Mac the Knife
MacAddict (online)
Bite.org
ATaT
SatireWire
THE INTERNET - The list of our fallen comrades reminds us of the
terrible price we pay for tech humor on the Internet. As we mourn the
passing of our latest colleague, SatireWire, from our mortal ranks, it
behooves us to remember the words of the late, great Mac the Knife, who
said many words we cannot spell or pronounce. Among those words was the
term "hegemon." He also said "mellifluously" on occasion, with or
without provocation.
But this is not about a sharp utensil and his multiplicity of
syllabaratti. No, it isn't about the ghost of Mac the Knife, the
shining blade barely visible through a cloud of pop culture smoke; nor
about our dearly departed ATaT, taken from us in a battle with an
extraordinarily adept ninja infant. Nor are we going to do much more
than mention the lost potential that was the morass that became
Bite.org, which finally went away after all.
No, my friends, we are hear today to pay homage to that Titanic
fount of simulated press release humor, the one known as
SatireWire.
SatireWire pulled a Bill Watterson on us this week, my friends, and
it will be sorely missed. It is with a heavy heart that I remove the
link from the Daily Planet of my Internet rounds. We who have lived
through the Dark Times - as site after site fell by the wayside,
stunted by the lack of ad revenue or blunted by the sword of Cease and
Desist - remember those glory days of yore when Net humor from an email
was fresh, when it required a dictionary to decipher the Utensil's
ravings, when you could laugh right out loud at the nerve of that guy
(you know the one), that guy, the one who wrote the thing.
Other people you don't know have been posting
their lists of favorite SatireWire stories, and I will not question
the wisdom of their selections here - besides being too lazy to cook
one up myself. Instead, I will remind you that if you haven't yet read
SatireWire, it is now too late, for its humor grows ever staler even as
we weep.
Yet let us not pass quietly into the night. Let us remember the
barbs, the voice of sanity crying out in the dot com hurricane, second
only to Dilbert in piercing the underlying rot of the bloated American
boardroom, but with far less marketing withal. Let us give silent
thanks for the inspiration that made us think we could do that too,
even though reality has long ago set in, anon.
We will not forget you, SatireWire. And while our literary skills
are not the equal of your own, we will sharpen them anew at the
whetstone of the Wigs that be Big, and we will cry out the names of our
towns in all caps even as we seek out new life and new situations, to
boldly go where you have probably gone before, if only we had the
gumption to look it up and see for sure, so we could credit you when we
really really had to.
Thank you SatireWire - and try not to let the router hit you in the
butt on the way out.
is a longtime Mac user. He was using digital sensors on Apple II computers in the 1980's and has networked computers in his classroom since before the internet existed. In 2006 he was selected at the California Computer Using Educator's teacher of the year. His students have used NASA space probes and regularly participate in piloting new materials for NASA. He is the author of two books and numerous articles and scientific papers. He currently teaches astronomy and physics in California, where he lives with his twin sons, Jony and Ben.< And there's still a Mac G3 in his classroom which finds occasional use.
