Best Blog Posts of 2008?

Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Steven Johnson is the author of six books, most recently The Invention Of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth Of America, for which he is currently on book tour. He's also the co-founder of the hyperlocal community site outside.in.

I have the distinct honor of editing this year's edition of Best Of Technology Writing, which has in past years featured many BoingBoing regulars. We're putting together the final submissions, and while we have a great supply of magazine writing to choose from, the blogosphere pile seems a little thin to me. So I thought it might be a nice end-of-year exercise for all of us to think back on the blog posts from 2008 that most intrigued and inspired us. Slightly longer posts will be more likely to make it into the collection, but who knows -- perhaps there's a particularly momentous tweet that deserves a place in the 2009 book. Obviously, posts that originated here at BoingBoing will have a special place in my heart. So feel free to share amongst yourselves in the threads below: what was the most memorable blog post you read last year? Surely, some of you remember last year...?

[#1 posted by Danny Choo, January 25, 2009 1:48 PM]

I'll start things off myself -- I loved this post from Clay last month. Probably too short to include in the book, but it just cracks me up every time I read it:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/08/the-newspaper-indust.html

[#2 posted by TheChickenAndTheRice, January 25, 2009 2:00 PM]

Boingboing's current guest blogger Steven Johnson is the author of six books, most recently The Invention Of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth Of America, for which he is currently on book tour. He's also the co-founder of the hyperlocal community site outside.in.

[#3 posted by jknight, January 25, 2009 2:03 PM]

Best, by far: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/06/12/fox-news-would-like-to-take-a-moment-to-remind-you-that-the-obamas-are-as-black-as-satans-festering-baby-eating-soul/

[#4 posted by Takuan, January 25, 2009 2:16 PM]

ooooooh, toughie.....

[#5 posted by Anonymous, January 25, 2009 2:49 PM]

Since we have kids, follow a lot of our friends family blogs, and this is our favorite of the past year. It so well sums up what having a toddler around is like.

http://maguiremadness-katharine.blogspot.com/2008/09/monday-monday.html

[#6 posted by Antinous / Moderator, January 25, 2009 3:02 PM]

Are these only supposed to be for technology writing?

[#7 posted by Halazoon, January 25, 2009 3:21 PM]

Two posts that really got me thinking that are at least partially technology-related were:

The Steffen piece on the 'Outquisition':
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008208.html

And, if it counts as a blog post, 'The Last Viridian Note':
http://craphound.com/lastviridian.txt

Both of which I discovered via BB.

[#8 posted by Antinous / Moderator, January 25, 2009 3:26 PM]

Grand Theft Auto IV thoughts by our own Joel Johnson. Never before has shooting people in the face seemed so romantic.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, January 25, 2009 4:03 PM]

The Street as Platform
Of White Whales & Dark Energies
How Soil Types Determined the 2008 Election in the Deep South
Repaired Data Drives Restoring the Moon
They Told You Not to Reply
How to Buy Your Own Missile Silo
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus
Comment: Outside is Overrated
The Great Unbundling
Heavy Load-Exerting Concrete Body
Talking to Pirates

[#10 posted by Danny Choo, January 25, 2009 5:05 PM]

Well, for my selfish purposes, I'm interested in technology-themed posts, but I'm loving all the suggestions so no reason not to have this thread open to recommended posts on all topics...

[#11 posted by Anonymous, January 25, 2009 5:50 PM]

Clearly, it's Kermit/Bale.
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/27350111.html

[#12 posted by Antinous / Moderator, January 25, 2009 6:00 PM]

Kermit/Bale is, in and of itself, justification for the existence of the internet.

[#13 posted by travelina, January 25, 2009 6:16 PM]

the story about India's superhighway:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/16/indias-superhighway.html

the photo of a sailfish attacking a school of sardines: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/21/underwater-photos-of.html

the video of the man jumping on eggs without breaking them:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/14/man-jumps-on-eggs-wi.html

the story about the largest ghost mall in the world:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/15/south-china-mall-the.html

the fake bus stop that keeps Alzheimers patients from escaping:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/05/fake-bus-stop-keeps.html

the nudibranch glamour shots: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/14/enchanting-nudibrach.html

the 1955 "My LIfe in Forbidden Lhasa": http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/21/my-life-in-forbidden.html

the strange Polish postcards prank:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/21/outcomes-from-the-st.html

biomimetics: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/10/national-geographic-2.html

Japanese design solutions to ugly barcodes:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/04/japanese-creative-pa.html

China's instant cities:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/03/chinas-instant-citie.html

map clothing art:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/01/map-clothing-art.html

plastic bag animal sculptures on subway gratings:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/31/plastic-bag-animal-s.html

Aussie comedy duo explain subprime meltdown:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/20/aussie-comedy-duo-ex.html

John Stanmeyer's photo feature on malaria:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/20/aussie-comedy-duo-ex.html

the guy who overdubbed his own atrocious guitar playing over Clapton concert: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/20/aussie-comedy-duo-ex.html

L. Ron Hubbard plagiarized Scientology: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/27/l-ron-hubbard-plagia.html

man busted for installing DIY crosswalk:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/02/man-busted-for-insta.html

[#14 posted by Marcelo, January 25, 2009 6:28 PM]

The guy who used Twitter to free his Egyptian driver from prison should get some sort of mention. It's a great story unique to 2008.

[#15 posted by Antinous / Moderator, January 25, 2009 6:46 PM]

Moderator note

If you're newish or anonymous, I recommend one URL per comment to avoid getting sucked into the spam filter.

[#16 posted by arkizzle / Moderator, January 25, 2009 6:53 PM]

Seconding Joel's GTA4 love note.

[#17 posted by afo, January 25, 2009 6:54 PM]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/24/untitled-1.html

[#18 posted by odannyboy, January 25, 2009 6:58 PM]

"I have seen the future of urban life" by Adam Greenfield

[#19 posted by rayven, January 25, 2009 7:11 PM]

@17: Damn, AFO beat me to it. LOL
It may not be the best, but it sure was most memorable.

[#20 posted by ridl, January 25, 2009 8:00 PM]

For Techie writing? Something from Infomercia, please.

[#21 posted by arkizzle / Moderator, January 25, 2009 8:07 PM]

AFO and Rayven FTW!

I didn't even think of it :)

[#22 posted by Trevor Stone, January 25, 2009 8:49 PM]

Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign Gets Ugly

Tracking the original down took a while. Seems every D&D fan with a blog reposted the whole thing without proper attribution.

[#23 posted by deantak, January 25, 2009 8:55 PM]

I'd like to submit my own six-part story on the history of Microsoft's Xbox 360 defects, which resulted in a $1.1 billion write-off. Our story chronicled the inside story that no one knew.

http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/

[#24 posted by musicman, January 25, 2009 9:54 PM]

+1 for Mark's efforts in psychedelic exploration that is "untitled" as mentioned by AFO@17. boingboing goes 4chan-esque, the happy mutants respond superlatively.

[#25 posted by montauk, January 25, 2009 9:58 PM]

It probably doesn't count because it's a vlog post, but Shamus Young's piece on how video games inadvertently punish new beginners (such as myself) has meant a lot to me. I'm sure he could supply a transcript.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2048

[#26 posted by robulus, January 25, 2009 11:48 PM]

Phoenix's final twitter from Mars.

http://twitter.com/Marsphoenix

[#27 posted by Paul Charteris, January 26, 2009 1:16 AM]

You probably already have this one - but the hole found in the Internet article via Wired Magazine was great...

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-12/ff_kaminsky?currentPage=all

[#28 posted by acipolone, January 26, 2009 6:45 AM]

If it doesn't have to be technology-related, this one still has me laughing.

http://somehedgehog.livejournal.com/245807.html

[#29 posted by Patrick Dodds , January 26, 2009 11:27 AM]

The comments thread on the post ^upstairs deserves a mention.

[#30 posted by mdh, January 26, 2009 12:12 PM]

I think the first twitter sent out by a fetal-monitor belt was probably more momentous than it first appeared. At the very least it's the youngest blogger?

[#31 posted by Anonymous, January 26, 2009 1:55 PM]

Oh, this is easy. Here it is:

http://fyngyrz.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/on-privacy/

That post utterly destroys the government's 4th amendment shenanigans, provides a framework for understanding privacy, manages to be funny and absolutely correct all at the same time.