Stacks and stacks of wax
April 15, 2012 5:16 AM Subscribe
MeFi's own waxpancake celebrates the 10th anniversary of his blog Waxy.org with a retrospective of some of his favorite posts.
On preview: "One or more of the links you entered were found in 137 previous threads."
On preview: "One or more of the links you entered were found in 137 previous threads."
This is great, like a sideways history of the web (yay, waxy.org, for sideways history). There are so many rabbit holes to get lost in. I love how the Afro-Ninja post reminded me that Google once tried to make people pay for Google Answers; which got me nosing around here for the fantastic discussions about Google Answers vs. AskMe. I can't imagine a 10-year retrospective from another blog I'd enjoy more.
(And that multiple-angle UC Davis pepper spray thing is still so fucking powerful.)
posted by mediareport at 6:15 AM on April 15, 2012
(And that multiple-angle UC Davis pepper spray thing is still so fucking powerful.)
posted by mediareport at 6:15 AM on April 15, 2012
Waxy's always been one of the consistently best websites I follow. Here's to another ten years of fantastic content!
posted by flatluigi at 6:19 AM on April 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by flatluigi at 6:19 AM on April 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
Kudos and thanks, Andy!
He is consistently one of the reliable web thought leaders -- if he's involved in a project, it's worth paying attention to. Can't wait to go through his "best of" selection.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:16 AM on April 15, 2012
He is consistently one of the reliable web thought leaders -- if he's involved in a project, it's worth paying attention to. Can't wait to go through his "best of" selection.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:16 AM on April 15, 2012
"Announcing the pregnancy and, a few months later, the birth of my son."
Either that sentence was written too fast, or I missed the biggest story in human biology in millennia.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:28 AM on April 15, 2012 [2 favorites]
Either that sentence was written too fast, or I missed the biggest story in human biology in millennia.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:28 AM on April 15, 2012 [2 favorites]
Waxy is the only blog that I've consistently read throughout the years, and I can also thank him for helping me discover MeFi. I always find his content interesting, fresh and always innovative.
Andy, if you're ever in Louisville Kentucky, let me buy you a beer, and a fried chicken & waffle sandwich.
posted by jackofsaxons at 7:59 AM on April 15, 2012
Andy, if you're ever in Louisville Kentucky, let me buy you a beer, and a fried chicken & waffle sandwich.
posted by jackofsaxons at 7:59 AM on April 15, 2012
Andy's a hell of a blogger and it makes me sad that what he says about the fading of personal blogs. I'm always delighted when he has a new post, he puts a lot of research and writing time into it.
Andy's linkblog is also terrific, a great set of interesting and random web sites, a few a day. I read it via RSS myself, there's also an unofficial Twitter version.
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on April 15, 2012
Andy's linkblog is also terrific, a great set of interesting and random web sites, a few a day. I read it via RSS myself, there's also an unofficial Twitter version.
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on April 15, 2012
only 137 threads? Waxy is so very good that it seems like about half of the links eventually make their way here, and many of the ones that don't probably should. The linkblog seems to be a dying art but Waxy is among the very best.
posted by caddis at 9:17 AM on April 15, 2012
posted by caddis at 9:17 AM on April 15, 2012
I rarely have time to read the blog, but the links section is a near daily visit. For the longest time I thought it was the entire site...
posted by aerotive at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2012
posted by aerotive at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2012
I've never met waxpancake, but his blog (and anildash's, and bkeaggy's, and jessamyn's, and mathowie's, and cortex's...) has inspired me to keep my own blog going, in one form or another, for more than 10 years now. I haven't necessarily "achieved" anything with my blog in that time, other than having a place online to store my thoughts and projects, but I think these days, just having a space for yourself on the Web that you own and have built and have kept going for a significant amount of time is an achievement of sorts.
It's like Robin Sloan's take on stock and flow on the Web—Andy's a master of both, and his flow is what keeps people coming back, while the stock is what you can spend hours browsing when you visit Waxy today. The easy persistence of long-term blogging reminds me of artist/gallerist Phil Slein's concept of a "creep," which is just what it sounds like: an organically grown display or exhibit or work of sorts, created by letting objects accrete in a spot over time and take on their own internal logic and form as a set. That's exactly what a good blog is—it may not grow a lot in any given month, but after 10 years, you really have something, if only proof that you were there and thinking all that time.
Andy's also a master of the one-off project—that's a big part of the delight of visiting his blog. Based on his tutorial, for instance, and iterating on that concept, I learned how to have the people of Amazon Mechanical Turk transcribe my interviews, which has freed up hours of my time for other things.
And that makes me think of the talk mathowie gave and posted a month ago—Lessons from a 40-year-old. My husband's just on the other side of 40, so the world view from the other side of the hill, as it were, is something I know pretty well. But thinking about Web projects from that perspective—as a long-term "lifestyle business," as something that's sustainable and adds to the rest of my life, rather than taking my life over—has definitely helped me keep my various small projects going, bit by bit, while also keeping the rest of my life going.
posted by limeonaire at 11:05 AM on April 15, 2012 [2 favorites]
It's like Robin Sloan's take on stock and flow on the Web—Andy's a master of both, and his flow is what keeps people coming back, while the stock is what you can spend hours browsing when you visit Waxy today. The easy persistence of long-term blogging reminds me of artist/gallerist Phil Slein's concept of a "creep," which is just what it sounds like: an organically grown display or exhibit or work of sorts, created by letting objects accrete in a spot over time and take on their own internal logic and form as a set. That's exactly what a good blog is—it may not grow a lot in any given month, but after 10 years, you really have something, if only proof that you were there and thinking all that time.
Andy's also a master of the one-off project—that's a big part of the delight of visiting his blog. Based on his tutorial, for instance, and iterating on that concept, I learned how to have the people of Amazon Mechanical Turk transcribe my interviews, which has freed up hours of my time for other things.
And that makes me think of the talk mathowie gave and posted a month ago—Lessons from a 40-year-old. My husband's just on the other side of 40, so the world view from the other side of the hill, as it were, is something I know pretty well. But thinking about Web projects from that perspective—as a long-term "lifestyle business," as something that's sustainable and adds to the rest of my life, rather than taking my life over—has definitely helped me keep my various small projects going, bit by bit, while also keeping the rest of my life going.
posted by limeonaire at 11:05 AM on April 15, 2012 [2 favorites]
Thanks for the kind words, everybody. I love all of you! Even if I'm not nearly as active here as I was ten years ago, Metafilter continues to inspire me. (Evidence: I cribbed my most recent link, the MADMEN glitch art and amazing explanation by Rhomboid, from Mefi late last night.)
posted by waxpancake at 11:13 AM on April 15, 2012 [9 favorites]
posted by waxpancake at 11:13 AM on April 15, 2012 [9 favorites]
Oh man, I totally forgot about House of Cosbys. Great retrospective of a great site. Thanks Andy!
posted by cyphill at 12:15 PM on April 15, 2012
posted by cyphill at 12:15 PM on April 15, 2012
Wow - I had forgotten about a bunch of those. I think Waxy was one of the first sites I discovered via MeFi that I returned to on a regular basis.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:56 PM on April 15, 2012
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:56 PM on April 15, 2012
Just wanted to add to the pile on-- waxy.org has been a huge source of inspiration for years. (And it has clearly been one for Metafilter!) Looking forward to the next decade.
posted by gwint at 3:00 PM on April 15, 2012
posted by gwint at 3:00 PM on April 15, 2012
I was just reading through some of the archives, and I am once again reminded why we need to fight against copyright trolls... so many of the links to news articles that could have been mirrored are now just gone. So many links going off to 404s because news sites are often *really really bad* at keeping articles longer than a few months. :/
Still a lot of good articles. And stuff that I had forgotten about...
posted by drstein at 3:54 PM on April 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
Still a lot of good articles. And stuff that I had forgotten about...
posted by drstein at 3:54 PM on April 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
Huzzah!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:13 PM on April 15, 2012
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:13 PM on April 15, 2012
Bravo.
posted by johnny novak at 4:02 AM on April 16, 2012
posted by johnny novak at 4:02 AM on April 16, 2012
Good article by Andy on one of his projects: Memeorandum Colors 2012: Visualizing Bias on Political Blogs. I love this tool, it makes Memeorandum much more interesting and useful. I probably knew who had built the add on and why but I had forgotten. This was an interesting piece!
posted by madamjujujive at 3:05 AM on April 18, 2012
posted by madamjujujive at 3:05 AM on April 18, 2012
Oh, Yay! Updated Memeorandum Colors? I was sure that was dead project.
posted by octothorpe at 3:56 AM on April 18, 2012
posted by octothorpe at 3:56 AM on April 18, 2012
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