Every now and then I like to take a step back from the HTS syllabus and make sure that my readers have a good background in the classics. I’m constantly depressed about the fact that I went all the way through high school and college—majoring in English, no less—without ever cracking open Moby Dick. Thus, I want to make sure that, as a Professor of Websites, I never fail my students in the unique way that my (otherwise exemplary) tutors failed me.
So, for those not in the know, allow me to introduce you to BoingBoing: A Directory of Wonderful Things. The site gets around 2 million page views a day, and is the most-linked-to site on the Internet, according to Technorati. And, if you’re an Internet obsessive who knows there’s endless amounts of useless knowledge out there just waiting to be absorbed, but don’t have the time to surf your life away, BoingBoing is the answer to your prayers.
The brainchild of a few California-based tech nerds who got to know each other through their various affiliations with Wired Magazine, BoingBoing scours the Web each day. Its webmasters then post the very best of the strange, the beautiful, the thought-provoking, the silly, the clever, the important and the genius from blogs and websites the world over.
For example, a recent visit to BoingBoing alerted me to the existence of a Flickr page of vintage children’s product packaging, a San Francisco art event in which people could have their art silk-screened onto tortillas in edible ink, a pending bill in Zimbabwe which would allow every government minister and his brother access to citizens’ private e-mails, and a fake half-suit you can buy if you like to teleconference, but can’t afford those darned expensive pants.
But what I really love about BoingBoing—aside from the fact that it does my work for me—is that it is evidence of a mind at work. It’s a lively mind, an engaged mind, a mind that’s constantly learning, a mind to which I aspire.
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