Friday, January 30, 2009

Gong Xi Fa Cai, reddit! May none of your oxen die when you ford the river

Happy new year! I've always believed people who celebrate both the Chinese and the modern Gregorian new year are doing something right. So while you're enjoying your baked nian gao, wearing your awesome Chinese t-shirt, and reading reddit, remember that our reddit ox is wishing you a happy and healthy new year.

reddit now powered by jQuery

We're happy to announce that reddit is now powered by jQuery.

If everything has been done correctly, you shouldn't notice any change to the site whatsoever, but we've got some cool new features in mind and we know that jQuery is going to make writing them considerably more pleasant.

We had the pleasure of meeting John Resig through Y Combinator and now you all can enjoy his Ajax-goodness while redditing. No he does not wear the Devo hat in public.

We can neither confirm nor deny that he wears it in private.

BestVlogEver.com launches, the vlogging world will never be the same

So, you love vlogs and all-things-vlogging, but you've never had the perfect destination to discover only the best?

Enter, BestVlogEver.com. (As always, you can still view it reddit-style @ vlogging.reddit.com)

We're just getting this community off the ground, as opposed to some of our earlier relaunches (e.g., BaconBuzz already had a vibrant and bacon-rich community) so now you can put all the time spent on YouTube toward earning karma. The Internet's most prolific narcissists now have a place to battle for the title of best vlog ever.

Seriously, though, for every Chris Crocker, there's something like Alive in Baghdad. OK, there are far more Chris Crockers, but there's some tremendous citizen journalism going on thanks to mechanisms like YouTube and the Internet in general. Even if it's 100 emo kids complaining about how misunderstood they are, if that same technology enables just 1 of the formerly voiceless to get her story to a global audience, it's progress.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

There is nothing unholy about alien and cat love

Sockington, the Internet's most famous cat, is apparently a fan of reddit (or is he just waiting to pounce?). I had the pleasure of introducing his owner, Jason Scott, at this past ROFLThing.

After vividly, very vividly, describing his last experience being reddit'd, I had no choice but to award him the reddit bobblehead I'd brought to protect me during my co-hosting. You can be sure a kit of LOLmagnetz is on its way to the Socks compound. Though I think it's only a matter of time before we get a ransom note signed with a paw print with the severed ear of our alien mascot.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

zombies redditors to Interview "The Living Dead" editor, and all around Zombie & Sci-Fi Guru John Joseph Adams

There's only one logical way to follow up an interview with atheist activist Dan Barker (there's still time to ask your questions btw) and that's with a [zombies] interview. John Joseph Adams has generously agreed to share some of his time with us, so ask him your questions here. He'll respond to the top questions (via webcam if possible).

John Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, Seeds of Change, and The Living Dead. He is also the assistant editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

He has written reviews for Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show and is the print news correspondent for SCI FI Wire (the news service of the SCI FI Channel). His non-fiction has also appeared in: Amazing Stories, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Locus Magazine, Novel & Short Story Writers Market, Science Fiction Weekly, Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, and Writer’s Digest.

He has covered a broad spectrum of zombie fiction, ranging from Romero-style zombies to reanimated corpses to voodoo zombies and beyond. So, redditors bring your big league braaaaiiins to bear on the best question creation. If you're looking for some inspiration try John Joseph Adam's Introduction to The Living Dead.

Who should redditors interview next? Let me know. We'll make it happen, or get a restraining order trying.

TheCuteList is renaming another orphaned kitteh

Last time was such a success, TheCuteList is hosting another naming contest. Our contestant is from the SF SPCA and is looking for a home. The highest scoring name (must be family-friendly) in this comment thread by noon Pacific on Feb. 4th will be Sao Sao Mao's new name. Oh, and a bobblehead will go to the human who successfully named her.

Sao Sao Mao, according to her friends:
view her profile | rename this kitteh!
Sao Sao Mao is like most 10 year old black cats that wind up in a shelter, completely overlooked. She was handed over to an SFSPCA employee outside the shelter in a moment of desperation…perhaps a victim of the mortgage crisis? Her name was the only information passed along with her. What stands out about her is her gentle demeanor and unique set of fangs that reveal themselves when she says hello. Sao Sao Mao has been with the SFSPCA since Dec 9th. She enjoys gentle attention and quiet conversations while curling up on your lap, maybe next to a heater? This furry love vampire is going to suck you dry.

Monday, January 26, 2009

reddit & crochet: Together at last!

It was only a matter of time.

A redditor named Sithsteen created the world's first crochet reddit alien. The crochet.reddit was in awe.

The discussion on reddit quickly left the art of crochet, but the community was nonetheless affected by this find piece of craftsmanship. If only the eyes were orangered (#FF4500) it'd be perfect, but perhaps Sithsteen -- like the ancients who believed only their gods were capable of perfection -- intentionally used black eyes.

Either way, fellow redditor, you've just earned a bobblehead to keep your new, much softer alien company.


View the original flickr photo

Friday, January 23, 2009

redditors to Interview Minister-Turned-Atheist Dan Barker

In the tradition of David Frost, George Plimpton, Nashville Now's Ralph Emery, and the Slashdot interviews, reddit brings you the chance to interview some of the magnetic people who've made news here on reddit.

To start things off, we have lined up prominent American atheist activist, Dan Barker. He is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which you might recognize from their recent "Imagine No Religion" billboard campaign in San Francisco among other activities. He served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years, but left Christianity in 1984 and authored the recent book Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (foreward by Richard Dawkins).

Submit your questions here, and Mr. Barker will check in to answer the most popular ones in one week. If you're seeking (non-divine) inspiration for the perfect question to submit, check out Dan Barker's writings, his full bio, or the latest headlines in the [Atheism] reddit.

We hope this is the first of many such interviews, so if you have an idea for a fun and enlightening interviewee hit up erik, and we'll make it happen or get arrested trying.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Zombie Debate is Settled: Real Zombies Are Slow


image credit: the talented Felix LaFlamme
This was an open poll, but we benefited quite a bit from the insights of the Zombies.reddit community. For that we are grateful.

The results were staggeringly one-sided:

Slow: 237 (70%)
Fast: 98 (29%)

Real zombies are slow, but they're both only going to be stopped by aiming for the head. Always aim for the head, I cannot stress this enough.

And to my fellow Americans, happy Martin Luther King day. I believe building zombie survival kits for your community, when combined with mapping escape routes, counts as work toward this day of service.

You've decided: here are the 2008 reddit award winners

We can't all be winners, but thanks to everyone who voted, these 8 are:
We'd initially planned on awarding gold spray-painted bobbleheads to the redditors responsible for each winner, but thanks to the help of Brawndo/SexPanther (how often does one get to write "thanks to the help of Brawndo/SexPanther"?) it looks like these bobbles will be covered in real bling...

Thursday, January 15, 2009

reddit wants your inauguration day video stories

As we near the inauguration next week, we want to facilitate appropriate documenting of this historic event. So, reddit will be teaming up with remix kings, Eclectic Method to create an historic remix of your inauguration day videos. You might recognize Eclectic Method from their recent dance remix of Stephen Colbert & Lawrence Lessig.



Record your inauguration day experience, activities, thoughts, parties, moments, etc., share them with your reddit family, and then Eclectic Method will take all of that and create one inauguration video dance remix to rule them all. This remix will be made available for downloading here, as well as CPR a news remix program produced by Eclectic Method and Dark Igloo.

To participate, we invite redditors all over the world to:
1. Upload your video to youtube or your favorite video site
2. Submit the video URL to [Inauguration]
3. Upload your raw video files to a free file host or FTP (filesavr.com works well for us)
4. Add the URL of your raw file in the comments of your post and/or send to erik
5. Comment, response, remix other videos, remix the remix, etc., show to the grandkids in 2049*.

*On their hoverpack HUDs of course

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

This LEGO creation is alien-approved

We've seen aliens in a lot of forms, but never constructed from the greatest building blocks ever. A redditor named ChantryChantry presented this masterpiece to the community earlier in the week. He'll be getting a bobblehead for his work -- it will undoubtedly pale in comparison beside his behemoth LEGO creation, though.

Not surprisingly, it did rather well on reddit.

And a nifty tutorial from anoved popped up on Flickr.


I'm looking forward to unearthing my old kits and building this, even if I have to use LEGO Dragon Master Fire Breathing Fortress pieces.

Friday, January 09, 2009

reddit 2008 retrospecticus: choose the best of 08 award winners

2008 was an exciting year, we open-sourced reddit, let you create your own reddits & restyle them, gave away $7500 in prizes, tried to create a TV show, and kicked off our FEEDaNEED project, which was really just a way for us to better leverage the strongest asset of reddit -- the one that delivered a crowbar to Gordon Freeman and helped a few pets get adopted -- our community.

Oh, and we ate bacon, too.

All this doesn't even begin to cover everything that's gone on within the reddit community, which has more than doubled in the last year. Our team has only grown from 4 to a mighty 6.5, so we can't catch all the goings on. Fortunately, there's bestof.reddit for that.

But the start of a new year is a time for reflection. Flyryan, an avid redditor and excellent Vegas party host, suggested we have Best of '08 Awards. They'd be like People's Choice Awards only with less suck and only slightly less relevant. Winners will get a gold* reddit alien.

Submit and vote in the following categories. Winners will be chosen from the comment (nominee) with the highest score at noon Eastern on January 16th:

*Not real gold, or even gold-plated -- bobbleheads are a more sound investment, anyway.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

George W. Bush Finally Wins Your Vote

It's official. George W. Bush is the Dick of the Year, and it wasn't even close. Judging by the votes in the contest with our friends at 23/6 and Dickipedia, W looks to be a first ballot Dick of The Decade as well. Sure it's cliche, but as quixoto aptly said, "that's also like saying it's a cliche to pick The Godfather or Citizen Kane as the best American movie."

Here's the rest of the Top Ten Dicks of 2008 as chosen by you:

2. Dick Cheney
3. Bill O'Reilly
4. Sarah Palin
5. Prop 8 supporters
6. Ann Coulter
7. Robert Mugabe
8. Joe the Plumber
9. Rod Blagojevich
10. Henry Paulson

Wow. What a banner year for Dicks. 2008 may go down as the 1984 draft of professional Dickness (BTW that makes Kanye West the John Stockton of this metaphor). Think about this, most of us had never even heard of half of this list one year ago! That's gotta make you excited about all the new Dicks 2009 gonna spawn.

With the inauguration days away this is all the more bittersweet. Mr. President, from all of us a heartfelt congrats. Enjoy this after-dinner-mint of an award. We were always planning on sending the winner a trophy, but it looks like someone beat us to the punch.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Only for The Beneficent & Sexy: FEEDaNEED.org's Top Non-Profits Announced. Projects to Start Rumbling Soon.

Voting has ended to select the FEEDaNEED.org non-profits. We were initially hoping to be able to assist one or two non-profits, but redditor volunteers stepped up in impressive fashion and and our Database of Awesome will be contributing to these 11 non-profits:

Social Actions
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Free Software Foundation
TakingITGlobal.org
Education Generation
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Kiva
Seeing Hands
Share Our Strength
Free Geek
Scratch
(If you represent one of these non-profits please fill out this form if you have not already).

Volunteers have signed up from all over the world, with US, Canada, India, UK, Australia, Romania, and Brazil leading the way. To all 590 volunteers who have signed up thus far - THANK YOU!

You will be getting an email or message on reddit (whichever you selected as the preferred method of contact) shortly with information about your project. It will take some time to match everyone up to a project, but Big thanks also to all of you who have help spread the word about FEEDaNEED.org, and a big thanks to our outstanding sponsors. Another big thank you to all of the non-profits that were submitted, and everyone that submitted and voted.

If you have not volunteered yet, you can still join the fun. We'll be matching up volunteers and non-profit projects by the order that you registered (in general), but we WILL get everyone matched up with project that is in depserate need of your mad skillz. Register here if you haven't already. If you have any questions about FEEDaNEED.org, hit me up.

Here's an impressive stat, the most common choice for volunteers was to volunteer 6 hours or more. Even more impressive, the most common response to "What would you show the aliens first?" was "Pizza". FEEDaNEED.org volunteers not only give & give big, but they also care if our new alien overlords are hungry after the long trip. Classy.

Learning about the reddit community, one Unicode character at a time

We uncovered the dominant Unicode character within the reddit community. We greatly appreciate the time you took to complete this survey, as it will help us tremendously to improve reddit.

It turns out most of you are Ҩ. Meditate on that. Horoscopes are coming soon.

In the meantime, Erik proposed we solve once and for all the debate about zombies: should they be fast or slow?

Poll: Which unicode character are you?

1. Ҩ 66 (32%)
2. Ѧ 45 (22%)
3. ♞ 43 (21%)
4. ♣ 24 (11%)
5. ə 10 (4%)
6. ΐ 8 (3%)
6. ▱ 8 (3%)

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Reddit doesn't care about your penis

We don't run penis-enlargement ads on reddit (yet). If you're seeing such ads, you might have two problems, one of which is a virus on your puter.

In reference to: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7n9yj/stay_classy_reddit/

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Sponsored Links on reddit

You may have noticed over the past few weeks the occasional appearance of Sponsored Links in the New Links box at the top of reddit's front page. This is a new method of advertising that we think is a better fit for reddit than other more traditional approaches. Sponsored Links will have a blue background color and will say "Sponsored Link" in the corner to make it clear the link was not submitted from the community.

Just like with regular submissions, you can vote, comment on*, and hide individual sponsored links.

When we originally added the New Links feature it was to ensure that all submitted links received enough attention to have a fair shot at reaching our front page, and it has been working quite well for the past few months. Although we are going to occasionally display ads in this box, its primary purpose will remain the same, and the vast majority of page-views will be to highlight new and upcoming links.

We realize users often have animosity toward ads, but they are a fact of life on the web. We care very much about the user's experience when reading reddit, and we think this approach to advertising is much more reasonable than what you might see elsewhere online. Our hope is that we can both improve our advertisers' experience on reddit without diluting yours.

Thank you for reading and happy redditing!

* They advertiser can opt out if they want, but you all have never had a problem making your opinions heard...