The Librarian has a new location

January 24, 2010 10:08 AM

Jessamyn has become a featured guest blogger over at Boing Boing. Cory Doctorow writes the introduction.
posted by Funmonkey1 to MetaFilter-Related at 10:08 AM (183 comments total)

Too bad. A step down in her career path. :)
posted by netbros at 10:09 AM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Does this mean I have to read Boing Boing?
posted by parmanparman at 10:10 AM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's a little funny that I read about this here first. Yeah Cory asked me, we sort of know eachother through our various activist circles and are mutual self-promoters of some sort. I've ben messing with their back end today and second-guessing everything that I think might be a good post there which is karmic payback of some sort.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:10 AM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

This is like one of those athlete international-goodwill exchange things that turn out to be cover for spying operations, right?
posted by The Whelk at 10:11 AM on January 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

You're... you're... going out with another blog? And this is how I find out?
posted by Meta Filter at 10:11 AM on January 24, 2010 [95 favorites]

thr's n tllng wht wll hppn nw sh's dn ths
posted by pyramid termite at 10:12 AM on January 24, 2010 [12 favorites]

Library-hacker?
posted by Artw at 10:12 AM on January 24, 2010

it's a trap!
posted by pwally at 10:13 AM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Too bad. A step down in her career path.

I'm not sure, but I always thought they gave guest bloggers a free pair of custom made steam punk goggles and a puppy.
posted by JimmyJames at 10:14 AM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Bi-siteual.
posted by The Whelk at 10:15 AM on January 24, 2010

WELCOME NEW MOD TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN!

(Sorry. We kid because we love, honest!)
posted by Artw at 10:15 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

If I don't come back, it's because I was never yours to begin with.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:17 AM on January 24, 2010 [27 favorites]

Do they have their own ColdChef over there? Because frankly I'm sick of MetaFilter and I'm looking for a way out.
posted by ColdChef at 10:18 AM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Well done Jessamyn!
posted by Jofus at 10:18 AM on January 24, 2010

There's a "don't leave us Mary Poppins!" joke in here somewhere but I'm not finding it.
posted by The Whelk at 10:19 AM on January 24, 2010

Yy Jssmyn! Cngrtltns! Brng bck ncrn chsrs nd zpplns fr th rst f s.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:20 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maybe we should all start chipoing in now for the present we are going to get jessamyn as an apology for the terible things we've said and are about to say.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Hooray for Jessamyn, boo for the inevitable spew of Doctorow-hate that occurs every time his name is mentioned on this site. You're wrong, but more unforgivably, you're fucking boring.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:20 AM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

Does, um. Does "library-hacker" mean something other than "librarian"?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:22 AM on January 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

Huh, it's been a while since I've visited BoingBoing, and in the interim it seems they've become a full-on video blog. Who knew?
posted by Afroblanco at 10:23 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know who else hates librarians? Burce Sterling.
posted by Artw at 10:24 AM on January 24, 2010

Artw: "Maybe we should all start chipoing in now for the present we are going to get jessamyn as an apology for the terible things we've said and are about to say"

Teach us how to chipo and we'll get started.
posted by Science! at 10:24 AM on January 24, 2010

Okay, I'm going to regret this - but what is Chipo?
posted by The Whelk at 10:25 AM on January 24, 2010

congrats jessamyn! I'll put BoingBoing back on my Firefox defaut tab-opens.
posted by seawallrunner at 10:27 AM on January 24, 2010

Maybe we should all start chipoing in now for the present we are going to get jessamyn as an apology for the terrible things we've said and are about to say.

Ths thngs wll b unrdbl nywy

In all seriousness, though, it's a venue. It's honestly not my favorite site in the world, but if jessamyn's got a nice big platform to express herself on, I think that's great, and not a thing that anyone should give her hell over. I'm willing to bet most of us would very happily take a featured spot there, and that we'd, um, also make sure our work was backed up someplace.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:28 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Steampunk! Papercraft! Ephemera! Electronic Thingamabobs!

srry.
posted by _dario at 10:29 AM on January 24, 2010

That site looks horrible in Safari under Snow Leopard. The tags are under the headline and I can't find any actual article. I can only read the welcome to the guest blogger, which implies to me that there is a guest blog post that I am missing.

> WELCOME NEW MOD TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN!

Not after the way you people treated Will Shetterly!
posted by cjorgensen at 10:30 AM on January 24, 2010

You're wrong, but more unforgivably, you're fucking boring.

Funny. Before I came to MetaFilter I was active on a lot of sites that loved and worshipped Doctorow. So coming here the constant negative vibe was refreshing.

I never read BoingBoing. So my only experience with Doctorow was his fiction writing, and his pontificating about the future of everything. His fiction is unforgivably bland: I can't get to his ideas because he so obviously has never learned to write prose. His pontification is sometimes interesting, though usually wrong, but he gets so snide about things that he has no right to get snide about. I'm still irked at the one time he made a flippant remark about opera being a pointless form of music.

Congrats to jessamyn, though!
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:33 AM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

That site looks horrible in Safari under Snow Leopard

It does that in IE and Firefox too. Could it be deliberate?
posted by Artw at 10:33 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

It does that in IE and Firefox too. Could it be deliberate?

The headline is positioned absolutely, rather than relatively. What that means is that when Cory's an ass and posts a dozen tags for a post, they overflow and get under the headline, rather than pushing the headline back. Casual examination reveals other posts with even more tags, where the tags flow past the head and into the body.
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:36 AM on January 24, 2010

I do like the use of the MEFIGUESTBLOGGER tag.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:37 AM on January 24, 2010

Congrats and good luck
posted by kathrineg at 10:46 AM on January 24, 2010

Don't worry, I'm writing an old book about orange moss. That'll get her back.
posted by yhbc at 10:47 AM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

Snowshoeing! Snowshoeing for orange moss!
posted by yhbc at 10:48 AM on January 24, 2010

Oh, cool!
posted by OmieWise at 10:49 AM on January 24, 2010

Whenever I read 'guest blogger,' it makes me think of ads for sitcoms: "Next: Special Guest Blogger Jessamyn West on a very special Boing Boing.."
posted by jonmc at 10:50 AM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

How is this the first time I've found out that Jessamyn likes the color orange? I ALSO like the color orange! Quelle coincidence!

Happy new gig, jess!
posted by taz at 10:54 AM on January 24, 2010

a fellow moss friend, i never knew! jessamyn, do you hang w/ george schenk up there?
posted by neustile at 10:55 AM on January 24, 2010

.
posted by lukemeister at 10:57 AM on January 24, 2010

Yay!

(Not a boingboing reader, but any chance for jessamynity to spread to other parts of the internet is all good by me.)
posted by rtha at 10:57 AM on January 24, 2010

I do not know George Schenk. I did a first post that was something I'd loved from MeFi because I knew it was easy to embed a YouTube video and also to get the templating and HTML stuff worked out. I'm queueing a bunch of stuff today. It's weird getting used to someone else's system and CMS and stylesheet. And yeah, it looks broken on my computer a little too. Two lines of tags [and the CMS puts categories and tags together] makes things all smooshy.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:58 AM on January 24, 2010

Good. I haven't checked out BB in a long time and now I have a legitimate reason to do so. And also, my steampunk is DRMd.
posted by Elmore at 10:59 AM on January 24, 2010

Hit it like a swat team, JW!
posted by vrakatar at 11:03 AM on January 24, 2010

that's awesome. the more Jessamyn, the better.
posted by pinky at 11:13 AM on January 24, 2010

I am back on the Boing Boing wagon.
posted by caddis at 11:17 AM on January 24, 2010

The thing I've always found fascinating is that on MeFi, the BoingBoing debate is always "We hate Cory!" vs "We think Cory is fine!" whereas net-savvy people I meet in real life often have highly polarized views of Xeni Jardin and don't seem to care nearly as much about whether or not someone else likes Doctorow.
posted by Tomorrowful at 11:19 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I haven't been back there since they threatened to disembowel me...

wait...... what???..... Oh....

never mind...
posted by HuronBob at 11:20 AM on January 24, 2010

Tomorrowful: I'm curious. What's the debate about Jardin? What do people love and hate about her?
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:20 AM on January 24, 2010

The debate I've seen over Jardin is that some people think she's the bees' knees, while others think she's a self-promoting nothing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:22 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I unpublished myself! Yow, this is fun.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:23 AM on January 24, 2010 [11 favorites]

Gosh, maybe I really am net-savvy in real life.
posted by handee at 11:25 AM on January 24, 2010

My vote is for self-promoting nothing, because all I've seen her do is show up and blog about how she was "there". Whee! I guess some folks can carve a career out of doing exactly that, these days.
posted by Lynsey at 11:27 AM on January 24, 2010

It would be neat if you made all your posts about cnsrshp and hypcrsy.
posted by defenestration at 11:31 AM on January 24, 2010

Also, I just clicked through, and the site is all mushed and broken for me, too. Perhaps it's just the... aesthetic of the future!
posted by defenestration at 11:34 AM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

This seems to come dangerously close to crossing the streams.

Jess, I hope this is a fun and fruitful gig for you. I probably won't read it, because I couldn't give a wet fart about Boing Boing and so I'll forget all about this after my third cocktail, but I'm confident that you'll bring your usual class, smarts, and compassion to the project.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:49 AM on January 24, 2010

"JUDAS!"
"I don't believe you... you're a sock puppet! ... (GUESTBLOG FUCKIN' LOUD!)"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:18 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

jessamyn: “I've been messing with their back end today and second-guessing everything...”

Wow – that's what I did today, too.
posted by koeselitz at 12:23 PM on January 24, 2010

My first FAIL. I am not cut out for this.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:24 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Horace Rumpole: “... boo for the inevitable spew of Doctorow-hate that occurs every time his name is mentioned on this site. You're wrong, but more unforgivably, you're fucking boring.”

Huh? Who did this here? Or are you just grinding that axe because it was left over from last time?
posted by koeselitz at 12:25 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

In every life some fail must fall.
posted by The Whelk at 12:26 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think it's neat.
posted by Max Power at 12:30 PM on January 24, 2010

What this thread needs is more subway map mashups.

                                                 s
                                                n
                                             e a
                                       Y    t e
                                      F    a B
                                     T    l f 
                         * Boyzone  F    P o
                         |          *====*
                         |         /
                         |        / 
      *======*======*============*=======*
      H      D      w    |       S       T
       a      T      a   |        n       h
        m      M      t  * Taters  o       e
         b      F         \         w       r
          u      A         \         f       a
           r                \         l       p
            g                * This    a       y
             e                          k
              r                          e

posted by Rhomboid at 1:02 PM on January 24, 2010 [31 favorites]

,_
>' )
( ( \
mrf''|\
posted by The Whelk at 1:07 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Is this the right time to admit that in my brain "Jessamyn" always somehow becomes "Jessadmin"?
posted by MuffinMan at 1:13 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Jessamyn" always somehow becomes "Jessadmin"?

That's her BoingBoing name, Jessadmin Ouest.
posted by fixedgear at 1:24 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

Jessadmin Ouest.

Sinister French Doppelganger.
posted by The Whelk at 1:27 PM on January 24, 2010

[opens cockpit door]

Just want you to know; we're all counting on you.
posted by digitalprimate at 1:37 PM on January 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

jessamyn: "My first FAIL. I am not cut out for this."

Now I'm mad people aren't getting disemvoweled.
posted by graventy at 2:06 PM on January 24, 2010

boo for the inevitable spew of Doctorow-hate that occurs every time his name is mentioned on this site. You're wrong, but more unforgivably, you're fucking boring.

It's in the very, very, VERY fine print under every comment I've written on Metafilter - so fine it won't even appear if you View Source - but by reading my comments (including this one) you have given express consent to allow me to hate anyone and everyone free of criticism.

Ironic, given that terms like these appearing in software installation EULAs are the sort of thing Cory Doctorow hates, no?

Now, having established that you can't criticize me for saying this: Cory's not wrong about a number of things, but he puts a terrible public face on them that smacks of 'fringe' and detracts from those who want to actually fix the problems he writes about. The ELF, ALF, and PETA aren't helping the environmental cause, Glenn Beck isn't helping when he promotes responsible fiscal policy, and in a very similar vein Cory Doctorow really isn't helping the debates on copyright or privacy.

You may disagree with me, but you should have thought of that before you read this comment.
Or these very tiny words. Oh how small these words are.
I'll leave you to your quiet fuming.
posted by Ryvar at 2:17 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

So does anyone else see Boing Boing as a revival of futurism? They seem to have the same preoccupation with youth, speed, power, industrialization (what with the steampunk) and fascism (what with Teresa Nielsen Hayden).
posted by "Elbows" O'Donoghue at 2:32 PM on January 24, 2010 [9 favorites]

"Jessamyn" always somehow becomes "Jessadmin"?

And librarian, libertarian.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 2:33 PM on January 24, 2010

What's next? Matt does a post at LGF? (...about “Placement of Web Page Elements,” of course)

I'm sure cortex could get onto the HuffPo if he uses his alias "Jesus H. Shatner" (should be enough celeb juice for even Arianna)

Maybe then we can get FARK to do a photoshop contest of "a HAMBURGER, taters and a plate of beans (don't overthink)".

Nothing for the Gawker network, please; their Lifehacker blog already steals from AskMe regularly.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:34 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Library-hacker?

There are all kinds of ways of hacking a library.

For example, Dewey Decimal spoofing: you might be browsing 636.7 (Technology - Agriculture and related technologies - Animal husbandry - Dogs). All you need to do is manually edit the decimal point - eg if you replace the 7 with an 8, you end up at 636.8 (Animal husbandry - Cats). It's remarkably simple, once you understand the basics.

Another, more crude form of library hacking is a Denial of Service attack, which is when you and your hacking buddies borrow a bunch of books each, and them cram them into the book return slot at the exact same time, so that it gets all jammed up & nobody else can return any books.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:40 PM on January 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

My post is a double! I blame terrible search engines! Oh man this is hard :)
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:52 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Man, I wouldn't even know where to start with guest blogging. It's not like I even post to Metafilter.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:57 PM on January 24, 2010

jessamyn, you should just make a week's worth of posts to Metafilter. Today MeFi; tomorrow, Ask; Tuesday, Music, etc. It'll wow them. It better fucking wow them!!
posted by OmieWise at 3:01 PM on January 24, 2010

jessamyn please blog about how my cats love turkey jerky

they are simply crazy for it, completely willing to scratch me to get a little, it is nuts

i promise it is not a double
posted by Greg Nog at 3:02 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I came across a website where a guy and his girlfriend are appending an ironic commentary to every single X-Files episode. It's too bad he HASN'T UPDATED IN MONTHS.
posted by Ritchie at 3:10 PM on January 24, 2010 [7 favorites]

Ha! The original boingboing post was posted after it was "spotted via metafilter". Circle of life, etc.
posted by CKmtl at 3:11 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn's an antelope?
posted by gman at 3:19 PM on January 24, 2010

I recommend posting about Sara Carlson/Stefania Rotolo. Just look at those moves! More about here her. If this doesn't floor the gang at BoingBoing, I don't know what will.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:19 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'll leave you to your quiet fuming.

Can I at least sputter impotently?

Look, obviously you and anyone else on this site are entitled to like or not like Cory Doctorow, Theresa Nielsen Hayden, or anybody else associated with Boing Boing. (And your opinion is at least actually grounded in intelligent reasons, even if I don't agree with them.) What bugs me is how in every thread on the blue with so much as a (via Boing Boing) link, some people seem to feel the need to proclaim their intense personal hatred for these folks, regardless of the relevance to the topic at hand. And the guy upthread who called Theresa Nielsen Hayden a fascist? You are not impressing me with your insight.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:20 PM on January 24, 2010

I have this natural image of a library hacker being a librarian wielding a pretty large dual handed axe, hacking away at bookshelves, returned books, you name it.

"Could I, uh, get this book checked out for a longer period of time?"
*jessamyn swirls, landing the axe squarely in the book binding*
"Now you can have it... for TWICE AS LONG for the SAME TIME! HA HA!"
*twirls axe*
posted by cavalier at 3:32 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

Does this mean Jessamyn is, uh, off duty for the week? That we're down to Matt and Cortex while Jess is at BoingBoing?

^{Whoo! House party while the mod is away! Double posts and self-links for all!}
posted by Ghidorah at 3:38 PM on January 24, 2010

Yay, congrats Jessamyn!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:39 PM on January 24, 2010

Oh dear. Someone jot the metafilter url on her shirt tag in case she gets lost.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:42 PM on January 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

...we better make it a really good present...
posted by Artw at 3:54 PM on January 24, 2010

More exposure for Jessamyn = more exposure for good ideas about books and libraries.

Yes, good.
posted by fake at 3:57 PM on January 24, 2010

Hehe. No wonder you're so quick to delete Cory Criticism.
posted by bardic at 4:25 PM on January 24, 2010

and in a very similar vein Cory Doctorow really isn't helping the debates on copyright or privacy.

In fairness, he's probably done less damage than Lessig managing to lose critical court cases all over the show, and he can't have made us free software types look any worse than Eric Raymond did.
posted by rodgerd at 4:29 PM on January 24, 2010

I've ben messing with their back end today

So in theory you could deunpublish all the violet blue stuff? I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU.
posted by waraw at 4:48 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Library-hacker". Christ almighty.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:58 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn,

I love that your first "fail" was one of my favorite things. I love birds. Fail? I don't think so.

Does BB share commeters with YouTube? It seems so.

Rock on Jessamyn,

Rock on!
posted by Splunge at 5:04 PM on January 24, 2010

And the guy upthread who called Theresa Nielsen Hayden a fascist? You are not impressing me with your insight.

Yeah this is crazy talk. She's a good person, she's just not nearly as good a moderator as she thinks she is.
posted by Justinian at 5:15 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm saving the Violet Blue thread before it gets purged.
posted by shii at 5:33 PM on January 24, 2010

Every time I think Jessamyn can't get any cooler, she gets cooler.
posted by xingcat at 5:41 PM on January 24, 2010

Hooray for Jessamyn, boo for the inevitable spew of Doctorow-hate that occurs every time his name is mentioned on this site.

Can't we at least have some Doctorow-amusement? I mean, he called Jessamyn a "library hacker". He's become the best parody of himself ever written.

Anyway, congratulations, Jessamyn, this will be the one week I read Boing Boing.

P.S. My friends and I were library hackers in high school. Every day for a month we put a different random object into the book return slot (a banana, a paper airplane, a book we bought ourselves, greeting cards, etc.) culminating in a 4-foot diameter beach ball that we inserted and then inflated via a tube.
posted by mmoncur at 6:04 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't dislike Boing Boing but I gave up on reading it a while back because I was skipping most of the posts anyways... just didn't care about the content anymore. I do like a couple of Cory's books though.
posted by IndigoRain at 6:11 PM on January 24, 2010

This leaves me feeling conflicted.
posted by tommasz at 6:14 PM on January 24, 2010

Given Teresa Nielsen Hayden's behaviour during Racefail '09, I stand by my dis.
posted by "Elbows" O'Donoghue at 6:25 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

To be honest, I wouldn't write for Boing if they paid me. Not especially because "omg they r terrible," I just really find the principles and the fans to be…drips, honestly. Also for comments and moderation of same Boing is right up there with YouTube.

I imagine Jess wouldn't have accepted it if she didn't want it, and getting something you want is always nice (unless it is one of those 'be careful what you wish for' evil djinn kind of things,) so I imagine this is nice for her. So, congrats, hope you enjoy it.
posted by paisley henosis at 6:35 PM on January 24, 2010

Given Teresa Nielsen Hayden's behaviour during Racefail '09, I stand by my dis.

I certainly hope everyone has bought their tickets for Racefail '10! Fayetteville! August! BE THERE!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:47 PM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

I've been a commenter over there a lot longer than I have been here. I am vast, I contain multitudes.

I shouldn't have swallowed the multitudes in the first place, but this diet is so hard to stick to.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:52 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've ben messing with their back end today

I can't think of a way that this isn't hot.
posted by plinth at 7:13 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Woo! happy blogging mojo to you, jessamyn!
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:16 PM on January 24, 2010

"Elbows" O'Donoghue: So does anyone else see Boing Boing as a revival of futurism? They seem to have the same preoccupation with youth, speed, power, industrialization (what with the steampunk) and fascism (what with Teresa Nielsen Hayden).

Man, you totally just blew my mind. I don't completely agree with you (but let's not get into a fight about the Futurist ethos or Teresa Nielsen Hayden's political beliefs, that's a derail too far) but that's a brilliant observation. I've never really thought about steampunk in terms of pre-WW1 avant garde but there are actually quite a few similarities. I'm gonna have to think about this.
posted by Kattullus at 7:56 PM on January 24, 2010

No, steampunk is more like the Arts & Crafts reaction against industrialisation - that is, a reactionary movement against widespread technological progress, harking back to a mythological golden age, when men of learning would build their own finely-crafted gizmos out of wood & brass. Like iMac keyboards, for example.

But in terms of avant-gardism, I'd suggest that people who embrace steampunk do so because it enables them to give themselves a great big pat on the back, earnestly believing that if they were placed in Victorian society, they'd be the ones demonstrating coolo scientific doodads before the Royal Society, if not using their knowledge-from-the-future to fly around in leather zeppelins with tube amplifiers playing the best of Belle & Sebastian.

This is pretty much the same kind of stratospheric wankery that would have every second dilettante from the 21st century truly believing that if they'd been in Paris circa WW1, they would definitely have been hobnobbing with Picasso and his ilk, buying up all their artwork, and possibly even producing better & more groundbreaking masterpieces, ahead of all the now-canonical modernist masters.

In effect, it's a narcissistic psychological compensation mechanism of the mediocre & marginalised, in an era when breaking new ground as a romantic genius individual is near impossible to achieve without actually being a product of a cosmodemonic media conglomerate.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:25 PM on January 24, 2010 [13 favorites]

Neat! Congrats, jessamyn.
posted by brundlefly at 8:48 PM on January 24, 2010

Wow, you guys are gonna LOVE or HATE my next book, seriously.
posted by The Whelk at 8:48 PM on January 24, 2010

BoingBoing's a pretty consistently staggering example of hypocrisy(information should be free! archives should be persistent! people's ability to speak freely should be consistently defended in venues public and private! except ... uh, when sticking to such virtues as it applies to our own lives and conduct would be inconvenient!).

Jessamyn's been, just by my own assessment of her character, a pretty non-hypocritical person -- and certainly one who consistently throughout her career has truly and consistently been in defense of the virtues that BoingBoing pretends to espouse but pretty handily betrays at its slightest whim.

I don't mean this to sound as if I'm attacking Jessamyn, because I'm very much not. My belief in the solidness of her character and principles is fairly unsullied.

I just don't get it – it doesn't parse for me. It's kind of like hearing that George W. Bush agreed to guestblog for Daily Kos.
posted by MikeHarris at 8:51 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Artw: WELCOME NEW MOD TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN! (Sorry. We kid because we love, honest!

Seriously – don't. even. joke. about. that.

(Dmn t, nw 'm gng t hv nghtmrs tnght.)
posted by MikeHarris at 8:58 PM on January 24, 2010

UbuRoivas: No, steampunk is more like the Arts & Crafts reaction against industrialisation - that is, a reactionary movement against widespread technological progress, harking back to a mythological golden age, when men of learning would build their own finely-crafted gizmos out of wood & brass. Like iMac keyboards, for example.

That's how I thought of this before tonight too. But I'm not so sure anymore. Yes, it's a similar impulse. You can make the same argument about the 1950s trad jazz and 1970s punk movements. Both were reactions against more "progressive" forms of popular music, bebop and prog-rock (yes, I know I'm simplifying) and wished to revive a simpler, more populist strain in popular music. But trad jazz and punk sound very little alike* and besides the desire to connect back to "the roots" very little unifies them.

I'd argue that steampunk does bring in a lot of pre-WW1 aesthetics, especially the fetishization of the machine, which is very antithetical to the Arts & Crafts ethos.

That said, it's something I have to think about... these ideas are sloshing around in my head but they haven't really gelled.

um... does anyone have a spare rerailer, I seem to have lost mine...


* Though they did meet in 2000 when Humphrey Lyttelton and his band played the horns on the Radiohead song National Anthem on Kid A.
posted by Kattullus at 9:11 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I just don't get it

I like the site, I'm not down on it for the reasons some people are, I'm not worried that we'll besmirch each other, it's a good opportunity to have a big audience for some stuff. That's about it. Not worth overthinking. It's sort of neat to blog about something you care about and watch it whiz around the web.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:14 PM on January 24, 2010

Long story short, it's alll ASCII unicorns from now on

                               ,|     
                             //|                              ,|
                           //,/                             -~ |
                         // / |                         _-~   /  ,
                       /'/ / /                       _-~   _/_-~ |
                      ( ( / /'                   _ -~     _-~ ,/'
                       \~\/'/|             __--~~__--\ _-~  _/,
               ,,)))))));, \/~-_     __--~~  --~~  __/~  _-~ /
            __))))))))))))));,>/\   /        __--~~  \-~~ _-~
           -\(((((''''(((((((( >~\/     --~~   __--~' _-~ ~|
  --==//////((''  .     `)))))), /     ___---~~  ~~\~~__--~ 
          ))| @    ;-.     (((((/           __--~~~'~~/
          ( `|    /  )      )))/      ~~~~~__\__---~~__--~~--_
             |   |   |       (/      ---~~~/__-----~~  ,;::'  \         ,
             o_);   ;        /      ----~~/           \,-~~~\  |       /|
                   ;        (      ---~~/         `:::|      |;|      <>
                  |   _      `----~~~~'      /      `:|       \;\_____// 
            ______/\/~    |                 /        /         ~------~
          /~;;.____/;;'  /          ___----(   `;;;/               
         / //  _;______;'------~~~~~    |;;/\    /          
        //  | |                        /  |  \;;,\              
       (<>
        \_| ||_                     //~;~~~~~~~~~ 
            `\_|                   (,~~ 
                                    \~\ 
                                     ~~ 

ONWARD!
posted by The Whelk at 9:21 PM on January 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

Interesting self-examination moment here. Thought to myself, "But their hypocrisy ... it's not even really a matter of opinion, it's so blatant as to be fact. How could it be a matter of disagreement?" Then realized that pretty much 85% of the world's nastier conflicts are from people who are similarly mistaking their own fervor about something as a sign of its absolute truth. Surprise, surprise, I can be thoughtlessly fanatical about something too, it seems ...

Anyway, despite the hypocritical scumbagedness of BoingBoing, Jess shall bring some class to the joint, I am sure.

But to borrow from a link someone else posted in her Facebook replies, if you just want to keep an eye on her stuff this week without swimming in the rest of the muck, this RSS link'll do ya.
posted by MikeHarris at 9:28 PM on January 24, 2010

                                    /
                         __       //
                         -\= \=\ //
                       --=_\=---//=--        
                     -_==/  \/ //\/--   
                      ==/   /O   O\==-- 
         _ _ _ _     /_/    \  ]  /--    
        /\ ( (- \    /       ] ] ]==-  
       (\ _\_\_\-\__/     \  (,_,)-- 
      (\_/                 \     \-   
      \/      /       (   ( \  ] /) 
      /      (         \   \_ \./ )  
      (       \         \      )  \     
      (       /\_ _ _ _ /---/ /\_  \    
       \     / \     / ____/ /   \  \  
        (   /   )   / /  /__ )   (  ) 
        (  )   / __/ '---`       / /
        \  /   \ \             _/ /  
        ] ]     )_\_         /__\/       
        /_\     ]___\                     
       (___)  

LO THE UNICORN JUDGE. KNOW HIS GAZE AND KNOW JUDGMENT.
posted by The Whelk at 9:35 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

That unicorn looks like he's just seen '1 man 2 fish'.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:42 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

"My post is a double! I blame terrible search engines! Oh man this is hard :)"

You have to really stoke the boiler if you want the search dials to work. Otherwise, you lose too much pressure from the keyword valves.
posted by klangklangston at 9:43 PM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

THE UNICORN IS AGHAST AT YOU
posted by The Whelk at 9:47 PM on January 24, 2010

Otherwise, you lose too much pressure from the keyword valves.

But beware - if the pressure builds up too much, it can cause the typesetomatograph to blow a leak, causing all the vowels and the letter Y to malfunction.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:05 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Psst. You should slip them this hot apple slate rumour.
posted by Artw at 11:44 PM on January 24, 2010

Congratulations Jessamyn, it's quite an accolade to be invited into Frauenfelder et al.'s long-running, paper-to-web zine. And a serious double take when I checked in this morning.
posted by davemee at 12:38 AM on January 25, 2010

Do they h1avDo ave their own ColdChef ove0r there? Because frankly and I'm looking for a out.
post..:"ed by ColdCsick of Mooking for a way out.
p==---eef at 1:18y 24 [1
posted by at the crossroads at 1:12 AM on January 25, 2010

wut.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:34 AM on January 25, 2010

duz this meen mommy do not love us anymore? :c
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:11 AM on January 25, 2010

Metafilter = canada(BoingBoing)
posted by Electric Dragon at 2:41 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

duz this meen mommy do not love us anymore? :c

nah, it means i have registered a "cortex" sockpuppet at bng bng, that i'll trade for three five seven a dozen mefi sockpuppets :D
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:21 AM on January 25, 2010

Good for you, Jess! I saw the announcements over at BB and came back here to see if some mention was made.
Personally, I like the guest-blogger series over at BB. They can often be a welcome breeze of fresh air on the steampunk factory floor.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 AM on January 25, 2010

Congrats, ma'am. Watch out for the grating.
posted by fish tick at 5:41 AM on January 25, 2010

Jessamyn, you need to check out one of Mark Frauenfelder's other endeavors, Make Magazine.

In the blog there, they can post something where the parts are either carved out of pure whimsy or forged from solid titanium. It can can plow a field, feed a cat and fend off an invading army. When they do, you can count on someone saying something like, "Maybe now that it's done the person who made it can get a life" or pointing out that it doesn't have an isolation transformer and so it will kill you and everything you love.

Looking at UbuRoiva's comment on steampunk, I think the error in what he says is that the people who do interesting and original steampunk stuff aren't so much what he describes. I'd say that logging onto blogs just to make commentary on the crushing ennui of the entire internet is a narcissistic psychological compensation mechanism of the mediocre & marginalized. Steampunk is more a, "Well, I have this metal lathe - what the hell do I do with it?" kind of thing.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:42 AM on January 25, 2010

Steampunk looks pretty and that's all I demand of a purely aesthetic thing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:06 AM on January 25, 2010 [3 favorites]

They seem to have the same preoccupation with youth, speed, power, industrialization (what with the steampunk)

There's definitely a smattering of the old Futurist joys--youth, speed, power, the beauty of the machine--in the Steampunk aesthetic, but no more than there has been in science fiction traditionally. The Steampunk aesthetic isn't the second (or third or fourth) coming of Futurism, it's just a bricolage of styles taken from science fiction first, then Vernian romances, Victorian boys books, the aesthetic of the later Arts and Crafts (specifically Mackintosh) and the Wiener Werkstätte. Futurism's in there as well, but Steampunk isn't Futurist. It isn't an -ism at all; it's a fashion.

As for Steampunk being "fascist," that's just silly. The very worst you could say is that the occasional invocation of a Kipling-esque rhetoric of empire in the Steampunk aesthetic is usually uncritical (but not unironic). When Berlusconi yokes Steampunk to the creation of his new Roman order and hordes of goggle-eyed disciples begin to sing his praises, then we can talk about the fascism in the Steampunk aesthetic.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:01 AM on January 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

Are we supposed to heap scorn on jessamyn now? OK let me try: Library woman is all "library this, library that; check out my new novel system for filing novels in the library."
posted by Mister_A at 7:07 AM on January 25, 2010

I'm trying to grow something edible here. Stop trampling it, you fools.
posted by at the crossroads at 7:15 AM on January 25, 2010

Someone called Jessamyn a hipster. Tee hee.
posted by greekphilosophy at 7:33 AM on January 25, 2010

Congrats, Jessamyn! Another venue for you in which to be awesome!
posted by Miko at 7:47 AM on January 25, 2010

Someone called Jessamyn a hipster.

Oh my god, really?

Oh funny, I scooted over there to see and it was someone, I think, using it as a compliment.

So day one is finished. I double posted, fucked up a front page post by posting it instead of scheduling it, was treated to yawn/fail comment and have absolutely no idea why the site has tags [they're not clickable.... it's totally confusing].

There's no decent way to search the site except via Google which doesn't allow sorting results by date which is worse than useless [to be fair, we pretty much do that here too] and the moderators don't post and viceversa [I think? I have no idea how moderation actually works there except I don't have to do it]. They have complicated caching/load balancing which means if you do screw up, you have to stare at your error for a few minutes on the front page before it goes away, even if you've fixed it. The faq for guestblogging said to make SURE you had permissions to post any images and so I've been really trying to use stuff that was either public domain or CC-allowed but I half wonder if the images other people use are okay like that.

That said, Rob [the sort of managing editor] is a peach, really helpful and smart with this stuff, and I don't really see the other folks who post on the site really ON the site. I know Mark a bit offline [friends of friends stuff] so I'll ask him about the site culture sometime. It's curious how very different it is from MetaFilter.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:49 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

jessamyn: I think? I have no idea how moderation actually works there except I don't have to do it

Well, "working" being a questionable verb as it applies to Boing Boing moderation policies ...
posted by MikeHarris at 8:28 AM on January 25, 2010

It's curious how very different it is from MetaFilter.

We're prettier, aren't we?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:33 AM on January 25, 2010

Alvy, you are beautiful... on the inside.
posted by Mister_A at 9:07 AM on January 25, 2010

You know, like all ugly people.
posted by Mister_A at 9:08 AM on January 25, 2010 [3 favorites]

Not many of us are as pretty as Xeni Jardin.
posted by bingo at 9:09 AM on January 25, 2010

Oh I am. That's what my momma says.
posted by Mister_A at 9:13 AM on January 25, 2010

People are certainly more likely to snark than they are to simply say "I like this". If only Boing Boing had some simple mechanism by which users could indicate that they liked a post.
posted by Artw at 9:42 AM on January 25, 2010

P'raps they could give bunches of violets to posts they approved of.
posted by fish tick at 9:43 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Punches of violence, you say? I endorse this idea, fish dick.
posted by Mister_A at 9:53 AM on January 25, 2010

Lunches in silence, I believe is what swish lick said, which is what happened today after an argument between a couple of coworkers about Cheerios ballooned out of all proportion this morning and erupted in a geyser of frothy anger. Luckily we had the Saturday, Sunday and Monday Providence Journals to share between us so at least we didn't stare awkwardly at our meals.

Things have been patched up now, thank Jeebs.
posted by Kattullus at 9:59 AM on January 25, 2010

[lunches in silence]

:why is my chicken pot pie making cat faces at me?

/stares awkwardly at meal.
posted by at the crossroads at 10:09 AM on January 25, 2010

I've always thought the bacterial basis of ulcers was one of the great hunches of science.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:23 AM on January 25, 2010

You remember when they forgot to move all the instruments out of the orchestra hall, and the wailing of the musicians was barely audible over the crunches of violins?
posted by Mister_A at 10:33 AM on January 25, 2010

crunches of defiance are the only exercise I need. Fuck you skinnyfat!
posted by Think_Long at 10:33 AM on January 25, 2010

The fox lunges at the vile hens.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:58 AM on January 25, 2010

It sounds similar to John Cage 4'33"
*clears throat*


I like to call it Whiskers Grow with a Simple Ahem


i.e., the Awesome Hanuary Experiment. hmmmmmmmM.
posted by at the crossroads at 11:11 AM on January 25, 2010

your medication is in the bathroom cabinet.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:17 AM on January 25, 2010

Jessamyn's an antelope?

No, Jessamyn is a document. In fairness, it is an easy mistake to make.

[NOT BUCKLANDIST!]

*discretely flashes librarian signs and exits thread*
posted by stet at 11:27 AM on January 25, 2010

This is Good!

I read BoingBoing pretty regularly so I look forward to seeing what Jessamyn's posts.
posted by milovoo at 11:30 AM on January 25, 2010

oop. I look forward to seeing what Jessamyn posts. YKWIM.
posted by milovoo at 11:31 AM on January 25, 2010

It's sort of neat to blog about something you care about and watch it whiz around the web.

Isn't that what happens when you post here?

oh wait we don't call it blogging when you do it here
posted by davejay at 3:14 PM on January 25, 2010

Actually, that raises a legitimate question: what nuggets of awesomeness would you be inclined to post there that you're not (or have not been) willing to post here?
posted by davejay at 3:15 PM on January 25, 2010

what nuggets of awesomeness would you be inclined to post there that you're not (or have not been) willing to post here?

Well my own stuff, for one :) But really I post here when I find something that I think is cool and I'm pretty sure hasn't been here. Since I've got ONE WEEK at BoingBoing I'm sort of thinking of all the cool stuff I know that would make my librarian and Vermonter and MeFi and nerd peeps psyched and trying to assemble something that I think would go okay there. I was just telling mathowie that it's really image-heavy there, so you sort of have to have or find images for things. It's also hard to search for past stuff so unless something is current or really obscure I'm a little unlikey to post it because it's hard to tell if it's been on BB before.

So this post was one of my faves so far, but because I didn't want to steal the guy's photos, the school pic is a little "meh" and I think it got less attention than a more striking "hey look in 1920 there were all these white kids and then the war happened and the Jews and everyone moved in and now it's the most racially diverse neighborhood in the US!" then and now pic. This one I included a small pic and they made it giant because... well... it's eye-catching.

So, I've been thinking of things that would be kicked off with a striking image which I don't think of at all when I post on MeFi. I'm going to post something about mossariums later on [how to make them, historical moss stuff, a little too self-linky for here] and ... some library disputes that I think would be a little axe-grindy here but will work okay there. I'm also going to write something on the digital divide, more essya-type stuff and pimp my SXSW panel which I guess is okay to do there!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:40 PM on January 25, 2010

All this time, I thought you were talking about jumping up and down on your bed!
posted by not_on_display at 4:34 PM on January 25, 2010

I would paypal you $50 if you made a Violet Blue post, just because I'm kind of a jerk like that.
posted by Justinian at 4:50 PM on January 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

We'd like to make the tags clickable, but generating the results of tag searches with our blog software is performed dynamically, which would make the site explode when we get traffic spikes. We're Looking Into It, but still tag stuff in the meantime so that the data is there.

Yeah, site search is a pain. MT's is quite useless (it's often nearly inoperable at 6A's own site!) so Google site search is it. I've been toying with the idea of having the plain text of posts going into a separate, ultra-optimized database just for this purpose. But you know, pffft., what a lot of work.

There are three moderators at BB--Antinous, Arkizzle and Avram--and they don't post. We leave moderation to them, but everyone participates in discussion (mostly on their own posts). If I spot something particularly unpleasant or spammy, I'll just kill it myself, and am sure that others do likewise. Guestbloggers are welcome to moderate their own posts' comments.

Regarding images and propriety, we're a big target, so try to play it down the line. Everyone handles their own stuff. I try to stick to CC, but if a post is overwhelmingly promotional I might publish and notify rather than wait. I don't think anyone has ever complained about this, but I do hear now and again of other blogs getting asked to take something down. Respect for the creator is the best guideline, I think.
posted by beschizza at 6:18 PM on January 25, 2010

Artw wrote, "People are certainly more likely to snark than they are to simply say "I like this". If only Boing Boing had some simple mechanism by which users could indicate that they liked a post."

We're doing this! Soon!
posted by beschizza at 6:19 PM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn, don't feel you have to find great art, either. Gawker and Wired are very big on it, but you know, not every post needs to be beautiful or a traffic magnet! A picture might be worth a thousands words, but a hundred good words beat a thousand crap pictures.
posted by beschizza at 6:25 PM on January 25, 2010

I don't think anyone has ever complained about this, but I do hear now and again of other blogs getting asked to take something down.

I'm a little surprised at this. We get crazymail sometimes here on MeFi where someone Unclear on the Concept gets all GRAR with us just for linking to something of theirs elsewhere. That's really neat that you guys don't have a bunch more hassle with all the extra eyeballs you get. It's really sort of amazing putting something up there and watching it buzz around all the places I tend to go.

This evening I'm putting up a library post [in a little bit] about something I care about but who knows if other people will care or not. Lead balloon, or call to arms?

Thanks again beschizza for all the help you've given me.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:42 PM on January 25, 2010

jessamyn: Lead balloon, or call to arms?

Lead balloons are pretty effective weapons when used properly, and they make a pretty satisfying KTHLUNKRK sound when you bean someone in the forehead.
posted by Kattullus at 6:49 PM on January 25, 2010

Careful, you could end up with A Lead Dirigible
posted by The Whelk at 7:38 PM on January 25, 2010

KTHLUNKRK

Aiiii! You hit me in the head with your f'thagen balloon!

sorry i have never read lovecraft in my entire life i couldnt help myself bye
posted by not_on_display at 7:38 PM on January 25, 2010

Artw wrote, "People are certainly more likely to snark than they are to simply say "I like this". If only Boing Boing had some simple mechanism by which users could indicate that they liked a post."

We're doing this! Soon!

You should call them "bookmarks"!
posted by Artw at 10:19 PM on January 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

I was sure that link was going to be to a clip of the Mythbusters constructing a working blimp out of lead foil.

Also, maybe everyone else already knew this, but just the other month I learned that the band changed the spelling from Lead to Led so that "thick Americans" would not pronounce it /leed/.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:07 AM on January 26, 2010

Lede Zeppelin?
posted by explosion at 5:00 AM on January 26, 2010

LEED Zeppelin is covered entirely in solar panels.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:11 AM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you're not the Lead Zeppelin, the view never changes. Unless you're the Really Tall Zeppelin.
posted by Mister_A at 6:27 AM on January 26, 2010

fuck bush
posted by Damn That Television at 10:55 AM on January 26, 2010

I AM A METATALK COMMENT-HACKER
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:18 AM on January 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

I just bookmark hacked your comment.
posted by Artw at 7:37 AM on January 27, 2010

I totally hacked my coffee this morning through the addition of cheese. Double-dairy-hack!
posted by turgid dahlia at 1:46 PM on January 27, 2010

I wish I could quit you.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:57 PM on January 27, 2010

You do not!
posted by not_on_display at 2:06 PM on January 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

She's talking to Donkey Kong, not you.
posted by The Whelk at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2010

Oh, that's what all the jumping up and down on the bed was about, then!
posted by not_on_display at 3:39 PM on January 27, 2010

I came back; the food's better here.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:40 AM on February 1, 2010 [4 favorites]