Death Valley is in bloom for the first time in decades.

March 14, 2005 5:58 PM

Death Valley is in bloom for the first time in decades. It'd make an awesome FPP if someone puts some time into it. Alas, I have not the time. Take the idea and run with it, someone, please! [no more inside]
posted by five fresh fish to MetaFilter-Related at 5:58 PM (45 comments total)

In my head, the pictures that might accompany this page (google cache without pictures) fit in nicely with what I imagine Death Valley in bloom to be like.

How's that for unhelpful? Does anyone have a better source for either of these topics? I think it'd be great to see...
posted by odinsdream at 6:08 PM on March 14, 2005

Laziest post EVAH!

Abort this post please
Flowers retracting petals
In this Death Valley
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 6:13 PM on March 14, 2005

[this is good]
posted by mischief at 6:28 PM on March 14, 2005

Death Valley in bloom. Lots more here and the story is here.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:45 PM on March 14, 2005

So, is this the Devil celebrating Bush's re-election or what?
posted by scarabic at 6:47 PM on March 14, 2005

Due to blind idiocy we drove through death valley in the summer on motorcycles. It was mind-bending hot. Nobody else was there, except some awed German tourists and us.
posted by JohnR at 6:52 PM on March 14, 2005

GOD. we don't all live in death valley Five Fresh Fish. This is the WORLD WIDE WEB.
posted by greasy_skillet at 7:03 PM on March 14, 2005

Death Valley is in bloom for the first time in decades.

So the flora of Death Valley experience a multi-multi-year dormancy? Interesting.

Any explanation from the neighborhood botanists before Haughey deletes this thread?
posted by trharlan at 7:11 PM on March 14, 2005

it is the number one story out of death valley on google news as i write this!
posted by quonsar at 7:54 PM on March 14, 2005

Flickr photos with tags deathvalley+flowers. Full disclosure: I work on Flickr.
posted by ericost at 8:15 PM on March 14, 2005

They're ephemeral, like this thread.

NPR did a segment recently. Desert USA has a guide.
posted by euphorb at 8:45 PM on March 14, 2005

This would make a nice post. Someone should do it. The Death Valley National Park news page has a link to two PDFs. Wildflower Update. (inc. best locations, for those looking to visit).
posted by ori at 8:52 PM on March 14, 2005

[this would be good]
posted by NickDouglas at 10:01 PM on March 14, 2005

/me looks at the pretty pictures and sighs wistfully for the Mojave.


also: WTF FFF? What the is this, some kinda pre-emptive positive meta-reverse meta-meta callout? Oh. Cool.
posted by loquacious at 10:19 PM on March 14, 2005

WOW.

ROAD TRIP!
posted by keswick at 10:43 PM on March 14, 2005

So is someone going to post some of those beautiful photos?
posted by jb at 12:01 AM on March 15, 2005

ericost:

STOP WORKING ON FLICKR START WORKING ON GAME NEVERENDING

posted by Pretty_Generic at 12:22 AM on March 15, 2005

The links are all here. The Front Page Post could just link to this thread. If not, why not?
posted by nthdegx at 1:03 AM on March 15, 2005

STOP WORKING ON FLICKR START WORKING ON GAME NEVERENDING

You know, 'cause revenue streams and sustainable businesses are so tacky and '90s and all.

Also, this thread is [bad].
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:06 AM on March 15, 2005

Posted.

[This is good], and not 'cause I hauled off and posted it.

This is exactly the kind of constructive, positive reapplication MetaTalk should and/or could be used for.

Yeah, take it to IM or email for collaborative work, right? But it's all right here, and trying to get a group of people to get on the same IM protocol or answer list-mail in a timely fashion is a pain in the neck.

However, if you've got access to MeFi, you have access to MetaTalk, and collaboration/posting can be done in near real time in place.

I'd like to see more stuff like this, but perhaps were whoever plants the seed sets a deadline for link collection, and they either post it to the blue themselves or assign someone to edit and post it.

Or we could edit the FPP inline in MeTa until we have something to go to the blue with.

The increased quality and multitasking/multithreading benefits could be fantastic.
posted by loquacious at 2:13 AM on March 15, 2005

Or we could edit the FPP inline in MeTa until we have something to go to the blue with.

Terrific idea.
posted by nthdegx at 2:24 AM on March 15, 2005

Done. Now let's never do this again.
posted by ColdChef at 2:59 AM on March 15, 2005

Do what, now?
Advantage: scarabic.
posted by squirrel at 4:19 AM on March 15, 2005

What P-G said Eric! Jesus, flickr is nice and all, but GNE was amazing.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:55 AM on March 15, 2005

Though this is pretty neat, I have to say. Try plugging in "deathvalley."
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:42 AM on March 15, 2005

I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is exactly why #mefi exists.
posted by Ryvar at 7:49 AM on March 15, 2005

Thanks, loq.

To all the naysayers: we now have an excellent FPP filled with excellent pictures. The only thing it lacks is an explanation as to why this is a special event. Which I'll now go add to the thread.

This was a helluva lot better use of MeTa than yet another tireless whingefest about some inconsequential punctuation habit or rude luser.

:-P
posted by five fresh fish at 9:33 AM on March 15, 2005

:)
posted by ori at 11:16 AM on March 15, 2005

Why the hell didn't you bother researching it and posting it, if you thought it was valuable? This is a ridiculous waste of MeTa space.
posted by graventy at 1:58 PM on March 15, 2005

We should never waste precious MeTa space which could have otherwise been used for the latest round of bitching, whining, and moaning.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 2:37 PM on March 15, 2005

posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 2:55 PM on March 15, 2005

Awww, pretty kitty!

Oops! There goes some more bandwidth!
posted by deborah at 3:11 PM on March 15, 2005

You know what I mean. This is a pointless thread, and since MeTa frontpage space is so small, this is a waste of space.
posted by graventy at 4:10 PM on March 15, 2005

WOW.

ROAD TRIP!
posted by keswick at 10:43 PM PST on March 14 [!]

Actually, after seeing this, we decided to include a stop in Death Valley in our upcoming road trip. Thanks everyone!
posted by mai at 4:49 PM on March 15, 2005

Graventy, how is it a waste of space? The FPP real estate is tiny, the use is positive, and the response has been great.

And at least it's not even more unhinged whinging.
posted by loquacious at 4:58 PM on March 15, 2005

I'd argue it is the best MeTa thread in ages. IF it became a habit and the bug threads and such were constantly pushed off the page, I would agree with you. But as a one-time thing which resulted in a good post to the blue, it's groovy.

Actually it might be neat if there was some place (even offsite) where people could pool information and post a community-formed FPP every once in a while.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:10 PM on March 15, 2005

This collaborative post was awesome.
posted by NickDouglas at 6:31 PM on March 15, 2005

loquacious,

Hey, I'm fine with an actual post being made of it. (And a good one, apparently.) But the idea that this is what MetaTalk is for is just ludicrous. MeTa is largely for talking about MeFi, either problems or meetups or MeFi-in-the-news type stuff. It's not for post-making.

This is what #mefi is for, or fits best. How hard is it to scrounge up a few links for a topic you believe in? Maybe we need another page solely for this (ideafilter?). If something is good enough to post, put a little research into it and post it. Or, hell, e-mail someone else and ask them kindly to do it. Don't MeTa it.

Again, it's great that this worked well this time. But what happens when this takes off?
"I heard a story about prison life on This American Life this weekend. I think it'd make a great post."
"I don't have time to make a post myself, but that new Star Wars movie is only 2 months away!"
posted by graventy at 8:53 PM on March 15, 2005

I think that's an interesting idea, weretable. I've seen--that is, I've heard about--web board sites for exchanging amateur images wherein users open a thread with a general theme and posts a few images to get things going, and then all interested users comment and post more images on the same theme.

We kind of do that here in the blue, but the MeFi form isn't generally understood that way by its users. We don't see many posts that start out as a paltry sampling of an idea, followed by a rush of follow-up content coming from ten other users. Here we tend to view the front page poster as producer of the thread--better that he uses a light touch throughout; liable to start a ruckus if he moderates too much, but expected to be in attendance--while the comment posters are mostly a chat-enabled audience.

The one reason that this approach wouldn't work in the blue here is because mathowie and many other cornerstone users hold fast that this site is about links first, collaboration second. I can see the virtues of this position.

Perhaps a new form, a new dot prefix, could be born of this idea. A distinctly collective or collaborative area, where small ideas can be given a short lifespan (but longer than #mefi) to either languish or get picked up, and where really good threads can be collected into front page posts.

On preview: graventy, we're thinking essentially the same thing. I don't think #mefi is strong for this purpose because it relies on simultaneity. What do you think of a site like the one I describe above? It could also be a catch place for a lot of the chat that Matt and others are trying to move out of the green and gray.
posted by squirrel at 9:13 PM on March 15, 2005

I've seen--that is, I've heard about--web board sites for exchanging amateur images wherein users open a thread with a general theme and posts a few images to get things going, and then all interested users comment and post more images on the same theme.

Like this?
posted by DaShiv at 3:21 AM on March 16, 2005

That there's an FPP, photog-writer man. Thanks!
posted by squirrel at 4:44 AM on March 16, 2005

Squirrel has the idea. There's no reason posts in the blue can't be like this all the time, with the added requirement, of course, that the initial post needs to have at least one link in it. Comments in the blue can be just like the initial comments in this thread: content additive.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:30 AM on March 16, 2005

People do that all the time, monju.

(in between the GYOBFW and PepsiBlueFilter comments)

In the thread. Not on MeTa.
posted by graventy at 9:04 AM on March 16, 2005

My only disappointment with the result is that I did say "a bit of research," and no such effort was really made. I did google DV quickly before making the suggestion and while pretty pictures were all over the place, it was going to take a bit of poking around to find out what usually is out there this time of year, how the rainfalls are affecting the usual pattern of things (what about animal life? are there any plants that wait decades for this to happen? there were some pictures of floods -- how bad were they?), and all that jazz.

If we could pull together a bit better on putting some beef behind the pictures, using MeTa to develop an FPP would be an excellent use of same.

Certainly a helluva lot more productive than, say, whinging on and on and on about "a ridiculous waste" of this oh-so-fucking-valuable "MeTa space."
posted by five fresh fish at 10:21 AM on March 16, 2005

I disagree that MetaTalk is a good place for this kind of collaborative post, fffish. As I outlined above, I think that it would make for a great additional site, (i.e. CollectiveFilter, only, you know, with a name that didn't suck). MetaTalk is not the place for it, as others have pointed out. Your indicating that other, perhaps more useless things have happened here doesn't bolster your case. Front page traffic on MetaTalk should move slowly, with fewer topics and the freedom to have longer discussions. The front page for a FPP assembly shop should move quickly.

Finally, in passing, did you intend to come across as critical of those who did the legwork of your FPP idea? That's the way it seemed to me, and it struck me as oddly presumptuous.
posted by squirrel at 11:52 PM on March 16, 2005