Summer Head Cold, Thinking About Missed Shuttle Launches July 26, 2011
Posted by Jason W Ellis in Personal, Science, Technology.Tags: boingboing, headcold, nasa, postaday2011, spaceshuttle
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Y’s head cold, which she is still suffering from, has dispatched a rearguard to attack my ill-equipped bodily defenses. Thus, I now have a cold, too.
There isn’t much to do for a cold other than keeping one’s self comfortable and well fed with chicken soup. However, I do particularly enjoy reading uplifting things I am ill, because there is unequivocally something good about enriching the soul when the body is weak and perhaps through a sleight of hand the soul can trick the body into wellness again.
Something that I read today that I think you should read, too, is this short reflection on BoingBoing by Sawyer Rosenstein about his life and his recent visit to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis embark on its final flight into outer space.
I never made a point to see a space shuttle launch, and I suppose I never will have the chance to do so now since the whole program has been mothballed. I have taught my students about space travel, and I a voracious follower of updates to NASA’s websites. Yet, I didn’t make the time to hop into a car and trek down to Cape Canaveral for a launch. So it goes.
I am afraid that missing a shuttle launch will be a lingering regret of mine, but reading about others’ experiences and living vicariously through them is a rewarding endeavor, especially when you’re sick.
Future of Boing Boing July 3, 2008
Posted by Jason W Ellis in News, Personal.Tags: boingboing, fiasco, howifeel, violetblue
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As you probably know, I’ve been following the Violet Blue fiasco on Boing Boing (see here and here)–a fiasco encompassing a number of popular stops in the blogosphere and gravitationally attracted as if to a black hole in the Boing Boing post, “That Violet Blue Thing.”
I haven’t read all of the 1210 comments, but one common thread has to do with the future of Boing Boing. Some folks are jumping ship and vowing to boycott. Others sense a imminent blog implosion. The sense of confusion some readers feel about the choices made by the editorial staff and the way the situation was handled have called into question people’s beliefs and investments in Boing Boing. I have to admit that the more I think about it, the more I question my own investment in Boing Boing though not necessarily in the same way as some of these cynics.
I’m a habitual Happy Mutant that visits Boing Boing between five and ten times a day (at least). I go there in search of what is described by its subtitle, “Wonderful Things.” Sometimes I see cute things, interesting things, politically charged things, or things hard to describe. However, the one thing that I didn’t go to see was controversy centered around Boing Boing itself. It was a sort of safe zone where bad things were sometimes reported or commented on, but the bad things weren’t taking place “at” or “on” Boing Boing in the sense of it being this geographical space, refuge, or hideout. Unfortunately, the shit hit the fan at Boing Boing when whatever happened between the Boing Boing editors and Violet Blue. I don’t really care what happened (though, who isn’t curious at least a little bit), but I do care that their private spat invaded what I considered my safe hideout. Though, it’s selfish of me to claim Boing Boing as my exclusive safe hideout. The “Directory of Wonderful Things” is owned and operated by some influential persons in the technoculture world, and they certainly have a big stake and voice in the way Boing Boing evolves. And, there are all of the other readers with their own attachments to and ideological investments in Boing Boing. It was the clash of all of these competing grasps for what Boing Boing stands for, means to people, or “Boing Boingness” itself.
I can’t say that I know how this will all play out. Perhaps it will blow over and be forgotten except by a few keen persons, or Boing Boing will have to make some tough decisions and clean up the mess for those most affected by it (the editors, Violet Blue, and the readers). I doubt Boing Boing will cease to be (at least for the time being), but I do know that my safe hideout to explore wonderful things is a bit less shiny and less enchanting than it was a few days ago.
Boing Boing Comment on Violet Blue Debacle July 2, 2008
Posted by Jason W Ellis in News, Personal, Science Fiction.Tags: boingboing, comments, fiasco, ideology, violetblue
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Okay, I couldn’t resist adding my two cents to the Boing Boing – Violet Blue shindig, so I posted a comment. I think I’m #730. I’ve pasted my comment here for your reading edification, or you can click here to read it along with the many hundreds of other comments.
I’m amazed at how this one post and what preceded it has generated such vicious and impassioned discussion (or arguing past one another, depending on one’s perspective). As the smoke begins to clear this evening, it seems like there was a shattering of some kind of BoingBoing ideology for some folks. That ideology is somewhat amorphous and slippery, but the gist is that there existed an unacknowledged contract of archival integrity between BoingBoing and its readers. For those readers most hurt by the removal of posts related to Violet Blue, as well as the handling of that removal, their BoingBoing ideology of open source transparency, which was never officially acknowledged–yes, I think official is the right word when you’re talking about online businesses, even of Directories of Wonderful Things, was broken by the revelation that BoingBoing isn’t necessarily a blog of, for, and by the people (read: netizens with an emotional stake in the blog that embodies their ideology). BoingBoing is part of a business model that encompasses an editorial board embodied in Mark, Jeni, Cory, David, John, and Joel. That board makes decisions about the way BoingBoing is run, and there’s no reason personal views, feelings, and emotions can’t figure into their decisions (if they did at all in what’s become a fiasco in as far as it’s exploded into one in the comments and within the blogosphere–perhaps the explosion is contained). Anyways, it’s time for BoingBoing readers to reflect on any kind of ideological investment that they have in this site or others. This is not to say that BoingBoing doesn’t reflect or represent a certain “good” or “bad” ideology, but we all should, as reflective and critical thinkers, examine our investment in the work of others ad infinitum or we run the risk of complacency and childlike horror when reality doesn’t measure up to our expectations.
-Dynamicsubspace
The Boing Boing post that launched (not quite) a thousand comments July 1, 2008
Posted by Jason W Ellis in News.Tags: boingboing, delete, editorial, violetblue
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Earlier today, Boing Boing moderator, Teresa Nielson Hayden posted this less than full disclosure response to their decision to pull some posts that mentioned the sex blog writer, Violet Blue (read her blog, tiny nibbles, here):
Speaking for all the Boingers–
Boing Boing has been caught in the middle of a real internet shitstorm and pile-on over the last few days. A blogger named Violet Blue noticed that we unpublished some posts related to her. Some people wanted to know why.
Bottom line is that those posts (not “more than 100 posts,” as erroneously claimed elsewhere) were removed from public view a year ago. Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her. It’s our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day. We didn’t attempt to silence Violet. We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.
We hope you’ll respect our choice to keep the reasons behind this private. We do understand the confusion this caused for some, especially since we fight hard for openness and transparency. We were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully, without embarrassing the parties involved.
Clearly, that didn’t work out. In attempting to defuse drama, we inadvertently ignited more. Mind you, we weren’t the ones splashing gasoline around; but we did make the fire possible. We’re sorry about that. In the meantime, Boing Boing’s past content is indexed on the Wayback Machine, a basic Internet resource; so the material should still be available for those who would like to read it.
Thank you all for caring what happens on Boing Boing. And if you think there’s more to say, by all means, let’s talk. We’re listening.
Boing Boing’s “That Violet Blue thing” post today evolved into one of those unfortunate and bizarre Internet phenomena. Apparently, Boing Boing’s staff decided to pull some posts that mentioned Violet Blue, but they did this on the sly–a year ago. I don’t recall seeing any Boing Boing manifesto that states that they must adhere to some kind of openness or transparency regarding their editorial decisions. However, the debate over these post deletions have generated, as of the time of writing this, 518 responses in the comments. I can’t say that I’ve seen a post reach such a high number of comments in such a short period of time on Boing Boing since they opened commenting. There is a lot of crosstalk and many raised voices, and I’m concerned at how badly some folks are engaging and thinking about Boing Boing’s editorial staff making an editorial decision.
UPDATE:
Here’s the Valleywag article that toss some more gasoline on the fire. Internet netizens’ ability to uncover gossip and more-info-than-someone-not-involved-needs-to-know ceases to amaze me. Can the idealistic noobs in the audience please realize that the Internet involves money, real people with real feelings, and real people who make choices that turn out good or bad depending on the temperature of a cup of tea in an unassuming house (do houses assume things?) in Islington!
UPDATE 2:
As of July 3, 2008, Boing Boing’s “That Violet Blue Thing” has rolled off the main page and has 1210 comments–it really was the post that launched a thousand comments!
Boing Boing Kisses and Makes Up July 19, 2008
Posted by Jason W Ellis in News, Personal.Tags: afterschoolspecial, boingboing, comments, happymutants, warrenellis, xenijardin
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Xeni Jardin wrote a post today on Boing Boing titled, “Lessons Learned.” I’ve commented on the Boing Boing explosion from a couple of weeks ago here, here, and here. It’s part apology, and part “here’s what we learned today.” As far as the Boing Boing community goes, I think it’s good that Xeni posted this. Also, it’s interesting how positive the majority of comments are to this post than to the original post that served as lightning rod to this mess. I wonder if folks had time to cool off, or if those anti-happy mutants jetisoned their escape pod to points of interest in the Internet Cloud that they found more amenable to their sensibilities. Anyways, I think Warren Ellis’ post, The Patchwork Years, is a good read and perspective antidote to comment wars and the general philocentric ennui on the net.