XeniSucks: A Directory of Lameness

It's not censorship when we do it.

Because the average age of a loyal BB reader and commenter is 11, it's a good thing that the new Moderation Policy is fully and explicitly explained to us...

My favorite parts:

Because four years ago, Boing Boing's first, unmoderated comment system went so septic that it had to be shut down. The Boingers want to never go through that again.

and

Q. One of my comments has disappeared!

A. There are several possibilities. One is that we may be having technical problems. It never hurts to write and ask. Another possibility is that someone thought your comment would be better gone.

Teresa then launches into a ten-item list of all the things that will land you in their "bad graces." I think it can all be summed up as "please don't hurt Xeni's feelings again! She's a serious journalist!"

Wikipedian Transexuals Untie!

A youtube post by Xeni, about Calipers Addamsapple, recommended by Andrew James? This deserves a wikipedia entry of its own!

So, I'll see your moderated "comments"

And I'll up you authorship. Whoever wants a xenisucks.com account, let me know via email. Even you, "Navy Seal" Boy.

Well, Then

An all-new BoingBoing, with New and Improved Comments, you say? Ah, with a moderator, now I see. Oh, wait, a moderator whose life's minutia is dutifully recorded into her voluminous wikipedia entry by none other than autodidactic "wildcat cartographer"/science fiction something-or-other, and person with very odd definitions of commonly defined English terms, Kathryn Cramer? I can't see how this could turn out bad.

Heh. I already like seeing Corky's name next to "DISCUSS (0)". Fitting, somehow. And frequent.

On a strange note, reading a SHOUT OUTZ list numbering 2 greater than Frauenfelder has fingers to count (come to think of it, I've never seen his hands), one can't help but wonder, "How the holy mother of fuck did it take twelve people, not including you four stooges, to update your blog software?" Wow. Just, wow.

Good luck with that, dudes.

Do you people have any idea how hard it was not to make any WAKE UP, MODERATOR jokes?

Images From The Past

From the days before their hosting provider was 50% of the non-self-promotional advertising space sold at boingboing:

Quick Drunken Roundup

Let's get this over with, shall we?

Pearl Jam? Lollapalooza? What year is this? And I give a shit, why, exactly?

Oh boy, Mark's using his "clever" dig at Andrew Keen again. So, do they trade off days as to who is supposed to diss him on any given day, or is it just spontaneous obsessing? Maybe it has something to do with the sales stats of Keen's book versus Mark's epic "How To Google Shit For Dummies 2.0" work of literature. Hrmm.

Could someone please explain to Cory and the "Electronic Frontier Foundation" how, if one looks at AT&T historically, one can easily see that AT&T is only nominally the same company, the name being an asset that was transferred from the original AT&T to the current owners? Ah, fuck it. It's actually kind of funny that some dumbass went to the effort of documenting part of the history, but somehow missed the part that negated his entire fucking point.

Grown man blathers on about his new bestest most favoritest comic book. Who's the real Comic Book Guy now, huh?

And, in a rare instance, I found the personal accounts of Iraq actually interesting. You know, if there was more shit like that, there might be less shit like this. Just sayin'.

Oh yeah; a little lagniappe for you: allows comments. The "recommended" ratio for certain comments is particularly amusing to me. Anyway, enjoy. Fernet and Coke time here.

A Simple, Logical Assumption:

If Andrew Keen is a "troll", wouldn't repeatedly personally insulting the dude as if he had peed on your rug indicate that you're a serial biter?

Tangentially, Cory Doctorow is so l337, he hires other dudes to admin his personal computer. For all those times he "needs something fixed in his kernal". You can hardly tell he never finished college, and just barely got his Good Enough Degree. Just barely.

The rest is all the usual "ads for companies we have known business relationships with, masquerading as content", Mark posting ads for his book followed by subsequently, and separately, pimping each and every bookstore he's going to visit in malls all over the San Fernando valley. Or wherever. I don't generally go to book stores, so I assume the threat level for me is low of catching doucheitis.

Hey, it's as much of a word as "spokesdouche", and I don't even pretend to be a journalist.

Does anyone actually give a shit what Bill Gibson thinks anymore?

Did they ever? I mean, besides Cory? "It's hard to write because I get distracted by teh intarweb." Then don't do it, dude. Nobody's going to miss your paranoid, pedestrian diatribes and post-teen-teenage angst, anyway.

Wikipedia: Bringing NPOV Dudes Together

One of these things is not like the others, which of these things does not belong? Truly a monument to the Mutual-Backscratch Society, not to mention the League of NPOV Wikipedians.

The word "wikipedians" doesn't sound nearly as retarded as the image it conjures up.

Finally, Idiots can re-write Ulysses.

Pardon me if I am not thrilled by this, for this reason:

The Open Library combines links to open resources with information on in-copyright works and enables you and me to review, annotate, correct and convene.

I'm going to put this as plainly as possible: that is a stupid idea, and it will fail.

No hyperbole. No rant. I'm just that lazy about this entire thing. I care that much. But it's not that I don't love you, I just need some space.

And I think we should start seeing other people.

Every year, I look forward to Burning Man

It's like a holiday in the Bay Area, since all the assholes are out of town at "Camp I'm OK, You're OK"(*). I mention this because it is my only tangential, and remotely at that, interest in this fascinating piece of top-notch journalism.

The "reader comment", though, reminded me that the "piece" about the Whole Foods CEO commenting on Wild Oats on a "message board" is a perfect example of the typical reactionary bias exhibit by the assclowns at boingboing. When somebody in some non-US country with non-US freedoms gets in trouble for looking at porn, assclowns are up in arms about Flickr's refusal to Join the Revolution and do what the users want them to do, rather than what the, say, shareholders want them to do. Yet, somehow, when an individual in a corporation says something public, regardless of how stupid it is, the verbage used to describe this is:

The CEO of Whole Foods spent a ton of time on Yahoo messageboards bashing the value of Wild Oats stock

Oh yeah? You're sure it was a "ton of time"? The case is closed already? The investigation is at a point where you can start stating shit like that as if it were fact? Where is the outrage about his right to "free speech" being trampled on by the FTC? Fuck that, where's basic fucking fact-checking? "Messageboards" is one word? Who "sez"?

Alright, peoples, it's dinner time. See how ending on a conversational note makes me seem pretty unprofessional?

(*) - Advanced apologies to LA reader friends who attend burning man. I'm sure not everyone there is an asshole. In fact, I would even be willing to believe that the majority of the attendees are not generally self-absorbed asshats, but I remain certain that of the percentage that are, most of them live in San Francisco, and are suffering from some sort of psychological distress as the result of childhood sexual abuse of some sort or another, or having not received sufficient attention from parents and friends in the small Southern or Midwestern towns they grew up in.

XeniSucks week in review: July 2-8, 2007

• Amateur journalist resorts to ad hominem when accused of being an amateur.
• Also, wiki.

Oh, wait; you mean there's no fucking point in posting things I just posted a couple fucking days ago? You mean that's fucking annoying? My bad. Here's two other things instead:

1) "OMFG, CAN U GUYZ BELIEVE THIS THING LOOKS LIKE TEH PENIS!11111!!!" Featuring the largest number of boring reader updates about other things that look like penises to them. Fascinating shit, if you're 4 years old. You know what else looks like a penis, Xeni? Penises. You remember penises, right?

2) What's the word for when someone you think is a douchebag fucks up and catches grief for it, publicly? Band manager, or pimp? Really, what's the fucking difference?

I Don't Know Why We Have A Wiki

But we do.

Whoever asked for it, please feel free to populate it. There's pretty much nothing in it now, aside from the documentation.

The Irony Was Too Rich To Pass Up

Failed journalism student engages in ad hominem attacks on dude who wrote a book about how failed journalists think ad hominem attack pieces are actually journalism. Let's see, we've got:

1) obligatory, dated "zombies" reference
2) desire to "remix" book (read: treat as a mad-lib) instead of actually address anything in it
3) a disparaging remark about Keen's former business being a failure, which is hilarious when one considers Jardin's complete lack of any credentials in any field
4) a plug for herself, buried at the end of the piece
5) more boingboing backrubs for "Clay Shirky", whoever the hell he is supposed to be.

Really, though, it can all be summarized by this quote:

The core premise of Keen's book seems to be that conversational media is destroying culture, ruining the economy, and destroying the lives of "experts."

Heh, "experts" in quotes and "conversational media" from a blowhard who doesn't have the cajones to allow comments and deal with the frigtards you're so dedicated to preserving the wisdom and free speech of. I'm really not sure what's the funniest part of that.

Attention Xenisucks Infidels:

Much as I'd love to post something, I'm in a hurry to catch the shuttle bus to Caltrain. So, instead, may I please draw your attention over here: our own Honorable Mssr. Quicksilver has been populating it with content, and you'll all be able to, too, if you send email to ohreally@mnslab.com. Tell me the username you want, and I'll mail you your password. Also, expect a couple of days' turnaround. I'll be doing this manually, keeping it real, and I'm pretty much going to be off teh intarwebs until Sunday night. Well, probably.

OK, people; go get your swerve on. It's fucking FRIDAY, yo.

OMFG, ONLY NAZIS EAT MEAT!111

"I decided to try out veganism a little over a week ago -- so far I feel great, and it's a lot easier than I thought." I'd add a snarky line about this, but it doesn't need one. Xeni did the heavy lifting by establishing her week-long expertise on the subject in the first line.

In case y'all forgot, Cory has a new book, and he also has a new book. Oh wait, that's the same book? You mean the same one that dude has posted at least an ad a day for for the last few weeks? Oh. Oh boy. Let's all go down to Barnes y Noble and stand in line for Cory's new book. Oh me? Well, I'll meet you there. I have some other stuff to do.

Can we stop automatically stating Bruce Schneier's speculation as fact?

Then, of course, there's the classic Frauenfelderian backtracking moment, which you all were kind enough to draw attention to already.

HEY U GUYZ, PHOTOSHOP CONTEST AT WORTH 1000!11111

Also, why does it not surprise me that this is the side Cory would be on, if he lived in the Star Wars universe? When I was in second grade, I rooted for the Rebel Alliance. Eventually, I grew up, and found myself in support of the Empire.

And now, the crowning awkward boingboing moment of the weekend:

"no sneaky running out into the Magic Kingdom and riding the Haunted Mansion in the nude!"

I don't know about all of you, but I'm creeped out now by the visual of that college dropout touching his own junk late at night, running around Disneyland in his Canuckistanian Birfday Suit.

And on that note, work awaits.

Two Things

1) Looks like Cory's on the verge of catching the same bug someone else on that staff has, or maybe he's just been drinking Potomac water.

2) Shameless Xeni brown-nosing reveals that Battellah thinks 1) blogs should do more merchandising to be more like that other blog, "amazon.com". And 2) he also thinks what we all need are some extra pop-up windows. Both of these ideas are just plain retarded. Nevermind the conflict between this post and, say, the one posted right after it. It's funny, really; Xeni speculating about Google use is like homeless people speculating about mortgage rates.

So that's not two things, it's four. You are all grown-ups, you'll learn to deal with the disappointment over time. Well, you regular readers, at least.

Good Riddance

Just like Autumn used to bring a new crop of mouthy, self-assured, delusional fucktard-newbies to USENET, long before port 80 brought your Grandma and your Little Cousin Jeffy to the Internet, Eric Corley and pals have been recruiting mouthy, self-assured, zit-encased 13 year olds with marginal technical abilities (though, admittedly, slightly less marginal than their little sisters and their My Little Ponies) for their "once in however often" 2600 conferences, held in what may be the shittiest hotel in Manhattan. Well, they're tearing that shithole down. Well, well, well, whaddya know? Something wonderful on the directory of wonderful things! Oh, wait... It seems she actually posted it because the Wookie wants everyone to keep the hotel alive, so these glorious Newbiecons can continue, unfettered. OMFG, IF THEY TEAR DOWNZ TEH HOTAL, WHERE WILL WE HAVE OUR M33TZ????

You know, I can think of a hack that would solve that: RENT OUT ANOTHER HOTEL. I hear there are one or two of them in New York, someplace. OMFG, I'M SO L337.

HEY U GUYZ

So, I, like, was reading this website called, like, boingboing or, like, something, and, like, did you know that dude called cory or, like, something has, like, a new, like, book or, like, something? WHOA, I"M TOTALLTY GONZA GO GET IT! Cory sez i, like, totally should. He also thinks I should stop drinking and smoking, coz, like, all the cool kids are doing that. And stuff,..

However, in the interest of full disclosure, this actually didn't totally suck. Not totally, anyway. Then again, I'm partial to that cardboard-tearing noise stuff.

Posted live, from the crapflooder's mom's house. She's not that good on the mic, but at least I can chalk "tag a crapflooder's mom" off my list now.

I had my friend who works for Nintendo track this down

Makes me sick just looking at it. Fucking n00b, I must be the only person he's beaten in the damn game.

All you mns-haters out there better add that code to your rivals list so you can show him who's boss on a real playing field.

-- Mr. Q