for 8 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 Mia Steinberg Andy Slipka Suck Prod Temps 
Joey Anuff Publisher 
|
All the Summer's a Stage
two belated things that i only noticed after reading the letters (i'm not much of a theater person myself -- i've always preferred to read the scripts): 1. thanks for not using 'theatre' in your article. i feel that there aren't a lot of things a whole hell of a lot worse, culturally, than the affectation of commonwealth spelling. now that i think about it, americans who cross their sevens and hook their ones are pretty annoying too. anglophiles can kiss my ass. 2. "Why Patrick Stewart in stage make-up isn't a proper Fourth of July activity but Patrick Stewart in a wheelchair is a holiday-happy summer event is probably too long a discussion for here" i would think it has something to do with demographics (i.e. people summering or at least going away for the weekend), and distribution limits inherent to the medium (its a whole lot easier to have a picture of patrick stewart in multiple places at the same time than to have patrick stewart do the same). that and consumers are stupid. the sky appears to be blue as well, but that's not a particularly interesting or unique observation either. Will Forster <forster@bottlerocket.com> 1. They can kiss my ass, too, but only if they kiss mine first. You know, to be honest, I think I left the spelling of theater/theatre up to my editor. But I'm with you on the sevens. 2. This is all very true. If I were a better writer, I would have explained in the body of the essay that the box-office figures for Stewart's play showed it operating at one of the poorest percentages over the holiday weekend, even by the sucky standards of the Broadway holiday weekend. But yeah, those inherent limitations have doomed secondary cities to unctuous road tours featuring Marie Osmond and Donny Most while at the same time cloaking the Broadway and better regional shows in a kind of artistic mystery they often don't deserve. Have you read any of this week's convention coverage? Hey, thanks for reading the essay and sending a response. Best, 40th Street Black 
Reality Bites Your recent column in Suck was very interesting and I enjoyed your views on reality-via-the-media and internet . I do have one question. You wrote: Corporations lined up to sponsor "The Dotcom guy" during his year online, and according to Reuters, ZDTV.com has even launched a show where "desperate dot-com wannabes present their ideas to a stoic panel of venture capitalists..." I notice you quoted the sentence "desperate....capitalists". I have searched Reuters, C-Net, Yahoo and Altavista, but can't seem to find a source for this quote. Can you direct me to the Reuters story that you got that quote from? Curious, thanks for your time, Sloan Fader <sfader@pacbell.net> Trying a little rainmaking for your desperate capitalist friends? I suggested ZDTV name their venture capital show, "Who Wants To Be Humiliated on ZDTV?" - but they ignored me. Unfortunately, the June 11 article has expired from its original location. Where do Reuters articles go when they die? Where are the snows of yesteryear? Destiny
Nice column ... suck's still good to the last drop of wandering, hypertext link even when the sentences run on till any decent reader searches frantic for their NYT password or trying ta get back earning a buck ... Shouldn't you gents do a movie or something ...I got the hook - something about a fish, and a, uhh ... uhhh ... Ray Hartman Spokane, WA <rayhart@spkn.uswest.net> A barrel and a smoking gun! Pay attention, Ray! Seriously, thanks for the mail. Our goal is to drive away those decent readers who prefer reading the NYT or earning a buck. The few, the proud, the gloriously unproductive. Good to the last drop of wandering! Destiny
Subject: i wish you love ..... Love is food. It's the food that fuels the soul. Love is the magnet that attracts us to each other. Love is pure and intoxicating. Welcome to URBAN SCENTS http://www.urbanscents.com , Caribbean inspired, exotic, mood enhancing fragrances for the world. Urban Scents is about the best of humanity, taking the good vibrations of love, happiness, success, friendship, confidence and pleasure and sharing them with our fellow man. Join us in making this world we live in a better place. We invite you to visit our website at http://www.urbanscents.com On our site you will find mood enhancing fragrances and incense sticks designed to lift the spirits, provide energy and clarity. The address is http://www.urbanscents.com If you would like to be removed from this mailing list just send an email to info@urbanscents.com with remove in the subject line. I am hoping however that you will visit our site and join us in sending out positive greetings and vibrations to the rest of the world. Thank you for your time and support. Ronald Positive Vibes <info@urbanscents.com> If love is food, I'm anorexic. But I disagree with your unsolicited commercial advertisement on a fundamental point. I prefer my love impure - if you know what I mean... Good to see you're marketing a line of "sticks" to provide energy and "good vibrations of love." (Not to mention "sharing with our fellow humans...") Unfortunately, hawking a line of incense via e-mail is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever seen. Eagerly awaiting the day when technological advancements allows mankind to finally experience the fragrance of spam... Destiny
Great article, a bargain at twice the price. I find myself agreeing with you on most counts, but I'm not so sure the internet "spells doom" for old-media venues. Admittedly, much of what new media thrives on is self-spectation, which is (in a way) what networks are clumsily (and poorly) trying to adapt to a broadcast format. However, there's no saying that old media can't suck in the gut, fake a grin, and make their fall from grace the most perversely entertaining spectacle since the Hindenburg. Sure, the fallout will inevitably entail diminished viewership for the old guard, and who knows - maybe the internet just can't be beat for unabashed DIY entertainment. But damned if the fireworks won't be fun to watch, and last I checked, self-spectation was still anyone's game. If only Murdoch were a little more telegenic... Both feet in the trough, Benedict Warr <efeeb@hotmail.com> You're right, it is fun to watch - especially since old media will probably be its own worst enemy. (The webmasters behind the Survivor site found they couldn't even handle the audience once it actually did arrive...) But the Survivor site's designers were also apparently outfoxed by the observant web surfers who noticed CBS had not only posted the outcomes of two episodes before they aired, but left tell-tale images in another directory. Unless, of course, network executives had finally mastered the art of the hoax... But however it plays out, new media gadflies will be there harrying the broadcasters. CBS's apparent gaffe was discovered by the humble Dallas webmaster behind SurvivorSucks.com, a budding critic who's also crafted the sites RealWorldBlows.com and the as-yet-undeveloped BigBrotherBlows.com... Destiny
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
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
 
|