for 7 August 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY. |
![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
Tim Cavanaugh Special Guest Editor 
Terry Colon Art Director 
Heather Havrilesky Senior Editor ![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
Helen Kim Andy Slipka Mia Steinberg Suck Prod Temps 
Joey Anuff Publisher 
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Before the Body's Cold
Where are the old suck people. They were funny. Why is the site not suck.lycos.com, which would be more descriptive? James Dornan <james@catch22.com> Oh, gosh. Oh, wow. What a great put-down! suck.lycos.com! Oh, wow! Never heard that before! You sure got me! Woo! And, hey, I'm not one to make suggestions to such a rapier wit, but it would have been even funnier if you'd actually pulled your head out at any point in the last three months and made it suck.lycos.terra.com or suck.automatic-media.com. You chimp. Greg Knauss 
I don't like it, but I have to agree with your opinion. Pity. David Knowles <david.knowles@intel.com> Honestly, I don't like it either, not one bit. It's an enormous shame, a loss for the entire Web. But, unfortunately, there's really no arguing the point anymore. I wish Sparky, my childhood pet, weren't dead, too. But I'm sure as hell not going to keep his body propped up in the living room, waiting for the day he makes his triumphant return. Greg Knauss
If we shut down every bloated collection of half-thoughts, we would have to get rid of articles like yours too. I realize that you guys spend your time passing your writing through a sort of fuzz-guitar amplifier for text until the feedback hurts everyone, but I think you're a bit wrong here. I like the current version of Mozilla. Call me strange, but I don't even think it's bad at all. Peter Wayner <pcw@ddflyzone.com> You're strange. Misguided, too. The article may have been a bloated collection of half-thoughts, but at least I finished it. That's the point, remember? Mozilla has had over two years to fester and has produced nothing but a vague gone-bad smell and a series of ugly betas. Until the Project actually works up the gumption to ship something - something other than a milestone - Mozilla can't even be called a "half-thought." Greg Knauss
Yeah, but they throw cool parties. Matthew Cunningham <matthew@olliance.com> Now that you mention it, the Mozilla Project has repeatedly demonstrated that it's much better at throwing parties than it is at shipping code. Three parties in two years compared to - what? - a single beta release in that time? Hell, forget this software crap, Mozilla needs to re-purpose itself as a catering service. Greg Knauss
Quick, before they fix it...read your article. The sucksters have inadvertently stuck a new ending on it. See if you like it better that way...then scream your head off. Alan Kornheiser <askornheiser@prodigy.net> Actually, just randomly mixing in bits of other Suck pieces can only improve mine. I'm hoping to one day sound like St. Huck, Bartel D'Arcy, the Duke of URL and Webster, all mixed together. Greg Knauss
Nice article Greg. Just a little FYI, Microshaft also tried that "one browser fits all" thing about four years with similar stupefying results. In fact, the Windoze98 desktop was originally going to look, feel, and act a BROWSER! Jeepers, it's ugly enough as it is, yipes! Anyways, in the betas the public hated it, not just for look feel, but it's bloated size (like it's company). Although Microshaft is big at duping the general public into "you need bigger, badder, more - MHz matters - it's shitty, shut up and deal with it - etc." and usually trying to get them to upgrade their machines piecemeal at a time, they couldn't figure out how to coax the consumers into getting a new 20 gigabyte hard drive just to support their spiffy OS. They backed down, natch, and produced shitty Win98 and that begat Win2000, same look you've come to love and barf chunks to with merely bug fixes under the hood to support why you spent the money. Hey, keep on sucking! Suckerpunch <suckerpunch@mindspring.com> Like I have any choice. And as for Microsoft's "Web-Enabled Desktop," yeah, it was a disaster, too. But at least they had a customer-feedback mechanism to convince them - to the point of messages written in blood - that it was something that people didn't actually want. Mozilla, near as I can tell, does no research into what you or me or Joe Average wants from a Web browser, and it's killing them. What someone needs to do is get some fluorescent orange paint and write "JUST A BROWSER, DAMMIT" in their parking lot. Greg Knauss
I'm not going to rant and rave and swear about your article, as everyone's entitled to an opinion, but just say: Think before you act. The things you mentioned about Mozilla are strange; Bloated - Then why is it smaller than IE WITH all the debugging code? Cross-Platform technology - Are you a Microsoft employee or what? There are people who don't use Windows (now that's what I call bloated suftware!) XML - In case you hadn't noticed, Office 2000 actually uses this as a file format, which kinda makes it important to be able to read it. Mail client, etc - Some of us don't use IE (I know it's hard to believe) and don't want to have to install a separate program, just have it all in one. Oh, and it's actually learning from the mistakes of Netscape; don't be narrow-minded and live in the past, get the stuff of tomorrow today. George Sharp <geo-an-sue@mm59.freeserve.co.uk> I'm going to be patient with you, George, because you're English and already have a lot of embarrassment to contend with. But, to take your "points" in order: Bloat: I don't know that IE is the application you want to be comparing yourself against when you're arguing that Mozilla isn't bloated. "Golly, Clem, you're a damned sight slimmer than that circus fat lady! Have another donut!" Cross-Platform Technology: Yes, I'm aware that there are non-Windows users in the world. I'm one of them. The ability to write code so that it compiles on different operating systems has nothing - nothing - to do with nonsense like XPCOM, XUL or the cross-platform widgets. They're toys, Georgie. XML: The ability to parse XML would certainly be a nice feature. Say, in version 2. Or 3. Or maybe even 1.1, if you're feeling ambitious. But, for now, just get the damned browser out. XML doesn't help the browser one tiny bit. Mail Client, Etc.: So let me get this straight. You think that it's OK that Mozilla is years - years! - behind schedule just to save you the trouble of installing Eudora? How long has it been since you took the blow to the head? You suffer from the same disease the Mozilla developers do, George. You value the fuzzy, ill-defined future over the present. The future's great and all, yeah, but we actually have to live here. And, apparently, we have to do it without a decent browser. Greg Knauss
Hit & Run
Sucksters: I'm no flag-bearer for morphing, but, in truth, does any rail scream "1994" quite as embarrassingly as those against morphing? As well, you'll note that a morph, subtly rendered, can be a provocative, destabilizing image; see the one at the end of the *What Lies Beneath* trailer, as the antagonist utters the line, "Your wife..." to a frazzled Harrison Ford. Great take on *The Perfect Storm*, though. Impressive, when I first saw the trailer in the theatre; have yet to see the movie, if only for that reason. Meanwhile, on the other hand, I've yet to tire from the smarmy wit of what, to me, is one of the great movie metaphors in cinematic history: that of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave being stripped to the atomic nucleus by an exawatt alien ray gun in *Independence Day*. Suck on, Harry Allen <HarryAllen1@aol.com> We'll assume you're joking about the trick in the What Lies Beneath trailer, which we suspect discouraged more potential viewers than it brought in. But there's nothing more dismal than an effect that's supposed to be really cool but isn't. And morphing, whether it's a morph of an X-Files villain, of Shaq in Steel, or of Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan, is an effect we can no longer look on without feeling an acute sense of regret and shame. yr pal, Morphin' Downey Jr.
hey, Just wanted to write and thank you for referring to Shining Time Station " an enduring if inexplicable favorite among still-drooling viewers." This article made my day. I played "Matt", the lovable moptop, on Shining Time for the first Season and a half before being replaced by cheaper, more Canadian kids and it's always funny to accidentally find some kind of reference to it. Suck just keeps getting better and better. The Martin Lawrence piece was mind blowing. What an egotistical bastard. Back in my day, I never asked to more than 3 trailers. keep up the good stuff, Jason <RoysTeeth@aol.com> You have a kindred spirit here. Or you did, at any rate: Phil Bailey, Suck's dearly departed production guy, was once a star on the Northern California version of Romper Room. [Special alert for Central Jersey headbangers: Phil's band Systematic will be opening for Napstercides Metallica at the Meadowlands later this month. We wish Phil the very best in his new career as a rock and roll degenerate.] Lovable Moptop
You guys are just so arch. Harley Davis <hdavis@museprime.com> It's all so perfectly fucking grand, isn't it? Archers
Robinson Crane: Kelsey Grammer Marooned Again "...that group of people shipwrecked on that island, slowly turning against each other." But I still can't quite figure out why I can't stop hearing Mr.Magoo's voice when I read the Kelsey Grammer cartoon. <steveo@panix.com> I think it's because Terry's illustration brings out the Magooean sense of perserverance that characterizes Grammer's never-say-die efforts to transcend his status as Frasier Crane. An excellent artistic choice on Terry's part, I say... Huck
"Olivier, or Branagh, or Selleck." A non sequitur if ever I read one. Great job on the rest of it, though. <heinzhemken@earthlink.net> Go back and look at the work. Three Men and a Baby compares favorably with anything in the Olivier and Branagh canons if you ask me. A lot of that's due to the presence of Gutenberg, of course, but Selleck more than holds his own. Huck
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