Andy Baio

I write Waxy.org (npub1qau…ulnw), made XOXO (npub19rw…zsgh), Skittish, Upcoming.org, Belong.io, Playfic, Kind of Bloop. Helped build Kickstarter. P.S. I love you.

homepage: https://waxy.org
pronouns: he/him
Location: Portland, OR

Public Key

npub15x0zey6cjy93wn4c47y0tfg2aygr9p8la88zq7qxshjgnrlkeglq9e2g26

NIP-05 Address

andybaio_at_xoxo.zone@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2r83vjdvfzzchf6u2lz84559wjypjsnl7nn3q0qrgteyf3lmv50spzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgqg5waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t080v206

Publishing to

relay.primal.net

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub15x0zey6cjy93wn4c47y0tfg2aygr9p8la88zq7qxshjgnrlkeglq9e2g26

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Last Notes

2026-09-11 21:50:25 UTC

There should be an EGOT for dubious awards. I propose the BIRD: Bulwer-Lytton (writing), Ig Nobel (science), Razzies (film), and Darwin Awards (lifetime achievement)

2026-06-18 19:54:16 UTC

RE: https://xoxo.zone/@waxy/116772625748491745
I wrote about how I discovered that a new site for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig's long-running Tumblr project-turned-book, was a bootleg made by a marketing agency. They published the complete book verbatim, then added AI-generated art and new AI words, entirely without permission.
#note18xm…j3m4

2026-04-07 00:03:23 UTC

Razor 1911 made a PC demo for Revision 2026 that's a whirlwind retrospective of the group, touching on a lot of warez/art/demoscene tech, tools, and history since they started in 1985. It won the PC Demo category and clearly earned it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AnbYNudAyM

2026-03-21 17:51:19 UTC

20 years ago today.
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/268/431/888/760/111/original/7cec669b18965a7e.jpeg

2025-12-24 18:25:50 UTC

open a terminal and type `ssh tiny.christmas`

2025-12-16 18:46:51 UTC

Hands-on reviews of the new Commodore 64 Ultimate are starting to come in, and I'm suddenly feeling VERY good about my preorder. It consolidates every great homebrew hardware improvement for the C64 into one machine. Even the packaging is well done, a faithful update to the original. https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/commodore-64-ultimate-review

2025-12-10 17:59:37 UTC

I knew scammers were ripping off @npub1f6w…7940's delightful edge-piece jigsaw puzzles with cheap low-quality bootlegs, but I just saw a new low on TikTok: I got an ad using *her stolen video* to advertise their knockoff. When you click the "Shop Now" link, it goes to their store with the near-identical fake minus the Yetch branding.
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/696/571/122/698/341/original/1cbc9cf1cc15b17f.jpeg
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/696/571/120/146/670/original/6ba5e71adcf08bb8.jpeg

2025-11-16 19:32:20 UTC

"We are so hungry for conflict that we turn something as boring as Wikipedia into a part of the culture war." If you saw that clip of Jimmy Wales walking out of an interview, or just care at all about Wikipedia, @npub10r0…ecmc provides some useful context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zi0ogvPfCA

2025-10-24 23:39:16 UTC

for a time, calculators in the shape of floppy disks were a popular promotional item
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/431/777/799/142/585/original/6719aba49fc7e035.png
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/431/777/870/730/985/original/9538ddd3fcce0916.png
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/431/777/864/400/745/original/3f11ead101374cb8.png
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/431/777/860/891/415/original/9237df0e1731e8ad.png

2025-10-22 18:07:48 UTC

I have a folder in my feedreader for infrequently-updated feeds. Occasionally, one wakes up from a long nap and surprises me. Today, I saw Johanna Beyenbach posted to her Blogspot for the first time since September 2013. Yet another reason why I love RSS. https://tokyohanna.blogspot.com/

2025-09-17 00:01:23 UTC

My son just did a Silksong deathless 100% run in Steel Soul mode with no quit-outs (i.e. quitting when you're about to die to restore from a savepoint) in a little over 12 hours. I've never played the game, apparently this is pretty hard to do?
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/216/697/262/577/027/original/4ea767a9da20ba0d.png
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/216/697/262/876/468/original/b13c4191ed73afba.png

2025-09-09 20:32:59 UTC

A followup to my post two weeks ago, I found the couple at the center of the Will Smith AI crowd video. I wanted to know what it was like to find yourselves in the middle of a hypermodern problem: being confused for AI slop. https://waxy.org/2025/09/interviewing-the-couple-in-the-will-smith-ai-crowd-video/

2025-08-27 18:17:19 UTC

After 22 years, Typepad is shutting down with one month's notice. Go back up your old blogs, old-school blogger friends. https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2025/08/typepad-is-shutting-down.html

2025-07-22 18:17:59 UTC

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Another wrinkle: it turns out Alistair wasn't even hosting the Open Graph images himself! The Twitter archives produced by Tweetback use 11ty's OpenGraph Image proxy service, which hotlinks the optimized images from their servers. https://www.11ty.dev/docs/services/opengraph/

2025-07-22 18:15:38 UTC

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One big difference is that, at least in the U.S., the DMCA shields platforms/ISPs from copyright lawsuits for hosting content posted by their users, as long as they honor takedowns, remove accounts from repeat infringers, etc. Those protections don't exist for individual publishers and bloggers. (thx @npub1hg9…wwtk)

2025-07-22 16:34:15 UTC

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EVERY major social media platform and messaging app hosts local copies of Open Graph images for links posted by users, including Facebook, Threads, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Slack, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc. They're just shaking down individuals who don't have the legal resources to fight a claim.

2025-07-22 16:19:01 UTC

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Putting an image URL in an Open Graph meta tag implies permission to display that *hotlinked* image on your own website, but in this case, he was hosting a copy of the photo for his static Twitter archive. It's a copyright grey area that's ripe for image licensors to exploit. Not great!

2025-07-22 16:17:03 UTC

I'm amazed I've never seen this before: a photo licensing company shaking down someone for hosting an image used in an Open Graph tag. https://www.alistairshepherd.uk/writing/open-graph-licensing/

2025-06-11 16:39:56 UTC

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this is a real page on a vaccines.gov subdomain! see for yourself at http://es.vaccines.gov
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/665/717/326/005/957/original/996ae97f1c6c662b.jpeg

2025-06-11 16:31:38 UTC

My secret hobby is feeding story ideas to the 404 Media crew via Signal group chat. This was one of them! https://www.404media.co/spam-blogs-ai-slop-domains-wowlazy/

2025-06-06 17:11:15 UTC

The Tiny Awards are back, and so am I! After a year off, I'll be a judge helping to decide "the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web" made in the last 12 months. Nominations open until the end of June, submit anything you love! https://tinyawards.net/

2025-05-16 03:04:50 UTC

Anyone know Madison, WI? I'm headed there for the first time next week. Recs for food/drink, neighborhoods, and off-beat and/or nerdy things to do welcome! (House on the Rock and the two big retro arcades are on my radar.)

2025-03-04 17:13:58 UTC

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You should try Phanpy, it’s the best Mastodon client I’ve used on both desktop and mobile, and it’s a free web app! https://phanpy.social/

2025-01-28 17:46:20 UTC

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Figured it out! Apple is pulling the Wikipedia data for its Safari suggestions from the Wikidata datastore instead of Wikipedia itself. On December 4, 2019, someone vandalized the Wikidata entry for "A rising tide" to say "a scrambled egg makes all happy" and it stayed there until February 24, 2024.
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/907/228/754/103/548/original/0fe396a87c4841c5.png

2025-01-28 17:29:15 UTC

This is such a bizarre iOS/Wikipedia mystery! I can reproduce it on my own iPhone and I'm totally stumped. I searched the Wikipedia edit history and the "scrambled egg" phrase is nowhere to be found. Any ideas? https://pdx.social/@neven/113907136478123964

2025-01-18 03:19:50 UTC

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as long as you don’t go full Howard Hughes
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/847/198/184/779/336/original/5b9657a2427fe0a0.jpeg

2025-01-18 01:03:02 UTC

If you're in the U.S. and ever used TikTok, consider backing up all your liked/faved videos locally before it shuts down on Sunday. myFaveTT is a free Chrome extension that easily generates a local static HTML/MP4 archive with video metadata. https://myfavett.com/

2024-12-15 20:10:53 UTC

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feels like we’ve lost the battle over blog posts

2024-10-29 15:56:59 UTC

Nilay Patel frames The Verge’s endorsement of Kamala Harris around collective action problems: issues that require curbing the selfish behavior of individuals/companies for a greater good. Climate change, vaccines, school shootings, income inequality, tech/AI harms. https://www.theverge.com/24282022/kamala-harris-endorsement-presidential-election-2024

2024-10-16 03:20:06 UTC

I’m taking some time offline, belatedly celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and still basking in the afterglow of the final XOXO, but I wrote a bit about releasing the XOXO talks last week, my approach to booking speakers, and the themes that emerged in our final year. https://waxy.org/2024/10/the-xoxo-2024-talks/

2024-10-08 20:10:55 UTC

We started releasing the XOXO 2024 talks yesterday, two per day, and they're all bangers. We'll keep adding to this thread throughout the week. https://xoxo.zone/@xoxo/113267658517959587

2024-09-04 16:31:13 UTC

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from the devil's homepage, i've learned that he's setting up a new world order cryptocurrency, posts on TikTok from a UK prison hospital, and wants you to use his favorite website, booking.com, to book your holiday so he gets a commission

2024-09-04 16:26:51 UTC

the devil emailed me, but gmail marked it as spam
https://xoxo-media.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/080/218/963/954/738/original/3371ebe6d807b8ed.png

2024-08-08 15:50:53 UTC

The last XOXO starts two weeks from today! After five years, time to break out the ol’ #xoxofest hashtag.

2024-08-07 17:07:07 UTC

"Is Harris a perfect candidate? Of course not. The perfect candidate can not and, in a democracy, should not exist. But it is also not cringe to feel optimistic. It is not cringe to imagine something better than the deranged culture wars we have had to endure for the last decade. And even if Harris does shit the bed in the next three months and Trump somehow wins, it won’t have been cringe to say you went down swinging, letting yourself believe this might work." https://www.garbageday.email/p/ok-enjoy