Slashdot Mirror

can be found here, where a commentary on this topic and how it affects regular Slashdot readers is given. While it's true that this affects all of us, this kind of situation may actually be advantageous when you think about it... what's important is that there is a consistency of incompetence that can prevent any truly 1984-style dystopia from ever coming to life. As Thomas Franklin said, "Those who give up a little liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security." When things like this happen, the terrorists have already won. John Ashcroft, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mullah Abdul Omar, there's not much difference, they're peddling different movements of the same tune.

I wish that suck.com, salon's long-time archenemy, had taken this kind of route before they died utterly. I'd have paid for a subscription to suck to keep it alive... Salon, on the other hand, I personally just don't find that interesting.

Oh well.

this guy.

Listen to the whole thing...it goes critical at 20.3 seconds.

I should say as a caveat that Wolff ran one of the original dot bombs, Wolff New Media, which managed to run itself into the ground BEFORE 2000. I've heard from several people he was an asshole boss, and when he ran out of money, he asked his workers to work for free (which some morons did) and then he took what money was left and took a vacation in Tuscany. I would take anything he says with a grain of salt.
Suck.com did a good exposé on him in 1998.

Making Fun of Slashdot!

(The first of 3 times you ignored an obvious joke.)
You seem to have an affection for pedantic adherence to language rules, so I'll let you check your dictionary to see that printed means "created by pressing or stamping onto a surface".

It's not just niggling about definitions- in the context of journalism and editorial integrity, printed words are a different domain than electronically transmitted ones. Once printed, something can never be rescinded or repaired- but websight contents are eternally mutable. (Copyright violators notwithstanding). Printed words have an essential limitation on space, justifying the practice of "editing for brevity". That's much less defensible in the online arena, where the full text letter can be only a hyperlink away.

For example, I corrected each item shown above in boldface.

The fact that both "one-way" and "one-time" are dictionary words doesn't remove the unhypenated forms from valid English. This is akin to Dan Quayle's infamous potato/potatoe spelling-bee incident.

and a bit less on appearing cultured. If I had meant "cultured" seriously, it wouldn't have been in scare quotes. It was a joke. (Finding the 3rd one is up to you. Don't waste your time on it, though)

because the editors regularly edit readers' letters for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and length

The fact that /. never censors is an advertised feature of the site, and is intended to distinguish it from traditional publications. Also, (advertising aside), I could enjoy my city's major newspapers for years without ever seeing a word not written by a paid employee- but 96% of Slashdot articles and 99.9992% of its total textual content are reader-contributions.

The rules are different here, because the demands are different.

Printed media have professional editors to ensure quality. On Slashdot, that job goes to the Moderators. The so-called editors are just there to keep the content flowing along smoothly; judging its quality it someone else's job.

There's a fundamental difference in the time-frame available to a printed periodical and an online one. Slashdot already has a reputation for lagging in articles, they can't afford to delay it further by more editing.

And that time constraint problem goes triple for comments on the stories- the comments aren't a static page, or a relaxed medium like a newspaper where a at least 72 hours can elapse between the publication of a story and the responses it evokes. Instead, it is a weird, quasi-real time conversation that will be broadcast to many more than those involved, and archived for posterity. Its unfortunate, but if even a very insightful comment fails to make it into the first 200, it's likely to be sqandered and fall comparatively unread. In this informal environment, first-hand knowledge, creativity, wit, and speed are more important than those qualities with 4th grade teachers specialize in.

Thus the rise of the "Grammar/Spelling Nazi" epithets. I don't dispute that people should be free to point out obvious minor errors- I just wish the bulk of readers didn't have to be burdened with language trivia, educational as it may be. The comment-submission for should have an option to "self-moderate" your post as "Spelling/Grammer Nitpick", "Off Topic", "Spoiler", and "Bad Pun". (No effect on your karma, but others can choose to filter them out of view)

OK, I'll stop fanning the flames now...

RMS, GNU, FSF: FOAD --Suckdot

Prescience, more than five years ago.

Read it here

There is definitely an element of truth to that: The net has lost a lot of its joy. Between watching hilarious ads on AdCritic (sidenote: I submitted an article today mentioning http://www.ads.com, which almost fills in for AdCritic, but the story was rejected in a record 10 seconds), reading hilarious articles on http://www.suck.com (which had absolutely brilliant writing, and defined the earlier Internet), laughing to Mirsky's Worst of the Web (this was back when I had a little ecommerce sites on Turnpike Emporium, a host I chose because it was Mirsky's host. My little computer configurator was, some 7 years ago, more advanced than most computer store configuration utilities today), hell even reading sites like Old Man Murray. Other great sites like Quarter to Three simply stopped updating (though if you read the Shoot Club archives, you'll see that it was some great stuff).

I still believe that the ideas I presented in this article (which was linked by a Slashdot story some time over a year ago) still hold true now more than ever.

Well, not many, anyway. My wife told me before I even proposed to her that she had not much interest in diamonds, let alone big showy ones. She also dislikes yellow gold, so I ended up getting her a white gold ring set with sapphires (and a few tiny diamonds around each of the sapphires), along with a matching bracelet and pendant. (We had somehow -- entirely coincidental, I'm sure ;) -- ended up on the topic of gemstones a few months before I proposed, so I had learned her likes and filed it away.)

Since then I've also gotten her a heart-shaped blue topaz pendant and a pearl-and-(small-)diamond pendant; plus, we got married, and her wedding ring itself is a thin, white gold band set with a few tiny diamonds in a V-shaped notch. (My own ring is a plain white gold band; I don't like yellow gold much, either.)

The whole "two months salary" thing was a decades-long marketing attack by DeBeers. If I had spent two months' salary on her engagement ring, it would have cost around $5,000, which we both agree is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on something that is very shiny but extremely useless (scroll down till you see the chart). Yes, she likes jewelry, but we both (for slightly different reasons) detest the idea that spending more money automatically equals you love her more. My wife is never happier than when I clean things around the apartment, unbidden by her -- and it doesn't require me to spend thousands of dollars to do so.

If your fiancee honestly wants a big diamond, either because it springs from her own heart or because she's been convinced by the marketdroids, well, go ahead and get it for her. If, like so many women recently, she's shucked the "must have big diamond... MUST HAVE BIG DIAMOND" cliche, find out what gems she really does like.

Suck had a great article on "Scare quotes". They almost seem amateurish these days.

Rather pathetic to see them in an article like this; seriously, we expect Microsoft to do sneaky and scary things with their software, and everyone's on the watch for it. If we find something, there are no repercussions on them at all, it seems.

If the *government* were to be caught doing something sneaky on people's PC's, there would be a *huge* stink, heads would roll, etc.. Unlike Microsoft, they *are* accountable to the public,j especially with something as obvious as this. They're not stupid enough to put spyware or backdoors in stuff. With the slashdot crowd out there, they'd be caught in a second.

Anyone who's really worried about this has watched too many x-files episodes. Go out for a walk, get some fresh air, dudes.

Suck had a great article on "Scare quotes". They almost seem amateurish these days.

Rather pathetic to see them in an article like this; seriously, we expect Microsoft to do sneaky and scary things with their software, and everyone's on the watch for it. If we find something, there are no repercussions on them at all, it seems.

If the *government* were to be caught doing something sneaky on people's PC's, there would be a *huge* stink, heads would roll, etc.. Unlike Microsoft, they *are* accountable to the public,j especially with something as obvious as this. They're not stupid enough to put spyware or backdoors in stuff. With the slashdot crowd out there, they'd be caught in a second.

Anyone who's really worried about this has watched too many x-files episodes. Go out for a walk, get some fresh air, dudes.

The troller (yes, you were trolled) who started the thread seemed to have been inspired by the adequacy.org article. Specifically, question #3 of the adequacy article deals with AMD processors being used exclusively by hackers.

The article was funny back when it first came out back in December. It's old now, and I'm surprised the idea of AMD as a transnational corporation exploiting native populations for cheap labor made its way into a troll five months later. I don't know if the rest of Adequacy's articles are written in the same style, but this one, with its links-a-plenty, reminds me vaguely of a low-brow Suck (the Wired spin-off that was worth reading once upon a time).

It's rather irksome that so many people actually thought AMD used Asian sweatshops to manufacture chips. Almost as annoying as the number of people who can't spell Malaysia.

He's right here!

Unfortunately, Netscape 6 and Mozilla (and WinAmp and ICQ and all the other currently skinnable programs) are just the first waves of this infestation. Checkbox feature parity is inevitable in this coolness-addled world, and soon every application will provide the much-needed ability to make it look like cheese.

I wonder if the final, gold, 1.0 release will be on the two-year anniversary of the much worse Mozilla bashing:

There comes a time when the only merciful thing to do is pull the plug. When the old-timer has been bloated and incontinent for as long as anybody can remember, it can only be considered an act of kindness to turn off the machines and let a dear friend finally breathe its last. So long, Mozilla, old chum -- sorry it had to come to this.

Unfortunately, Netscape 6 and Mozilla (and WinAmp and ICQ and all the other currently skinnable programs) are just the first waves of this infestation. Checkbox feature parity is inevitable in this coolness-addled world, and soon every application will provide the much-needed ability to make it look like cheese.

I wonder if the final, gold, 1.0 release will be on the two-year anniversary of the much worse Mozilla bashing:

There comes a time when the only merciful thing to do is pull the plug. When the old-timer has been bloated and incontinent for as long as anybody can remember, it can only be considered an act of kindness to turn off the machines and let a dear friend finally breathe its last. So long, Mozilla, old chum -- sorry it had to come to this.

Make sure you leave yourself an option open so that you can screw the developers later, if necessary.

Hrm. I personally really liked the time they posted the stories in all sorts of Dialectizer-ed dialects. Although the best would be to redirect slashdot.org to Suckdot. :)

It exists as an Xscreensaver module called xsublim.

man 1 xsublim

We used it to program a friend to randomly lick their keyboard.

This is a real program, written by Greg Knauss, of Suck.com fame.

Ah, but then, you'd need to think in Russian

--

#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the
productivity of Linux users.

I have friends who were once tremendously productive
programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the
endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so
you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a
window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily
seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots,
dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on
the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and
Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is
anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by
undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there
any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than
Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa
Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the
Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued
Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally
overshadowed the monopoly ruling?

#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to
each other that they are more 3133t than j00.

Need I say more?

#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means
lousy technical opinions.

Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists
had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant
paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us
that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid
drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles
discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular
vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows
somewhat more than your average set of people off the street,
they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of
technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be
worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers:
it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the
technical issues it raises.

The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and
journals with editors. Respectable publications hired
qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated
enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of
content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes
popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality
level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting
experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might
work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's
time to quit.

#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to
any other operating system in the known
universe.

People who do operating
systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent
from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing
your asbestos fatigues.

#5. Butt-ugly visual design.

Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my
analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically
hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the
left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital
design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color
scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for
Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of
Slashdot.

#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any
way.

Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over
at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of
fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their
site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another
link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit
declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not
user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or
un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are
falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot
community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and
hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors
ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the
endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have
very little desire to go back and find out whether that's
changed.

#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.

At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to
theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the
universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a
rate of two or three a week. And the number was only
increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally
bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village
Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that
role.

#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic
but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of
the editors.

The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories
could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid
attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain
articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be
ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact
exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because
they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They
have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that
they cannot use this power wisely.

In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily
an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those
of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by
smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus
proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of
these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply
don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey
Anuff.

So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read
Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly
reason. So why not quit today?

#1. Two words: Jon Katz.

Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference
between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the
means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack
the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any
webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a
penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and
verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.

Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his
technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all
opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim
whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are
"technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for
not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's
inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are
arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a
run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness.
However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer.
He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And
his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten
published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all
things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his
babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly
pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary
skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of
day.

To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who
regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot
admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for
their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for
continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the
quality of the site.

No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from
Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account
and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not
labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book.
What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its
readers?

But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek"
spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience
deserves.

Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for
all.

#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the
productivity of Linux users.

I have friends who were once tremendously productive
programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the
endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so
you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a
window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily
seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots,
dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on
the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and
Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is
anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by
undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there
any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than
Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa
Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the
Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued
Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally
overshadowed the monopoly ruling?

#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to
each other that they are more 3133t than j00.

Need I say more?

#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means
lousy technical opinions.

Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists
had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant
paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us
that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid
drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles
discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular
vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows
somewhat more than your average set of people off the street,
they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of
technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be
worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers:
it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the
technical issues it raises.

The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and
journals with editors. Respectable publications hired
qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated
enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of
content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes
popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality
level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting
experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might
work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's
time to quit.

#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to
any other operating system in the known
universe.

People who do operating
systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent
from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing
your asbestos fatigues.

#5. Butt-ugly visual design.

Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my
analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically
hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the
left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital
design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color
scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for
Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of
Slashdot.

#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any
way.

Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over
at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of
fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their
site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another
link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit
declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not
user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or
un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are
falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot
community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and
hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors
ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the
endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have
very little desire to go back and find out whether that's
changed.

#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.

At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to
theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the
universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a
rate of two or three a week. And the number was only
increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally
bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village
Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that
role.

#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic
but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of
the editors.

The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories
could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid
attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain
articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be
ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact
exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because
they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They
have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that
they cannot use this power wisely.

In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily
an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those
of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by
smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus
proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of
these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply
don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey
Anuff.

So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read
Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly
reason. So why not quit today?

#1. Two words: Jon Katz.

Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference
between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the
means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack
the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any
webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a
penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and
verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.

Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his
technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all
opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim
whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are
"technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for
not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's
inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are
arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a
run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness.
However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer.
He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And
his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten
published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all
things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his
babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly
pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary
skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of
day.

To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who
regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot
admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for
their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for
continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the
quality of the site.

No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from
Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account
and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not
labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book.
What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its
readers?

But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek"
spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience
deserves.

Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for
all.

rofl, u assume someone is using ms just cos they dont like linux? thats kind of egocentric aint it?

Of course not! Everyone knows there are only two operating systems in existance, linux (may Allah bless it's name), and Windows.

Do you need to be sent to a re-education camp?

C-X C-S

I think that's Heather Havrilesky, she sounds Russian? Maybe masculine. TEHEHEHE. How did I know? Google. and I know she talks about Jon Katzs sometimes. She is the famous polly@suck.com, seriously. But now that suck is gone, she went to plastic I think, (which is still wired?). But her blog is on TinyLittlePenis I AM SERIOUS. Ask brian.

I think that's Heather Havrilesky, she sounds Russian? Maybe masculine. TEHEHEHE. How did I know? Google. and I know she talks about Jon Katzs sometimes. She is the famous polly@suck.com, seriously. But now that suck is gone, she went to plastic I think, (which is still wired?). But her blog is on TinyLittlePenis I AM SERIOUS. Ask brian.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbush-quote .htm

http://www.msnbc.com/news/629589.asp

I've actually become rather tired of it, and plan on changing it soon. You are welcome to vote on your favorite of the two...

the 'green blob' school of navi-gation hasn't really caught on. i can't imagine why
--
Suck.com

OR

OpenBSD development has a long tradition of stealing free code from other projects, and then improving it ;-)
--

Theo De Raadt

See that weird red, blue and green globe symbol?

That's trademarked. You can see it on the WTO website, and they have a nice (specific) notice clearly indicating it is theirs.

I'm all for parody. But there is no need for parody to make use of actual trademark symbols, or even trademarked phrases. It is much more funny, and more clever besides. Here's one example, in case you don't already know what I mean.

It's quite clear to me that the Yes Men are more interested in pissing off the WTO than in parody itself. This is not itself a crime, but replicating trademarks like that tends to fool people rather than to get the point across. The WTO has a legitimate complaint here.Trademark law is meant to protect consumers, not businesses, and (for once) the WTO seems to be using it completely legitimately. If the Yes Men aren't deliberately trying to fool the very people they are self-righteously trying to protect from the corporations, they should have no problem with getting off their duffs and altering the trademarked symbols on their website.

Someone who is more enterprising than myself could set up some more 3rd level delegations, like [...] vivendiuniversalsucks.theyjustsuckperiod.com...

Hey, maybe this is the way to get that old great online humor site back in the black! Offer subdomains to the highest bidding malcontent.

But that wasn't the only gift that Dick Cheney had for Norman Schwarzkopf. Having figured out that the general was being too cautious with his fourth combat command in three decades of soldiering, Cheney got his staff busy and began presenting Schwarzkopf with his own ideas about how to fight the Iraqis: What if we parachute the 82nd Airborne into the far western part of Iraq, hundreds of miles from Kuwait and totally cut off from any kind of support, and seize a couple of missile sites, then line up along the highway and drive for Baghdad? Schwarzkopf charitably describes the plan as being "as bad as it could possibly be... But despite our criticism, the western excursion wouldn't die: three times in that week alone Powell called with new variations from Cheney's staff. The most bizarre involved capturing a town in western Iraq and offering it to Saddam in exchange for Kuwait." (Throw in a Pete Rose rookie card?) None of this Walter Mitty posturing especially surprised Schwarzkopf, who points out that he'd already known Cheney as "one of the fiercest cold warriors in Congress."

And so, of course, you already know what Dick Cheney -- fierce cold warrior, vigorous advocate of the earliest and bravest possible attack, a man not afraid to take bold action with the lives of other men -- did during the Vietnam war, when he was just the right age to open his personal pandour's box and go put some of that martial ferocity into direct practice: He took five years worth of deferments, four as a student and one as a soon-to-be-father, and avoided serving in the military altogether. Which is not to say that he wasn't fiercely in favor of the whole sick mess.

Certainly the erstwhile fierce cold warrior feels a deep connection with the young men who went to Vietnam in his place. At the mostly sunny Republican nominating rally, last month, Cheney spoke movingly of his reaction to the somber sight of the graves at Arlington National Cemetery. Every time he choppered into Washington past the military burial ground, Cheney said, he looked upon "its gentle slopes and crosses row on row. I never once made that trip," he added, "without being reminded how enormously fortunate we all are to be Americans." See for yourself: The graves at Arlington National Cemetery are marked with blocky granite headstones - row on row of them.

I think the numbering system might be a less important bug that should be fixed as soon as the lads have worked out the other complexities of the new system. Hopefully your message should eventually be displayed with a #1. More importantly, though, we need to hurt someone for these stupid domain hints next to any links. Have we not heard of mouseover showing a link's destination?

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

There's gonna be some interesting lawsuits soon, Microsoft insisting it's only changing presentation and not content. My opinion (not that it matters) links are content. Suck (R.I.P.) was probably the best example of links becoming content. There'll be lawyers.

There is one big difference between Mickeysoft and Mozilla doing it: Microsoft is a monopoly. It does change the rules. A lot of the governments case was on illegal bundling. Bundling isn't necessarily illegal. Leveraging a monopoly in one arena by bundling to gain advantage in another area is. Again, there'll be lawyers.

It's a shame the links in IS KATZ ON CRACK? are broken. Does anyone know what they pointed to?
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This article - one of the best ones I've ever read about the future of printed publications in the digital world - reflects itself a major problem:

How long will it be that we won't be able to access it any more due to the ever-changing nature of the Web?

The publisher will reorganize its Web site, may go our of business (think Suck), etc. The author mentions in the article that still many digital works in the scientific field are converted to print once - this has clearly the advantage that we can reference them still in a few years.

This is Tim Cavanaugh.

Re: intmainvoid on the irony of Suck's dying after cheering for banner ads. As the author of both the pieces in question, I stand by that argument. The only irony is that in the six months that Automatic handled Suck's ad sales, the sales force sold NO ads whatsoever, not one. Using Suck circa 2001 as an example of the death of banner ads is like using Stevie Wonder as proof that musicians have no hand-eye coordination. When we had a real ad sales team (at both Lycos and Wired Digital), we raked in enough money to turn a modest profit on our operation, and had click-through rates of a whopping 5-8% - sometimes. Anyway, the point of my articles was not to use ourselves as an example, but to demonstrate that Jason McCabe Calacanis (who should look to his own house - The Silicon Alley Reporter these days is thin enough to hang on the toilet paper roll where it belongs) is one of the bigger horse's asses ever to catch the eye of the New York media.

Re: Have Blue on Suck's failure to strive for the Katzian ideal of total interactivity. We're still getting a solid 20k to 25k unique users a day. I know it's popular to dis "professional" writers in favor of those kind souls who post for free. I say when you pay people you get a) a much better caliber of talent, and b) a much higher level of effort from the writer. And given the anti-profit bent of many of the posts here, I have to ask: What's worse - having your readers do all the writing for free, or following the Biblical injunction that a workman is worthy of his wage?

Re: The many posters who object to the very notion of a for-profit content site. Move to fucking Cuba if you don't like it. We paid our writers more than anybody else on the web has ever offered (maybe Slate paid more, but they don't have to pay their own way), and we got the best writers in America as a result: I'd challenge anybody to read any given Suck article and not come away with at least one or two original insights, funny lines, or just memorable ball-breaking. And by any measure I think you'd have to concede we put out the best cartoons the Web has ever seen. We did all that while keeping overhead low enough to break even for a good part of our history.

Re: Various on Suck's trolling and flame-baiting Canadians. I happen to know that the guy who wrote our first anti-Canada piece is the real deal, a man who honestly despises Canada and hates Canadians. Make of that what you will; he was speaking his mind, not looking for a reaction. I see the Grub guy is still sore about Richard Shirk and his pseudonymous trolling. Richard was an 18-year-old intern who did his utmost to promote our fine product, and I still appreciate his efforts. Last time I looked at the Grub guy's site it had a warning about how it was a humor site, then a totally vicious and unfunny screed against some other Canadian he didn't like. I say the Grub guy needs anger management, not better-humored readers.

Re: Our various detractors and medical examiners here and elsewhere. As the Reverend Dr. Parr said, "Now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may kick at him." Suck is comatose for a variety of reasons, the main one being that Automatic Media launched in the middle of a shitstorm. But after six years of publication, it's a little late in the game to be saying we failed because we didn't match your definition of what a site should be. Because staying alive, on a for-profit basis, for six years, while paying a good rate to some of the best writers in the world and putting out great content five days a week, is in fact a great success. And if we can manage to resurrect Suck for a Rocky VI-style return, that'll just be another triumph. In the meantime, we have that extensive archive of more than a thousand articles, and I invite everybody to read and enjoy as many of them as you can.

Re: Slashdot taking up the slack and the many nice condolences here and elsewhere. Thank you and good luck. We're still trying to find the right sugar daddy who can recognize a valuable property and take a chance on it. Unfortunately those folks are in short supply these days.

yr pal,

tim

I stopped reading Suck several years ago, around the time they discovered how easy it is to bait Canadians for cheap laughs. It wasn't until recently that us Canadians stopped getting mad and started getting even.

How ironic that they bite the dust in the next month.

How ironic that they bite the dust in the next month.

Well, how about the very most recent article? (URL stabilized for the convenience of archives-trawlers.)

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On a prior thread, the subject of plastic.com came up. In my prior and current opinion, plastic.com doesn't have a long-term future as a viable community. It seems, at least to me, that the operating assumptions regarding the generation of meaningful, tangible value- are inherently flawed.

Plastic.com has mistakenly assumed it could replicate the success of Slashdot simply by repurposing the Slashdot message board system for the purposes of broad-minded subjects mostly related to pop culture, pop technology and pop politics. They have failed to realize that Slashdot's success has come through its specialization. The broader the subject matter, the less compelling the appeal to a broader base of people. The narrower the subject matter, the stronger the potential appeal to a smaller base of people. They are failing because they thought if they focused on broad subjects, that all your base would belong to them. But they ain't CATS. They are on their way to destruction. They have no chance to survive, make their time.

Seriously, though- I think most people who read and participate in Slashdot would agree that there is something of a Slashdot POV that is reinforced through the editorials, through the article selection, through much of the posting activity, etc. While you see a lot of variation in the worldviews of participants (agnostics, christians, atheists, relativists, absolutists, humorists, nihilists, etc.)- the community still has several hundred thousand participants who fit the profile one-way-or-another (in short, they understand at some level the Slashdot narrative, and want to participate in and contribute to it).

What is the Plastic.com POV? There isn't one, really. It isn't created BY a certain specialized community FOR a specialized community. It is a created by a conglomerate of differently-minded interests, lacking in a coherent POV, and it feels like it. Oh sure, it has a sort of ironic, detached postmodern perspective- that is reflected in the cheeky commentary here-and-there, but come on- isn't that the standard TONE of almost web-based content sites these days? Salon, Slate, Wired News, etc.? So how original is that?

Now, Plastic.com will have two less sources funnelling a readership towards its community board. No Feed readers, no Suck readers. Who will it continue to receive readers from? Modern Humorist? (who jokingly noted in a recent press release that they were almost out of the seven-figures in venture capital they raised only a year ago, and could be in trouble?) Netslaves? (who repeatedly asks on their own site if they should discontinue the site itself since their purpose has been satisfied and frankly, Netslaves isn't exactly making anyone richer OR happier?) Inside.com? (who at their PEAK had less than 2000 paying subscribers, as noted by Poynter.org a week ago?)

I don't bear Plastic any ill-will, that isn't why I'm bringing this up. I think the concept is flawed and in time, this will be manifest. But I'd be happy to I was wrong about that.

But, backing up, it begs the question- who in the Internet content business is going to survive?

Jim Romenesko's Media News had a link today to a story in which Slate publisher Scott Moore "was kind of funny, drolly knocking down anybody's ideas about what might make a dollar online... He didn't seem to think any known model will sustain a Web-media company. Because his publication is paid for by Bill Gates, he can afford to be pessimistic."

Truth be told, Moore is wrong. We see that at least The Onion has been able to make a ton of money ($2,000,000 in ad revenues alone last year, for their website only). They also have print advertising in their print publication, and several best-selling books they've released, plus "The Onion" radio news (syndicated for indy & college radio stations, mostly), and have made money optioning articles to Miramax for film development (two to date that I know of).

So, there is a hybrid new media / old media company that is making serious money in content. And, most would agree, they are the best at what they do.

Another content company making money online is Fu----company.com. Founder Pud runs the thing pretty much by himself. He's got a book deal with Simon & Schuster, he's got at least $60,000 a month in subscriber revenues to his unedited gossip / rumours database, he's got some banner advertising (prolly not too special revenue wise), and he's got f'dcompany-branded products he sells on his site (I think I read this may bring in over $100,000 this year, but I'd need to double check).

There are other Internet content players who are surviving, generating revenues and even profits. I don't know of ANY that have done so after raising venture capital. Ironically, the sites that raised capital to fund content are the ones who are dying here, there and all over the shop.

I wish I could think of some more Internet content "pureplays" that seem likely to survive, but I can't off the top of my head.

Where was I going with all this? I don't know. But now that I'm here, I think I'll rest and pretend this was where I was intending to head.

Good luck to the content players still out there, still trying to make something work while remaining independent. I feel obligated to say that after reading that 4 corporate players control over HALF of the public's internet browsing needs or some such nonsense.

All of this speculating has got me depressed. Think I'll go read some old USENET articles and think of a simpler time. A time when it looked like Netscape was going to change the world, when it looked like Microsoft had finally been bested, when Amazon was just selling books and it seemed like the people starting companies left-and-right were doing it because they wanted to make a change in something other than their personal worth.

When did Slashdot hire competent writers? Sweet fucking christ, people. Taco is no Polly Esther and Katz doesn't hold a candle to Ambrose Beers.

Don't get me wrong, I wish Slashdot the best of luck in their endeavour to fill the void left by Sucks demise.

You can start by installing a spell checker.

When did Slashdot hire competent writers? Sweet fucking christ, people. Taco is no Polly Esther and Katz doesn't hold a candle to Ambrose Beers.

Don't get me wrong, I wish Slashdot the best of luck in their endeavour to fill the void left by Sucks demise.

You can start by installing a spell checker.

• The 4+ trailers for he and his posse
• The firing of production assistants for mistakes he made
• His temper tantrums, storming off the set, and general bad behavior

Previously you could just move the bottom sucky frame to zero size, and whala! no banner ads. You can still link to a unframed pages tho, or even better the more liquid print friendly version (that unfortunately still uses tables for layout).
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mrBlond

Previously you could just move the bottom sucky frame to zero size, and whala! no banner ads. You can still link to a unframed pages tho, or even better the more liquid print friendly version (that unfortunately still uses tables for layout).
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mrBlond

Previously you could just move the bottom sucky frame to zero size, and whala! no banner ads. You can still link to a unframed pages tho, or even better the more liquid print friendly version (that unfortunately still uses tables for layout).
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mrBlond

There was an excellent article at Suck.com last month, pointing out one simple fact:

The problem has been [to loosely paraphrase] that the companies selling and managing banner ads thought that advertising on the Internet would be different from advertising in other media.

Unfortunately, they're wrong. The clickthrough rates are low, sure. But how often does an ad for, say, jeans, make you head out and buy them [the rough equivalent of a 'click-through']?

Ads are designed to get you to remember the product when you're heading out to buy products, thereby establishing brand recognition and making you more likely to choose that manufacturer's product over the hundred or so nearly identical competing brands'.

Just because it's a new medium doesn't mean we've changed that much, and as the article points out, with the cultural recognition of that damned monkey, it could probably sell us just about anything.

Larsal

Gracenote is the frontpage story on Suck.com today.

Suck me

pretty funny stuff, Maynard.

what a coincidence -- suck has some commentary on gracenote and other similar companies in their daily essay. Mmmm....suck...filler archives....

Right. suck said it best. Practices that commonly happen (all comps come preloaded with MS OS) are not questioned, and are impossible to get around in most places.

There are only two or there places where I can get a laptop not bundled with the MS tax.
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