Bouncy, bouncy fluff stuff

It's Boing Boing, and it's a CML Power Tool. Boing Boing claims to be "a directory of wonderful things." These wonderful things include items like "How to Make Cocaine," which a few minutes ago was the story found at the top of the home page. Okay, so maybe not so much wonderful as eclectic--perhaps the site's founders should reconsider their slogan. Nonetheless, Boing Boing appears to be a hodgepodge of links ranging from the aforementioned to "Best Microscopic Photos of 2008", and many topics between and beyond.

Boing Boing wins points for time wasting: I found myself jumping from one article posted on Boing Boing ("Houses made from shipping containers") to several other articles, though most of them were posted on treehugger.com (which I highly recommend, by the way, whether or not you're a self-proclaimed treehugger--I learned a great deal about recent innovations in green technologies and found some very useful resources on this site). So, even though I found most of the content on Boing Boing to be fluff, I stumbled upon a few gems like treehugger.com that I might not have otherwise discovered.

A key difference that I found between Boing Boing and many other web 2.0 sites is that instead of allowing users to simply create an account and start posting, it merely allows users to suggest links to add to the site. Thus, there is editorial filtering of the user-provided content by the site's founders/operators. This is probably for the best, though I'd argue that the site's editors lean too much toward weird for weird's sake instead of truly edifying and unusual items of interest. This to me reflects the overall internet's slant toward keeping the masses entertained and distracted from important, real-world issues. Perhaps the library could add some more useful "tools" to its toolbox: sites that offer resources on how to move forward with alternative energy solutions and survive these tough economic times.