on the economy from the guy who runs Twitter?

He'd better give it in 140 characters or less.
posted by gman at 8:10 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Someone please tell Pastabagel to stop ESPing me porn. I tried thinkflagging him but nothing happened; I think the admins might be blocking me.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:24 AM on March 6, 2009 [4 favorites]

I guess I'm all out of fucks to give.

DU : I gave at the office.

HR has a term, 'sexual misconduct' that often applies in situations like this. The secret is, make sure whenever you do this kind of thing, that the HR team is complicit and can't act against you. I don't want to use the term "workplace orgy" because that seems so crass. It's better to go with a more neutral expression like "Annual Christmas Party" and combine it with "Open Bar".

The trick is to avoid eye-contact with everyone for at least a week.
posted by quin at 8:30 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Proposed:

Someone with 32 comments, the last of them in 2002, does not count as "MeFi's own".
posted by Meatbomb at 8:33 AM on March 6, 2009 [18 favorites]

cortex, are you sure it's Pastabagel and not a spammer spoofing his cortical signal? Sounds like a typical joejob to me.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:33 AM on March 6, 2009

This dude's last Metafilter activity was 7 years ago. Does the fact that he tweeted that he is going to the White House really warrant its own MeTa post?
posted by googly at 8:35 AM on March 6, 2009

On postview: seconded.
posted by googly at 8:36 AM on March 6, 2009

Fuck this stupid fucking incoherent post.
posted by marxchivist at 8:43 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

cortex, are you sure it's Pastabagel and not a spammer spoofing his cortical signal? Sounds like a typical joejob to me.

The psychosymbolic details are a little too spot-on for that. Unless...you don't suppose someone has been dreamsniffing me? I'd better make sure my Jungfilter is up to date.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

What's that terrible smell coming from this thread...is it jealousy or just the usual indignation at HIV denial?

I for one am ecstatic that smart, prescient people get to influence policy in this administration. Go get 'em tweeter.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:51 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

or maybe it's cortex's dreamsniffs, where i am a sweaty viking
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:52 AM on March 6, 2009

This dude's last Metafilter activity was 7 years ago. Does the fact that he tweeted that he is going to the White House really warrant its own MeTa post?

It does if you've used twitter and/or Blogger and were here 7 years ago when this site was pretty much all blog-type folks.
posted by eyeballkid at 8:53 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

oh crap how do i turn this off i play with barbies no i dont
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:53 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh what the fuck, this is on msnbc right now.
posted by iamabot at 9:06 AM on March 6, 2009

When.
posted by Mister_A at 9:08 AM on March 6, 2009

goddamn twitter people doing their twitter things

I don't know why it sucks, but by god I'm going to make sure you know it does!
posted by flatluigi at 9:26 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

In case you are wondering, ev is Evan Williams, who was instrumental in starting Blogger. And Odeo. And Twitter. I detect a pattern. His next company will be called ESP, and it will allow you to pass messages to people simply by thinking about them.

...and that will not work well either.
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 9:27 AM on March 6, 2009

Is it just me or does the "what" meme hold the record for getting old faster than any other internet meme?

No, that record is definitely held by "tater".
posted by ook at 9:28 AM on March 6, 2009

Sorry I'm only interested in what Levar Burton is doing right now.
posted by chococat at 9:42 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

thinkflagged
posted by found missing at 9:46 AM on March 6, 2009

Even though I'm a big fan of

The.

I am less a fan of

what

and any use of tater.

HOWEVER. I am willing to sacrifice my beloved

The.

In order to make the following supermeme, which could replace all instances of any of those three.

It is below, and it blinks:

What the tater?

YOU'RE WELCOME, METAFILTER.
posted by SpiffyRob at 9:48 AM on March 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yeah! What eyeballkid said and looking at evhead's Wiki page, I note that we share a birthday! W00t!
posted by Lynsey at 9:56 AM on March 6, 2009

Proposed:

Someone with 32 comments, the last of them in 2002, does not count as "MeFi's own".

Vetoed, and proposer banished to astral plane for 3.14159 milliseconds. Let that be a lesson to you.

Fuck this stupid fucking incoherent post.

Don't be any more of a fucking jerk than you have to. Thanks.

I remember evhead, and I appreciate the update.
posted by languagehat at 9:58 AM on March 6, 2009

I've been trying to imagine an economic recovery scheme somehow relevant to Internet models, like Blogger, Odeo, and Twitter. What I've come up with is Massively Distributed Micro Capitalism^TM:

Rather than taxing small percentages of large sums of money, subsidizing, privatizing or dismantling large corporations who fail on their merits, and running the entire world economy like a fantasy football league while the majority of actual wealth festers in stinking, rotting bogs of greed-sweat and baby's tears, we should tax 100% of highly distributed small sums of money, such as pocket change, and charge micro fee sin taxes for emoticons, reality TV, and pictures of cats on a per transaction basis, using the proceeds to buy controlling shares in major corporations. Then, rather than socializing the corporations, each government share would be individually redistributed to ordinary citizens in a random lottery. New regulations would make it a crime for anyone to own more than 1% in any given public corporation, or to hold onto a given stock for more than one fiscal quarter. Finally, Wall Street would be dismantled and replaced with a new What Did You Have for Lunch Today Theme Park, while all future financial trading would take place over eBay and craigslist.

Call me, President Obama. We have much to discuss. I'm having Hot Pockets^® for lunch today.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Don't be any more of a fucking jerk than you have to. Thanks.

I'm keeping that in mind! :)
posted by marxchivist at 10:07 AM on March 6, 2009

I thought by not having any Hope I could avoid having it crushed. But Obama is indeed skilled.

My guess for the Web 2.0 recovery model is "Hype America so you can sell the whole country to China and let them worry about the hard parts."
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:24 AM on March 6, 2009

是的，我们可以
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:33 AM on March 6, 2009

Obama doesn't even use twitter anymore.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:39 AM on March 6, 2009

Had I known Obama would even consider the input of someone whose entire career has been "create Internet startup without a revenue model, scam larger company into buying it" on economic topics, I would have just shredded my ballot. I mean, I know Mr. Williams is a shining example of the American Way and all, and I guess maybe I got suckered in by thinking that Mr. Obama was a smart guy, but what the goddamn christ.
posted by cmonkey at 10:39 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Maybe he wants to talk to Evan about using the internet to communicate administration ideas and proposals to the public–but you would need an imagination to think of something like that. No, better to assume that he wants Evan to cover the exact same ground as Paul Volcker. Really, it makes no sense to invite a wide variety of people with wildly divergent views and experiences to the table. They should limit the economic discussion to present and past chairmen of the Federal Reserve Bank, since that select population has done such a wonderful job of managing the credit market.
posted by Mister_A at 10:50 AM on March 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

Tell Obama to hire me as his off-color slacker friend who will crash on his couch and run the new cabinet-level Department of Keepin' It Real. Also, could he be a bro and lend me some cash for a beer run? I've been kinda skint since I got fired.
posted by klangklangston at 11:08 AM on March 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

wut
posted by AwkwardPause at 11:24 AM on March 6, 2009

沒有，您不能
posted by clavdivs at 11:27 AM on March 6, 2009

I'VE ONLY MADE TWO COMMENTS TODAY AND THEY BOTH HAVE THE WORD "FUCK" IN THEM (now three). I AM BEING A BIT OF A DICK AND I APOLOGIZE.

I still don't care about this guy and his twittering, but that doesn't mean I should be a dick.

Does anyone remember that little extension thingy for Firefox that keeps track of how long you've quit smoking and how much money you've saved? Where can I get one of those?
posted by marxchivist at 11:35 AM on March 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

无论什么.

你想热口袋?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:42 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

No, better to assume that he wants Evan to cover the exact same ground as Paul Volcker. Really, it makes no sense to invite a wide variety of people with wildly divergent views and experiences to the table

I guess I just don't see any difference between soliciting the opinion of a banker who made a shitload of money coming up with creative ways to exploit a massive scam and soliciting the opinion of a guy who came up with a creative way to exploit a much smaller scam. The end result is that neither of them have any fucking clue and inviting them to the White House just means I have to pay for their limo.
posted by cmonkey at 11:45 AM on March 6, 2009

inviting them to the White House just means I have to pay for their limo

Since he's going to talk about Deflation, I imagine Ev will probably take a .cab to Washington, then self-extract.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:53 AM on March 6, 2009 [10 favorites]

Don't be any more of a fucking jerk than you have to.

That leaves most of us A LOT of leeway.
posted by JeffK at 11:58 AM on March 6, 2009

商標違反
posted by clavdivs at 12:00 PM on March 6, 2009

I reckon by 2015, half the site's comments will be in Chinese.
posted by gman at 12:12 PM on March 6, 2009

It'll be a lot cheaper then, eh, gman? No more of these expensive Canadian comments.
posted by Mister_A at 12:16 PM on March 6, 2009

不要舔此评论

可能含有铅
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:18 PM on March 6, 2009

Hah! That's an important warning, IRFH.
posted by Mister_A at 12:23 PM on March 6, 2009

The difference between Evan W and a banker is that Evan produced something free that nobody can figure out what it even does or if it's worth anything while the banker produces nothing at all.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:24 PM on March 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

and あいつ～、また来たわ！
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:31 PM on March 6, 2009

It'll be a lot cheaper then, eh, gman?

Depends if our new rulers allow the currency to float freely.
posted by gman at 12:33 PM on March 6, 2009

Ahem... did no one read Evan Williams' wikipedia entry?

PC Magazine named Evan Williams, Paul Bausch and Hourihan, the Blogger team as People of the Year in 2004.

I for one had no idea pb was PC Magazine's person of the year in 2004 and I thought I was pretty up on MeFi lore. And he's a supernice guy to boot. If I had been named person of the year by PC Magazine (or, hell, any half-way respectable organization (sorry, Time!)) I'd wear that damn thing on a chain around my neck and smack people in the face with it and shout: "Buy me a goddamn drink, bozo, I'm PC Magazine's person of the year!" At least while I was in office (it's kinda like being President, right?)
posted by Kattullus at 12:47 PM on March 6, 2009

I already pay a Chinese favorite miner to grind out my comments.
posted by klangklangston at 12:48 PM on March 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

klangs profile page is like a pistol dis-arming game.
:) {what is that a Marley .32}
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 PM on March 6, 2009

Klang K. Langston, that is not a gun safety best practice. You should hold your hand sideways, like in the movies.
posted by Mister_A at 1:03 PM on March 6, 2009

呜呼哀哉！MeFi 无自律！
posted by Abiezer at 1:09 PM on March 6, 2009

eyeballkid: It does if you've used twitter and/or Blogger and were here 7 years ago when this site was pretty much all blog-type folks.

I've been here over 7 years and don't give a shit about somebody's Twitter post. MeFi is getting close to 100k accounts- merely having one doesn't make your every move worthy of a MeTa post.

Vetoed, and proposer banished to astral plane for 3.14159 milliseconds. Let that be a lesson to you.

YOU'RE vetoed.
posted by mkultra at 1:21 PM on March 6, 2009

It does if you've used twitter and/or Blogger and were here 7 years ago when this site was pretty much all blog-type folks.
posted by eyeballkid

He made 32 comments. He was almost non-existent when he site was all 'blog-type' folks.

I remember evhead, and I appreciate the update.
posted by languagehat

Oh wait a minute. Languagehat remembers him? Mefi's own indeed!
posted by gtr at 1:27 PM on March 6, 2009

Well, the guy was working with pb and Matt when the site was launched, so there's that too.
posted by Kattullus at 1:58 PM on March 6, 2009

I nominate Kattullus for metatalk person of the year. I suggest we backdate these though, so I'm putting Kattullus up for 2004.
posted by cjorgensen at 2:04 PM on March 6, 2009

Well, if we backdate far enough everyone could be MetaTalk person of the year. Personally I'd go for 65501053 B.C., the year the dinosaurs died.
posted by Kattullus at 2:25 PM on March 6, 2009

He made 32 comments. He was almost non-existent when he site was all 'blog-type' folks.

True. If you ignore that mathowie worked with him at Pyra Labs and that he was running the service that nearly every one of those 'blog-type' folks used.

MeFi is getting close to 100k accounts-merely having one doesn't make your every move worthy of a MeTa post.

As a member here, I'm sure if you get work on TV show or write a dull 'humor' book or invent a well known computer/OS or, I don't know, maybe develop two of the web's most popular (and arguably most important) services or something like that there'll be a post about you too, whoever you are. That's what happens on MetaTalk occasionally. Surprised it took you so long to notice.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:39 PM on March 6, 2009 [5 favorites]

As a member here, I'm sure if you get work on TV show or write a dull 'humor' book or invent a well known computer/OS or, I don't know, maybe develop two of the web's most popular (and arguably most important) services or something like that there'll be a post about you too, whoever you are.

No, that's where you're wrong. MeTa is not about notable (questionably) things random (and yes, I believe that label applies in this case) members have done, no matter how "significant". If what you did is an online property that stands on its own, then the Blue is the place for it. If something interesting comes of this meeting, someone will surely write about it, making it a fine post for the Blue.
posted by mkultra at 3:29 PM on March 6, 2009

True. If you ignore that mathowie worked with him at Pyra Labs and that he was running the service that nearly every one of those 'blog-type' folks used.

Also, this site is not about "friends of Matt". It's about MetaFilter.
posted by mkultra at 3:31 PM on March 6, 2009

Is this something I would have to not hate Twitter to understand?
posted by killdevil at 4:34 PM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Alright, this is better suited for this thread, I guess.

Why do you hate twitter?

I've only heard two reasons so far:

One: that the vocabulary is twee as fuck, which I agree with.
Two: that people use it to fuel their narcissism. I don't agree with this, and I think it's comparable to condemning all blogs for the personal blogs of some.

Any other arguments?
posted by flatluigi at 5:01 PM on March 6, 2009

Why Twitter when you can tater?
posted by anniecat at 6:21 PM on March 6, 2009

I've only heard two reasons so far:

the limit of 140 characters means that you can never say anything of any depth or real interest, so the entire site lives on a level of extreme superficiality... while one liners and quips and brief comments can be great when they suit the time or place, usually they come amidst other possibilities - on metafilter there are longer comments, on blogs there are longer entries, on facebook there are posts or 'notes' as well as 'status updates'... but twitter allows only one level of interchange and it guarantees that you constantly skim the surface, which quickly becomes really quite hard to care about.
posted by mdn at 6:25 PM on March 6, 2009

Misuse of electronic communications, especially including Twitter, is a growing problem. Being technically trained, I will frame it as a matter of bandwidth. The Internet offers a great deal of bandwidth, but this is not utilized by most forms of online conversation. I thought I might coin the phrase "interpersonal bandwidth" but according to Google it's already been used 169 times. Interpersonal bandwidth is highest in real life, where you can convey information with words, tone, volume, body language, facial expressions, touch, and so on. It's much, much, lower in most Internet communication, especially asynchronous text communication (Twitter, e-mail, and Metafilter, for example). Twitter goes so far as to explicitly and harshly limit the amount of information conveyed.

So, when one communicates with friends, etc. through Twitter, you're actually getting much less communication done than if you had talked to them on a phone which is still much less communication than talking to someone IRL. This degrades the social environment in general. In my own observations, I've known people who have to varying degrees interacted socially more on the Internet or more IRL, and the people who keep towards IRL don't seem to have as many problems which are due to poor communication.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 7:14 PM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

FOLLOW-UP:

After his White House meeting, ev twittered the following:

"Lessons from today: Obama's team: smart and committed. Learned a lot and was inspired. Also: people should take my tweets less seriously."

So Obama&Co. didn't call him in to GET advice, but rather to GIVE advice. (Good sign.) Probably something along the lines of: "We want to warn you we don't want to see another DotComBust making things even more complicated, so SHAPE UP!"

I regular make snarky twitter comments aimed at him, like...
Why do I think @ev is just going to suggest selling out to Google?
about 23 hours ago
...just because I can.

To me, Twitter is a playground, nothing serious (and I've felt the need to be NOT serious a lot lately), and those who declare it's the Future of the Internet are either fools or selling snake oil (or both). Still, it's a good writer's exercise for me to fit a joke into less than 140 characters.
posted by wendell at 8:20 PM on March 6, 2009

Yeah, flatluigi, mdn's got your third reason right there. It's the biggie for a lot of us.
posted by mediareport at 8:33 PM on March 6, 2009

Oh fuck this got me to actually look at Twitter for once and now my complete lack of Hope is even more crushed.

Lost with Mark Ecko in thw WH

WHAT THE FUCK. WE'RE DOING QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS USING THE ECKO FUNCTION NOW OR SOME SHIT? Were Paris Hilton and Simon Cowell there too? Was Eric Bauman asked for his input?
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:34 PM on March 6, 2009

mathowie worked with him at Pyra Labs

My understanding is that Matt built MetaFilter whilst fucking the dog at Pyra, which kind of makes Williams MeFi's grampa or something.
posted by timeistight at 1:45 AM on March 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

TheOnlyCoolTim, I've heard these same arguments lobbed at about any technology since radio.

USENET, web pages, blogs, chat groups, txt messaging, etc. etc., on and on.

There are people who get it, and there are people that don't. There are people that use it correctly, and those who don't.

For the record, I don't get txt messaging. It's a generational thing.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:19 AM on March 8, 2009

any technology since radio
Twitter radio
posted by Abiezer at 11:28 AM on March 8, 2009