Build Date: Fri Dec 5 13:40:07 2025 UTC
I'm attacking you because it's FUN, dumbshit!
-- Tjames Madison
So-called 'Smart Browsing' Sucks
1998-11-09 17:36:00
So, I have to say the dumbest technology I've seen in a while is the "What's Related" doohickey on Netscape Navigator 4.5. If you don't use 4.5, here's the scoop: there's a little button on the address bar that says "What's Related". When you click on it, it pauses a sec, and then it shows you the titles of about 4-5 sites that are somehow "Related" to the site you're looking at.
First off, it's a lame adaptation of a stand-alone Win32 product, Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/), a parasite program that gloms onto your browser and obsessively watches where you go. But whereas Alexa shows you 'related' sites based on other user's browsing habits, AND lets you submit 'related' URLs, Netscape's "What's Related" seems to pull the URLs directly out of its nether orifice.
It's absolutely horrible. It's degenerate 1995 search-engine technology. I think they must have bought the engine from a team of Bulgarian and Israeli virus writers, because it is uniformly useless.
Take, for example, our beloved Pigdog Journal. When I click on "What's Related" from http://www.pigdog.org, here's what I get:
* Digital Journey Themes (http://ziris.syr.edu/themes.html). This is a page of broken images that hasn't been updated since 1994. I don't know whether to take this as a comment on our staying power on the Internet, or on our lackadaisical approach to site update.
* 1002situations (http://fgidec1.tuwien.ac.at/1002situations/) Some crazy Austrian digerati crap. Sample "What is your homeland?" d00ds, by international law, Germans are not allowed to talk about 'homelands', OK?
* ResRocket (http://www.resrocket.com/) Win32 software for musical collaboration on the Internet. In case you haven't noticed, we don't do that.
* Frequently Asked Questions about 0Rez (http://www.cais.net/elgar/0zpxd.htm). Boring Usenet freaky stuff. 'We so freaky!' Gar. I _hope_ we're not 'related' to this bozo.
* 2013 (http://www.2013.com/). This looks like Mondo 2000 in 1991. What up with these people? I see nothing but links and fancy ray-tracing. How are we related? I suspect Quaker State Tapioca Rupture is involved.
So, what's all that shit got to do with _US_? Simple: they're all listed on the Yahoo "Cyberculture" (oh, it pains me to write that) page, So's PDJ. Case solved. Netscape spidered Yahoo and called themselves a Web portal. (http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Cultures_and_Groups/Cybercu lture/).
Anyways, my point is, "What's Related" blows. Netscape obviously has no idea what it's doing with this thing. They should stick to milking their Start page and leave these distracting buttons off my browser.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
As has been recently reported in the PDJ, Christopher Walken, evil s00per villain extraordinaire, will be appearing next month in Disney's newest release, The Country Bear Movie. Always playing some wicked and very disturbed badass in movies like Sleepy Hollow, Illuminata, The Prophecy I, II, III, Pulp Fiction, Batman Returns, The Milagro Beanfield War, A View to a Kill, The Dogs of War, Heaven's Gate, and The Deer Hunter, Walken is unsuprisingly a big favorite in the PDJ news room. (More...)
Australian Troops Set for Days of Debauchery to the Tunes of Kylie Minogue
This weekend Australian troops in East Timor will be able to put their feet up and push all the images of mass graves and charred remains from their minds as they relax to the giddy melodies of Kylie Minogue - including exclusive unplugged performances in the militia-ravaged and blood-spattered border towns of Balibo and Suai. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Report from Spiritual Machines
Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel and conclave. Wacky excitement ensues! (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
The Ancient and Correct Sake Ceremony
Many Americans have learned to appreciate the delicate, sophisticated flavors of Japanese food and drink, along with the beautifully refined rituals of Japanese dining. San Francisco, as a gateway between East and West, has especially benefited from the flowering of Eastern consciousness in America. It is hardly possible to walk down the street without stepping on somebody's sushi. (More...)
