Jorn Barger facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jorn Barger
Jorn Barger in 2008
Born	1953 (age 71–72) Yellow Springs, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Blogger
Known for	Editing Robot Wisdom

Jorn Barger (born in 1953) is an American blogger. He is most famous for creating and editing Robot Wisdom, which was one of the very first weblogs. He has written a lot about topics like James Joyce (a famous writer) and artificial intelligence (AI). Most of his writing is published by himself.

Jorn Barger's Early Life and Education

Jorn Barger was born in 1953 in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was the second child of Rex and Criss Barger. When he was 11, he got to use an early computer called the Minivac 601. His family moved to Bemus Point, New York in 1966.

He finished high school a year early. He went to several colleges but did not earn a degree. In 1973, he decided not to work with computers for a while. Instead, he spent six years focusing on "self-discovery." During this time, in 1978, he lived for six months at The Farm, a special community in Tennessee.

His Work and Career

In the early 1980s, Jorn programmed games and educational software. These programs were for popular computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64. From 1989 to 1992, he worked as a research programmer at Northwestern University. He worked with Roger Schank, an expert in artificial intelligence. After this, he mostly did "odd bits of contract work" to support himself.

Jorn Barger used to live in Rogers Park, Chicago. By late 2003, he was living in Socorro, New Mexico. He has a daughter named Elizabeth.

How Jorn Barger Used Usenet

Jorn Barger was very active on Usenet starting in 1989. Usenet was an early online discussion system. He made nearly ten thousand posts there! He wrote early FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) about topics like ASCII art, singer Kate Bush, and writers Thomas Pynchon and James Joyce.

In 1994, he came up with an interesting idea called the "Inverse Law of Usenet Bandwidth." This idea suggested that the more exciting your life becomes, the less you post online, and vice versa. He was known as an "unstoppable Usenet poster" because he could discuss many different topics at once. He became an "online legend" and was even quoted in newspapers as an expert on Usenet.

The Birth of the Weblog

Jorn Barger started his website, Robot Wisdom, in February 1995. On this site, he shared essays and information about James Joyce, AI, history, and Internet culture.

Coining the Term "Weblog"

On December 17, 1997, Jorn began posting daily updates to his site. He called this new section Robot Wisdom Weblog. He hoped to find people who shared his many interests. These daily posts included a list of links that he found interesting. This was like a daily diary of what he was reading and thinking about. By doing this, he created the term "weblog" for this new way of publishing online. Later, in 1999, another person shortened the term to "blog."

Barger wanted his weblog to help people explore and discover things online. He wanted to show "what treasures were there" and make the web easier to understand. He believed a weblog should always offer new and well-described links to the "best web links." In July 1998, he also started a human-edited web directory called Net.literate portal. This directory listed the best links on many topics.

Robot Wisdom's Popularity

Robot Wisdom Weblog became very popular. Many publications praised it:

• Village Voice called it "one of the best collections of news and musings culled from the Web."
• The Guardian said Barger was a "highly observant and thoughtful surfer."
• InfoWorld listed it as one of the few weblogs "worth a visit."
• Fast Company called it "one of the best Web logs on the Net."
• Wired said it was "one of the oldest and most popular weblogs."
• The New Yorker admired Barger's "healthy appetite for everything from literature to science."

People remembered Robot Wisdom's content as a "mesmerizing sequence of arcana" and a "cornucopia of offbeat delights."

Impact on Blogging

Jorn Barger is recognized for helping the blogosphere (the world of blogs) grow. He was nominated for a CNET Web Innovator Award in 1998 for inspiring the weblog community. His work is considered very important and is said to have "set the tone for a million blogs to come." An ACM paper even discusses him as one of the people who started blogging as a way for people to connect online.

In September 1999, Barger wrote one of the first detailed guides about weblogs, called the "Weblog FAQ." He also led an online forum about weblogs from August 1999 to April 2000.

Over time, Robot Wisdom's popularity changed. The site sometimes stopped updating or went offline for long periods. For example, in early 2005, Barger's website registration expired, but he got the site back online a few weeks later. He also tried to make money from Robot Wisdom through ads and donations, but he never earned much from it.

Jorn Barger's Work on James Joyce

Jorn Barger tries to find a link between artificial intelligence and the famous books of James Joyce. He sees Joyce as a master of describing how people think. He has studied Joyce's notes and original writings for books like Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. He even made an online, shorter version of Finnegans Wake with notes.

Barger's website is known for its deep research into Joyce's writings. However, not much of this work has been reviewed by other experts in universities. This means it can sometimes be hard to tell what Joyce scholars generally agree on and what are just Barger's own ideas. He seemed to know this when he published a list of his "50+ Joycean Conjectures" (his own theories).

Barger has also written one chapter in a book about Finnegans Wake and a book review in the James Joyce Quarterly academic journal.