A Oscar Screener Pirating Stats Compiler Looks at 20

April 15, 2022 5:46 PM

Waxy.org, the slightly younger blog compatriat of actual elder websites like MetaFilter, turned 20 years old yesterday. Run by MetaFilter's own waxpancake aka Andy (absolutely no relation) Baio, Waxy has been a font of interesting links for longer than most of the people on TikTok have been alive, and remains a valuable and likable roundup of web and internet weirdness to this very day. (Hi, Andy.)
posted by cortex (8 comments total)

I first met Andy back in the glory days of the early blogosphere. I noticed this guy kept writing about the same things I thought were interesting and wrote him an email saying "who are you we should know each other". Social media back when you had to work for it.

I'll shout out a specific part of Andy's blog that I love, his link collection. It's one of the oldest continuing linkblogs, a venerable and now mostly lost form of blogging related to social bookmarking or tweeting links. It's a consistently interesting collection of things to read.

Andy also runs belong.io which is a little link a linkblog, or more like a "top links for the day" site. Again full of interesting stuff thanks to the collection of sources that Andy draws from.
posted by Nelson at 5:59 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Okay, well, gee, I don't think I've read ANY of these and so far I think I want to read pretty much all of them.

This is a fantastic collection of interesting thoughts, and I am really looking forward to actually reading them.

(Say, cortex, do you have, like, a Tardis or time machine handy so I can find myself the TIME to read all of these?)

I kind of mildly disagree with him that blogs are dead, but that's because I am an idiosyncratic person reading the internet in an idiosyncratic way - I mostly read blogs. I just revisited Wil Wheaton's blog today after learning about his new book, which I found out about on John Scalzi's blog.

And now I have another new (to me) blog to read.

Thanks so much for posting this, cortex! I have been vaguely aware of Andy, but I'm really looking forward to reading his blog and learning about his many fascinating projects.
posted by kristi at 6:09 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Who is this cat and how did he get stuck in his website?
posted by srboisvert at 6:09 PM on April 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

I read this, sent a friend the Suck.com interviews, and attempted to download the Suck.com archives. (No luck yet.)
posted by Pronoiac at 6:13 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I check his site daily. I found MetaFilter through his site. Thanks, Andy. Thandy.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:25 PM on April 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

I should say that I have in this post declined to mention the huge, huge impact that Andy (and Andy McMillan) have had on my life by running the currently-on-necessary-hiatus XOXO Fest in relatively recent years. The pandemic has put a big obstacle in the way of that, which is both heartbreaking and utterly understandable, but it's been the closest thing to a physical reification of the spirit of MetaFilter I've ever experienced and I'm endlessly glad for it.

(Say, cortex, do you have, like, a Tardis or time machine handy so I can find myself the TIME to read all of these?)

There is no shortcut here other than pure cussedness and a willingness to carve out erstwhile doomscrolling time.
posted by cortex at 6:27 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Andy is an internet treasure. Here's to another 20 years! xo
posted by gwint at 7:15 PM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Aw, thank you all so much.
posted by waxpancake at 12:06 PM on April 17, 2022 [6 favorites]