Linux Dot Gag
1999-06-04 20:16:31
Just in case you were wondering at what point the Hacker Revolution ended, man, it's officially OVER. Turn off the lights, sweep up the confetti, and shed a private tear over the dumbing down of Linux.
If you haven't checked it out already, it's worth your time to give a good look to Linux-dot-com.
Yeah, I know, I know. I expect too much. It's a fairly well proven rule that sites that have the name something-really-good plus "dot com" are in general really lame, nowhere near as good as the something-really-good itself. I mean, take for example Beer-dot-com, Gar-dot-com, and Burrito-dot-com.
But, at the same time, Linux is different. It's not something good highjacked by evil fucklords on the Internet -- it's something good that was MADE by the Internet. In a way it is the Internet.
So, you could kind of wish to see some of the hackerosity that originally created Linux on the site that bears its name. Wish away, though: it's not to be found on Linux.com. This site is PURE COMMERCIALISM, with blecho corpy look straight outta the labs of VA Linux Systems(half of the Evil Cooption Duo with RedHat Systems).
The content is wholly aimed towards the corporate user of Linux. Or, well, the corporate investor, more likely. It's got lots of pointers to industry rags talking about Linux for the Enterprise (gack), Linux @ Work (gack gack gack) and Linux vs. NT (super-triple-uber gack).
There's links to all the usual boring bonehead sites - slashdot.org, User Friendly (I hate this stupid comic), Freshmeat, gar gar gar. All the stuff that bores you to tears. It's the Dumb-Down Bundt, locking arms on the march to World Domination.
So, if you have the stomach for slick gar gar gar, and you don't have the computer knowledge to pick your own ass without an "Ass-picking for Dummies" book, you'll enjoy Linux.com. Otherwise, don't even fucking bother.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
Absinthia: The Pigdog Interview
Absinthe is making a come back for the Millennium. Even English people are slurping it down in pubs, eschewing their normal, healthy stouts and ales. And why not? Hell, if the planet is going to explode anyway, why not ride the DEATH WAVE in, and celebrate Y2K with the most entertaining and vicious elixir you can find? Come! Explore the "Absinthe Underground" with El Snatcher, Mr. Bad, and Splicer, as they interview the notorious absinthe bootlegger, Absinthia. (More...)
Eavesdropping on Geeks: 'Star Trek: Discovery' vs 'The Orville'
If you broke into Pigdog's top sekrit headquarters, spying on their mysterious mix of weird science and old-skool geekiness, you'd overhear this conversation: (More...)
"Gee, I wish I was older."
"So do I." (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...)
Johnnie Royale's Guide to Wakes
Wakes can present problems for Bad People of the Future. (If you don't know what a BPotF is, you need to read more of the PDJ.) Sure, your friend is gone and you miss him and that really sucks; it does, I know. But all Bad People of the Future are gonna die, and they have all accepted that fact. They do deserve, however, to have one final kickass party to celebrate all the bad things they've done in the past, present and future. And you, as a friend, have to make sure that their desire for a final send off is well executed (sorry for the pun). That's just the way of BPotFdom. (More...)