Boing Boing’s Five Year in Blogging

Just found out Boing Boing’s recent post named “Five Years Worth of Boing Boing Post in one File on Jan 21, 2005.

years since Mark posted the very first post on the Boing Boing blog. In that time, we’ve posted a little more than 17,000 stories and entries here. To celebrate our first half-decade as a blog, we’ve put together a single html file containing 17,000+ posts (every post as of yesterday mid-day) in Movable Type export format. The whole file is released under a Creative Commons license that allows you to noncommerically remix and distribute it in whole or in part — go crazy

Yes. They are crazy! The happiness they got in the last five years well compensated the effort they spent in five years of blogging. They may be happier when more people “use”, “display” their work. Well. I am thinking of doing the same after five years of blogging – I believe it can be either a valuable guide for Shanghai (if everything does not change much) or a complete Shanghai history archive (if everything changed a lot)…

Boing Boing demoed how keep doing the same thing (the right thing) over a very long perioid of time makes a big difference. They aggregated so many interesting things. Many of them made me laugh out loud. Their recent entry on Pillow Fighting is a great example. Maybe we play the game in Shanghai some day?

Boing Boing always share “wonderful” things, often, funny things around the world. It is interesting. It may be a good idea to share more interesting things (instead of serious things) in Shanghai on this blog.

Recently, on one post, I got some suggestions that I need to post some big events in Shanghai, instead of just daily life. Big events like Shen6 or National Day. I still insist that if it is not something that directly or indirectly affects my life, I may provide in-accurate information because what I am writing is what I “heard” instead of what I see. What I can confirm is a piece of news is on my TV set only, because I cannot confirm the real thing behind the report.

P.S. Talk with Two Interesting People

Today, during a chat with CEO Tixa.com, Zhang Xiang Ning, who successfully launched http://www.net.cn about 5 years ago (it is the largest domain registration, and SME Internet solution). He now runs NarrowAd (something like Google Adsense) and Enterprise Switchboard – call 95001000 and switch to enterprise phone… A very experienced entrepreneur over the Internet history. He is a very wise guy. I enjoyed his sharing of Internet development very much.

Wang Jian Jun, the Senior VP of Sohu told another story. He reminded me that when Sohu just launched, its name was http://sohoo.com, a replica of http://yahoo.com. At that time, search was not a big business, so it has to switch to portal. The other one, Sina.com.cn was a big BBS at the very beginning and now it is a large portal. Finally Netease’s first business is personal homepage, like blogging today, and finally, it was turned to a portal. The conclusion is, web 2.0 application was not popular when users were not ready, but now doing the same thing can be popular. It is very good analysis.

11 thoughts on “Boing Boing’s Five Year in Blogging

  1. No doubt WahJooSle will definitely be a worldwide success, the Chinese Internet Icon the whole world will subscribe to, don’t let anyone say otherwise.

  2. Jian Shuo, I completely agree that one great value of your blog is the personal perspective you are able to give on issues of a broader nature. I first “found” you back when the SARS epidemic was causing world-wide concern. By reading your personal stories about conversations you had with taxi drivers and others in Shanghai during that period, I was able to form a much better understanding of what was actually going on “behind” the official news stories. It was very helpful to be able to find information of this sort that I would not have had access to otherwise since I didn’t know anyone personally who lives there. My husband still remembers the day I was reading your blog and suddenly said “Hey, it’s snowing in Shanghai right now!”. And who else would we have been able to follow from Starbucks to Starbucks in such a big city? :-) But the most important reason to keep it personal is that you enjoy writing that way! So, thanks for being you — it certainly works for me!!

  3. Dear Jianshuo, your criterion on choosing blog topics sounds very reasonable to me, yet i’m curious about how do you distinguish things that affect your life and things that do not. I mean, apparently this is a very precious talent because i would have saved so much time if i’m able to do so.

    Also i noticed that the byline of your blog reads “Events (in Shanghai) that affect my life (and others’)”. You might want to revise it a little bit because, as you can see, things like Shenzhou 6 and Chinese National Day certainly affect life of some others.

  4. Don’t get confused. Anyway, it is just my personal blog that I choose the topics that I think is interesting. There is no strict rule about the topic selection – what a boring task it will be if I have to define something in advance and execute the plan. I love to share what is interesting in my life. So, the rule is, there is no strict rule.

  5. Shadow Hills will go down in Insurance History

    (Los Angeles, CA: November 6, 2005) Wolfgang Keller doesn’t know where to start. He’s been in the US for some time, working as a practitioner of Scientology technology from his Shadow Hills home. “It is a universal form of spiritual counseling” he says.

    Keller and his fellow Scientologists believe that many of earth’s problems are due to periodic incursions by members of so-called invader forces. Even though details are restricted to those privy to Scientology’s higher teachings, Keller’s daughter, Iris, says that they are “evil alien beings, all they do is cause problems” and she is quite certain that they are responsible not only for unrest in the Middle East but also dropped cell phone calls and missing socks.

    Keller, who trained as an engineer in Germany after the war, had built a high powered transmitter behind his house. For several years, he had been trying to communicate with the invader forces in an attempt to make peace. “Someone had to do it” he says, and “since I was trained in the highest levels of Scientology, I was well qualified” he adds.

    In July he picked up signals indicating that representatives of the invader forces had agreed to a meeting. “You can imagine that we did not know what to think” said Keller’s other daughter, Maya.

    The family and other staff member’s of Keller’s business, ARCTEAM worked around the clock to prepare. Even though they believed the invaders had good intentions, they were ready for trouble. Keller made sure everyone was equipped with a “Theta Tone.” Even though access to these is normally restricted to Scientologists, Keller explained that these devices have been used for thousands of centuries to defeat the various invaders.

    After the preparation, the waiting.

    On the morning of November 5th, Keller’s family was awakened by a loud purring noise. Hovering over the house in Shadow Hills was a blinker. A blinker, in Scientology teaching, is a cat-like alien that can fly and teleport. They are also believed to be very, very dangerous. Scientology teaches that the Egyptians used blinkers to conquer other kingdoms, and that the Tunguska explosion was caused by blinker “kittens” at play.

    Keller’s family greeted the blinker. But there was trouble almost immediately. The blinker knocked down a row of trees behind the Keller home. Keller ordered everyone to get away, and he headed to his basement.

    The blinker fired some kind of rays from its eyes and did considerable damage to the Keller home. Young Iris Keller caught this with her camera before getting away. “I will never forget it as long as I live” she said. “People make fun of what we believe, but that thing was here and attacked us.”

    Keller tried to raise a protective field around the area with theta tones, but it did not work. He also placed a frantic call to Scientology’s Flag headquarters. He was placed on hold.

    Keller’s family fled to nearby Sunland and alerted authorities. By the time they arrived, all they found was rubble. Keller was safe in a basement bunker, and was briefly hospitalized for observation and then released. Reports that Keller was singing the “Horst Wessel Lied,” often associated with Nazi Germany could not be confirmed, although it is known that some of Keller’s teachers had worked on the V-2 and other similar projects.

    Sunland Police Captain Danny Harris says “it looks like Iraq up there,” referring to the hill where Keller’s home stood. “There was nothing we could do” stated Fire Marshall Ed McEvans.

    Keller says he will rebuild. He has already spoken to his insurers and they are understandably skeptical. “It is not every day your house gets burned down by laser eyed cats” he says. “I am treating it as a fire” he continues, but admits that he is not sure what they will do.

    Keller also plans to talk to Scientology leadership. “We were told we had the tech to fight them” he says. “I have paid a lot of money for training and look what happened” he adds, looking around at the rubble. “I will talk to David Miscavige in person” Keller stated emphatically. “He is L. Ron Hubbard’s successor, and he will have an answer.”

  6. Ohh, shit man, Scientology is even more dangerous than Amway here !!!

    It’s just fake religions !

    We have had that garbage philosophy for years in western countries,

    but please ————- KEEP IT OUT OF CHINA !

  7. I know some of you remember me because I still get emails. I guess

    maybe it is a cosmic coincidence that I am posting this today!

    I’m the guy with the delivery company–a couple of my guys parked

    near the Dupont Scientology place, and the Scientologists went

    crazy when they mentioned blinkers. The Scientologists have been

    hassling me ever since then.

    Well guess what I did? I went to that Scientology place on Monday

    afternoon.

    I took the metro as I know parking is a pain around there.

    I ignored the people outside, walked in like I had business there.

    A young man asked if he could help me. I told him who I was and

    that I wanted to talk to someone in charge. His eyes got very big,

    but he stayed calm. He asked me to have a seat and wait.

    I sat and waited. I have to tell you that they have a very nice

    place. I think it used to be a house. Someone obviously spent a

    lot of money on it.

    Well a woman came out and asked me to come with her. We went into

    a little office.

    She introduced herself, I won’t give the name though.

    By the way, I brought a yellow pad and made it clear I was going

    to take notes.

    I told her I wanted the harassment to stop. I layed out what had

    happened, that they had been calling truck companies and had shown

    up when I was doing a pickup and told the people there my company

    was a bunch of religious bigots.

    I told her as far as I knew the word blinker was the common term

    for the flashing lights on a truck.

    I told her that hassling a small business over a word is

    ridiculous, and that if we could come to some kind of

    understanding I’d have to find another solution. I had thought

    about taking the two guys with me but then I thought they might

    have thought we’d get violent.

    She said she’d wished I’d made an appointment. I told her maybe

    THEY should have made an appointment instead of just showing up

    and hassling me. I also told her that I did look on their website

    and it was not clear how to make appointments.

    She asked me what I knew about blinkers and I asked her if she

    meant not the truck kind and she said yes. I told her I had looked

    on the web and it said that they were teleporting cats and that

    they were either made from cat dna or that their dna was the basis

    of cats. It also said that these cats are part of the invaders

    that are part of Scientology religion.

    She said that there are many advanced teachings in Scientology.

    She asked me what religion I was and I would not tell her. She

    asked why and I told her I was there to get to the bottom of this

    and not to tell her my life story. She asked if I knew what was

    meant by a religion having advanced teachings. I told her not

    really.

    She said in Scientology people come in at the level of preclear

    and move up the bridge. She showed me a picture of this bridge,

    there are many steps along the way to something called the OT

    levels. She said that OT is Operating Thetan and is the highest

    level.

    She said along the way you have to learn various things and that

    L. Ron Hubbard designed the bridge so you learned things as you

    needed to learn them.

    I asked her what the harm was in accidentally learning something

    early–like learning about the blinkers.

    She said and was very serious that there were cases where people

    had learned things early and been harmed. She told me there was a

    court case where some other things had been leaked and they took

    steps to protect the judge who reviewed the leaked papers.

    She also said that there are people who stole Scientology

    materials and use them in something called the Free Zone. She said

    that this violates the Scientology copyright. She told me that I

    should have made an appointment with something called the

    Religious Technology Center in Los Angeles but that since I was

    not a Scientologist I might not have understood the web site. I

    told her I did not know what that was and was certainly not going

    to go to Los Angeles for no reason.

    She said that the Religious Technology Center protects

    Scientology’s copyrights and makes sure that the material is used

    as it was designed. I asked if it was like quality control and she

    said yes. She said that Scientology is very precise and gets

    results if it is applied as designed. I told her that made sense

    but where was the harm in knowing about these blinker cats. In

    fact, I told her, the guys on the truck did not even know that the

    word blinker had anything at all to do with Scientology and that

    maybe they should use less common words for such sensitive things.

    She told me that she had no control over what things were called

    that everything was based on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard.

    I said well it is a good thing Hubbard didn’t decide that the word

    mover is not some other kind of monster or I’d be in even more

    trouble. I don’t think she got the joke. She repeated what she

    said about Hubbard’s writings.

    I said well OK what happens now. I said you are harassing me for

    what, because we parked near you, that’s our right and because

    someone said blinker? I think that’s legal too.

    She said that we did not have a parking permit. I told her we did

    not need one. I told her I’d been in the business for quite a

    while, I know what permits I need. I also told her that if we had

    a permit violation, DC should deal with us and not her and that it

    had nothing to do with bigotry or religious secrets.

    I told her that they have a special meaning for the word clear, is

    it a problem if we say something is not clear or that glass is

    clear? She said no as clear is not part of an advanced teaching. I

    said that’s nuts, how are people who are not Scientologists

    supposed to know all of this? I said you are hassling my business

    because someone said blinker. I said Catholics would not get upset

    if we said cross or mass outside a church and Jews would not get

    upset if you said pass over.

    She said, and I’m not kidding, that this was one good reason to

    study Scientology. I said why, so people won’t break some odd

    rule? I told her that certain things were obviously offensive to

    different religions but they were pretty well known. I also told

    her I thought it was pretty rare for a religion to hassle someone

    over something so minor.

    Then she said well you posted this story of yours on the Internet.

    She said you mentioned the blinkers. I said well yes I did as the

    last time I checked America still had free speech. I told her they

    post all kinds of stuff on the Internet and why are they better

    than me.

    She said well we don’t post other religions’ advanced teachings or

    make fun of them. I told her that if I’m making fun of anything at

    all I’m making fun of their intolerance of the use of a common

    word in its usual meaning. I told her that if there’s any bigotry

    going on it is against what seems to be some pretty serious

    stupidity. I told her they had hassled me way more than I had

    hassled them if I had even hassled them at all. I told her as far

    as I knew no one had had any problems from hearing us say

    blinkers. I asked her what would happen if a Scientologist went to

    the store and someone said they had left their blinkers on and

    they happened to hear it.

    I asked her why, if this word is so dangerous or whatever that

    something hasn’t happened before. I asked her why if these cats

    exist why hadn’t the government done something about them.

    At this point she said something about governments suppressing

    Scientology but I interrupted her and just kept going.

    I told her I could have lived the rest of my life and not had a

    clue about these flying space cats if this had not happened. I

    told her that there are lots of moves and deliveries in her area

    and that they should be used to seeing this by now. I told her

    that when all of the stuff for this building got moved in that

    someone must have parked nearby to move it.

    I told her I’d had it. I told her she was costing me money and my

    employees did not like being hassled and followed. I reminded her

    that I was taking notes and that I was most certainly going to

    post about the meeting. I told her if she had anything to say she

    had better get with it and say it as I’d heard about enough about

    parking permits and dangerous advanced teachings.

    She asked if the comment about dangerous advanced teachings was

    making fun of Scientology and I said well maybe a little. I told

    her I’d been using the word for years and nothing had happened. I

    told her that I’d accept that they had advanced teaching but did

    not see how they could be dangerous. I asked her if she could give

    me any evidence of this danger and she said the danger was there

    but she was not allowed to give me an examples.

    I said well that’s about it, what are you going to do about this?

    I told her I was really upset and since the problem started here

    in this building that’s where I’d come back to.

    She asked me to wait outside while she made a phone call. I said

    maybe a conference call would be best and she said no. She said

    she would make a call and that she would have an answer for me at

    the end of the call.

    So I wandered around the lobby for about twenty minutes. I thought

    they would watch me but if they were it was through hidden

    cameras. But maybe not, as another woman came up and asked if she

    could help me and I told her I was in a meeting with the other

    woman, they do not seem to be all that organized, and there were a

    lot of people wandering around in there.

    Well she came back out and asked me to come back into the office.

    She said she had been talking to people at the Religious

    Technology Center about me. She said the disclosure of the

    advanced teaching about blinkers was recent and a major concern of

    theirs. She said it was a policy order that anyone not in good

    standing and disseminating data about blinkers was subject to a

    suppressive person declaration. That’s pretty much what she said

    and yes I did ask her what it meant.

    She said that it meant that in order to control the flow of

    information about advanced teachings that persons doing so without

    authorization were declared as suppressive. I told her I was not

    suppressing anything. She said that I was suppressing Scientology.

    I said well what happens now.

    She said there were various procedures. She said I really should

    consider becoming a Scientologist in good standing as that would

    be the easiest way to get the suppressive declare revoked. I said

    I was not about to convert to her religion over this. She said

    then I needed to go ahead and make amends in the form of overts

    and withholds although she said it is hard to do this if you are

    not a Scientologist.

    I told her I was having nothing to do with their rules and

    procedures. I said you people are after me because we parked near

    your building and used a common word which you think is some

    secret religious code word or something. She said that ever since

    the first disclosure of the blinker teaching there had been a lot

    of calls into Scientology about it.

    I told her I had nothing to with the discovery of this teaching. I

    said if it is so secret then how did someone find out about it.

    She said well sometimes people steal documents and leak them. She

    said in this case it seems someone had bought confidential

    documents at a garage sale. She said this person posted about the

    blinkers and other things.

    She said that this person then sold the documents to a known

    suppressive person even though they offered her a fair price for

    the documents.

    Now I will be honest and say that by now I know about that but did

    not know about it before. I told her. She said well see that’s the

    problem. People talk about these teachings and it causes problems.

    I said well you caused this problem. If you had not been taking

    pictures of my guys and then having a fit when one of them said

    blinker none of this ever would have happened.

    She said people come and protest there and expose teachings. She

    showed me some pictures of people with picket signs that looked

    like aliens. She said the alien signs were making fun of other

    advanced teachings. She said she had seen the blinker pictures on

    the internet and it was more of the same. I said well I never made

    any blinker pictures.

    She told me that the Religious Technology Center had told her that

    they could arrange a special price if everyone in my company would

    at least do some basic processing. I said I am not going to

    convert over this and it is illegal for me to even suggest it to

    my employees.

    Then she started telling me that Scientology is compatible with

    all other religions and you really don’t have to convert if you

    don’t want to. I told her it would still be illegal for me to even

    suggest any kind of religious training or whatever it is to my

    employees. She said that the suppressive person declaration

    applies to all of you and it is your choice of what to do.

    I stood up. I told her well it is my choice to post something

    about this meeting to the internet. I told her that if you keep

    messing with me I will find some way to deal with it. I told her

    that if they want to believe in aliens and flying cats with alien

    dna and so on it is fine but when a guy talks about blinkers on a

    truck it is no big deal.

    I told her that if it did not cost so much to repaint the trucks

    I’d rename the company Blinker Van Lines. She had an obvious

    nervous reaction to this!

    So I’ll keep you good people informed. I’m still not giving out

    the the name of the company but I do appreciate all of the good

    wishes. But if you see an ad for a blinker special you will know

    it is me!

  8. Scientology_Bad, cut the crab, ok ?

    As 80.000.000 chinese knows, FalunGong has been judged illegal here so make it short then, if you have a reasonable statement, please.

  9. My peeve for literally years has been the lack of good information on the bad people in our communities.

    So I did something about it.

    I created the website http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org

    It has been out there for some time but given the sorry state of the world and the ever growing number of terrorists on every corner I thought I would let you know about it.

    Hardly a day goes by that it is not voted either the most useful or the most ethical site on the internet.

    If you wonder if the new girl at your office is a Jihad cell extremist, this site will tell you.

    You know that guy, you always seem to see at the market? Is it possible he is a child molestor? Well, this site will tell you. Why not look him up just to be sure?

    Don’t be surprised if I tell you this site is the one used by the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security as well as media to check things. Major airlines express thanks daily that we are there to keep the next group of 9-11 suicide Muslims off their flights. Even though I think religious freedom is important this whole business of Extreme Jihadist Islam is one of the major issues we are facing in the 21st century. I am trying to do something about it!

    Now this site is free and it always will be. My company is American Coast Title and it is very profitable. We pay all of the fees for this site and keep it up to date. Not long ago the site helped a special task force capture wanted terrorist and fugitive bomb maker and grave robber Keith Henson!

    Did you know that some of these terrorist types are also depraved sexually? Just look at Carnegie Mellon professor Dave Touretzky. He does some kind of experiments using sex toys. The site will give you the details of orders he places using the University’s own letterhead! He is a good friend of Patricia Greenway who makes documentary hate films. Word is she has been involved in some of his sexual experimenting. Last but not least is Pamela Lichtenwalner. She is a girl’s gym coach in San Diego. She teaches sexual education classes. Word is that she has used a film made by Greenway and a text written by Touretzky. But did it have the School Board approval? This is something, we want to find out!

    It is a matter of public record that Extreme Jihadist Islam promotes perversion. A successful terrorist is guaranteed a special house in Islamic heaven with 172 beautiful virgins. It was with the help of the http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org site that the FBI learned that the 9-11 suicide Muslims were getting prostitutes the night before. Just remember that this is a free community service and that the site will never ask for a donation.

    I do need your help but I will pay for it.

    This is my problem and it is a big one! A bunch of Indonesians are attacking me. I am offering a substantial reward, paid once again by the company, for your help in finding and stopping these zealots.

    You can see the details on the reward section of the site. You can also email me at jphillips@actfortitle.com or also mlundgren@actfortitle.com or also dhatchett@actfortitle.com or also fberriz@actfortitle.com or also ccelaya@actfortitle.com or also cbryant@actfortitle.com or also or also nvong@actfortitle.com or also the actual reward email itself reward5000@earthlink.net

    Help us stop these guys and put some clean cash in your pocket!

    Joel Phillips

    PUBLISHER of http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org and OWNER of American Coast Title

    By the way professionals in my industry or any other for that reason are free to contact me if they do not believe that I am the one who put up this site as a free public community resource!!

    The underwriter of American Coast Title is Stewart Title. They support this 100% as do the other owners of American Coast Title who are Frank Berriz and Linda Blood. They all offer up particular support for the part about the need to put Extreme Jihad Islam under full government control which of course includes expulsion and special lockdowns.

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