Cory has been doing some “This day in Blogging History” posts where he digs out old gems from the Boing Boing time machine. We have tens of thousands of posts dating back to our first in the year 2,000. Is there a single post you remember that first turned you on to Boing Boing, or something you recall that really stands out as a favorite post for some reason? Same question applies to Boing Boing video episodes, or Boing Boing podcast episodes. I’m really interested to hear what people think.
This is the post that introduced me to Boing Boing: http://boingboing.net/2007/09/20/homebrew-lockpick-sl.html My first Boing!
Hands down, favorite boing post of all time was the interview @xeni did with The Cheat back in 2001. The day you two spent together was sparkles… hoops at the park… dined at Hard Rock… wrapping the night with Hanson & Iggy playing Whiskey a Go Go. Jesus, to this day I’m not sure which of you I envy more.
Second on my list? That’s a toughie, but I’d have to say the interview @doctorow did with Michael Knight’s hamburger.
Jeez Louise… trying to pick one favorite is like trying to pick a single favorite song. There is just too much! However Xeni, perhaps it is because you asked the question… your post “The Diagnosis” leaps to my mind as being a particularly powerful, brave, and touching example. (Here’s to your recovery!) I also look forward to Maggie’s posts, especially the more long-form essays that are sure to spur interesting debate and commentary.
This is my favorite post of all time, but I’m incredibly biased, of course: http://boingboing.net/2010/12/12/weird-tales-inspired.html
I really wish I could remember my “first” BB post or the first BB post I ever read - all I know is that back in 2001, someone whose blog I followed used to link to BB posts all the time, and I became quickly hooked.
I have no idea what the first things were, and there have been so many great things I can’t think of a single favorite, but I can mention how I arrived here.
I used to read slashdot religiously (from ~2003-2008) and by default there was a box along the side of slashdot that was a feed of boingboing’s posts. I was clicking on those fairly regularly since 2005 or so, and eventually I realized that I was basically just using slashdot as an RSS reader for boingboing.
My participation ebbs and flows, but boingboing constantly provides so much stuff that I think is really great that I’m going to go with “everything” to answer the question, even the posts featuring stuff I actively dislike or are indifferent to and/or don’t understand the appeal of. I’m glad those posts happen, because often eventually I come to understand - boingboing manages to introduce me to more new, sometimes challenging, things than any other source by not being an echo chamber like most similar sites.
Actually, the thing that spurned me towards participating initially was something Maggie posted about some new research finding regarding mountains or something, which is my research specialty as an academic geologist. IIRC, my comment was factually incorrect and poorly stated 
re: podcasts, the early Gweek with John Hodgman was really great. I’ve only flown Virgin once, shortly after BB TV came out, and everything on it was great (though I wish there had been a new selection of stuff for the return flight).
The Joel Johnson Norelco Bodygroom Review may be the most memorable.
I’m pretty sure I obliterated the original footage from that one as well as the backups. Maybe it lives on in a random Dropbox somewhere.
Thanks for posting this, I’d not seen it and it’s fantastic. (And also a great review of a great shaver, which my husband and I own.)
I’m going to be watching this. I’m personally terrible at “What’s your favorite …” questions. My mind just goes totally black at that question. But there’s so much good BB stuff, and I came into the party relatively late (2008, I think, as a lurker). I’m really glad that Xeni set this up!
Also, thanks videobored! I appreciate the good vibes.
Good stuff, you guys. And fond memories.
I remember my first. my friend Cory posted this to my myspace, which was a Doctorow post. I didn’t know my friend’s last name, so i messaged my friend to congratulate him on the cool blog that he was doing [lulz.] he was all “what? no, that’s some other guy, I just thought it was neat.” from that day, I don’t think i’m being hyperbolic when I say I’ve read at least the headline of every single BB post.
As for my favorite? Of course, I immediately think of the one I wrote for mindblowing movie week, but that’s cheating. I think the Piskor ones. Cory posted about the completion of Wizzywig and I blazed through the whole comic in one sitting. Then y’all hired him and he started making the Hip Hop Family Tree, I was like “oh shit! this is dope!!!”
I had been more of a lurker up till the Candy Heirarchy 2010. The rampant humor of that post pulled me in.
Neatorama recently joined Pinterest. I clicked ‘Follow All’ as a way to archive stories I liked on a board. I don’t see the magical ‘P’ here. Is this something BB has considered doing? There have been so many terrific posts on BB. An archive would be useful.
This one. http://boingboing.net/2008/12/01/downwind-faster-than.html
Purely for the comments thread.
Fav post?
That’s easy.
Anything by Rudy Rucker, but most especially the two posts where he talks about hylozoism.
Over the
years, I’ve come to think that everything is alive, even a rock. In
academic philosophy, this doctrine is known as
"hylozoism"—the word even appears in
Wikipedia.As Stephen Wolfram and I have
both pointed out, any gnarly, chaotic natural process embodies a
classical universal computation. And at the quantum level, even
dull-looking objects are seething with universal quantum computations.
When I look at a stone, I think of ten octillion balls connected by
springs. There’s a lot going on in a rock, enough to support
universal computation, enough to run a mind.How do I know a
rock is alive? If I let go of it, it’s smart enough to drop?Or
maybe, in the right frame of mind, I can feel an affinity to the
rock—in a way, there’s no telling where one thing starts and the
other thing stops.
Can I also nominate my favorite thing that should have been a bb post? Adam Curtis’ BBC series ‘All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace’. It seemed to have bb written all over it.
New users can’t post images and only get two links? Boo, I say…
I have always loved BoingBoing but fell in love even further when it introduced me to the game Glitch. It was everything I wanted in a game and I was lucky enough to play it for a whole year before it went under. During my Glitch days I stopped visiting BoingBoing only because there were so many trees to pet, butterflies to milk, etc. I’m sad Glitch is gone but thrilled to again be a Happy Mutant!
oh, man, that’s hilarious. reminds me of another post that’s tied for first with the Piskor stuff.
