The end of an era is approaching.
Next month the website Yahoo Answers will shut down, after 16 glorious years of… whatever is was that went on over there.
The theory of the site was simple enough: people could ask questions of other users, and those users could answer.
Quora is more or less the same concept; so are a number of subreddits.
But Yahoo Answers became internet infamous for becoming, as the New York Times put it this week, a “haven for the confused.”
The strangest, least coherent questions ever posted online seemed to end up there.
Things like “Do you think humans will ever walk on the sun?” and “Why do people with baguettes think they’re better than me?”
Some were just sentences with question marks at the end, like “I like space and dinosaurs?”
And there’s “how is babby formed?” which understandably became a meme.
My favorite question asks how big the “specific” ocean was.
My favorite answer was when a user told someone headed to a job interview that “if you insist on wearing a ski mask throughout the course of the interview that you will not get the job.”
While these questions (or attempts at questions) got the most attention, the Times did note that sometimes people did ask questions they really couldn’t find answers to other places, including the heartbreaking question “what does a hug feel like?”
Let’s just say Yahoo Answers certainly left its mark on the internet, and what could possibly follow a site like that… is an open question.
There are lots of companies making products out of recycled material, including many clothing companies, but this one is new to me: a pair of sneakers made in part from grapes.
Or at least the parts of grapes leftover from the winemaking process.
I just hope the shoes are seedless.
Yahoo Answers, a Haven for the Confused, Is Shutting Down (New York Times)
New Whiskey, Chef-Approved Spices and Sneakers Made From Grapes (UrbanDaddy)
