![Useless WWW Pages](/file/23510/Chip_Special_Best_Web_Sites_02-96.iso/mac/WEBSITES/KURIOS/KURIOS.ZIP/USELESS.GIF)
"America's Funniest Home Hypermedia"
A "Waste of electrons"
-- Wired
All of the sites on this page are pretty useless, but NONE of
them are as useless as the Powers That Be that are trying to
Censor the Internet!
(Note: Not a Useless Link! Quite the opposite!)
Go straight to the Latest Useless Stuff
Paul's quotes:
- "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."
-- Bertrand Russell
- "The things you think are useless, I can't understand."
-- Steely
Dan
Executive Producer: Paul Phillips. Director: Steve Berlin.
(Brought to you by the letter 'Q' and the number
Pi!)
A note from Paul: A startlingly large number of media outlets,
award givers, and suchlike are giving me all the credit for this effort,
and it's annoying. I haven't touched these pages for months -- Steve
is the guru of uselessness in the modern era, and don't forget the cast
of thousands that have sent in submissions. I'm simply a historical
figure that hosts the pages and languishes in semi-retirement from this
line of work. So take note!
A note from Steve about the above: See my
editorial
The discovery that someone had typed in his entire 30K CD collection for
WWW consumption prompted me to generate the useless pages page. I have
since found that this 30K list is a pale imitation of far more useless
efforts -- see below. Since you're wasting your time even now, the useless
pages page is first on the list of useless pages.
I don't mean to preclude those outside the Americas from being
considered useless. Actually, they're quite well represented.
I just thought the subtitle was amusing.
I summoned the all powerful deity known as "Perl"
to aid me in tracking changes to the Useless Pages. Witness the
Useless Updates page and save
yourself some time, which you can then waste on more useless pages.
Painstakingly alphabetized structure!
- 1,000,000
- Check it out -- we have reached one
million hits.
- Accolades
- We've garnered an award or two!
Of course the real work is done by those people typing in CD lists and
attaching hot tubs to the Web, but I'll take all the credit.
- Acknowledgements
- Thanks to everyone
that has contributed so far! I guess I'm not taking all the credit
after all.
- Awards
- We've won enough awards (see above), now we give them out in
The First Annual Useless Pages Awards.
- Blink
- In a fit of creativity, I have built my own monument to Uselessness.
Do you use Netscape like 62% of the web browsing population? If so,
come try to decipher my secret message regarding
blink. If not, don't bother. Really.
- Contests!
- Useless Contest I,
Contest II, and
Contest III!
- Disclaimer
- "Useless" in this context doesn't mean poorly done or of no value
at all, it just means that there isn't any point in making these things
available on the web. If you see a page and think "Good God, WHO CARES?"
you have found a likely submission. If you see your own pages here, don't
come after me with a pickaxe, I didn't choose all these personally. (I have
been amazed at the number of people that submit their own pages for
inclusion. Research into that phenomenon is left for a future project.)
Furthermore, some of these pages are intentionally useless: that is, they
poke fun at their own subject matter. Some aren't. If you can tell which
is which, you're one up on me.
- Hall of Fame!
- Now available for your perusal:
The Useless Hall of Fame.
Do not overlook the other worthy pages in your rush to see who
has attained this lofty position!
- Interactivity Uselessness
- The wise people at IRsociety have
seen fit to create
a
chat room devoted to the Useless Pages. Far
be it for me to question its usefulness! If you haven't tried this web chat
thing before, now may be the time. Since you're here, you obviously don't
have anything worthwhile to do.
Here is a
transcript
of a chat session they hosted, with Steve doing the yacking.
- International Appeal
- I have this thing about seeing the pages written about in other
languages, so I have devoted space
for this questionable collection of quotes from around the world.
- Job security
- At my fantastic boss's behest now that the Useless
pages are getting over 70,000 hits per week, please visit
Primus and
consider hiring us for your Internet and WWW needs. Heck, if I can
grind our server to a halt with pages built in my spare time, just
think what I can do when I really try! I used to say "useless boss"
rather than fantastic, but I decided I like getting paid.
- One Book
- As long as I'm subjecting our server to all this traffic, let
me drop in a plug for the non-useless
One Book list,
and solicit your submission. Spend some time today doing something
useful!
- Other Sources of Uselessness
- If you've enjoyed this page, you'll also enjoy
A list of sites that have grown too
big to list here so they get their own sub-page.
- Retirement
- After pages have duly served their time, they are farmed out to
the land of retired Useless pages.
Visit them, lest they wither and die from lack of love.
- Statistics
- Wondering how much
traffic
these pages get? Wonder no more.
- Submissions
- Want to submit a useless page for inclusion? Please read my
notes on submissions first.
- The Useful Pages!
- We at Primus do useful work too. You should come and see it.
Samplings:
And now that your appetite has been whetted, the main course:
Useless Pages
and friends:
Useless Site of the Week:
The
White House Summary of the Telecommunications Bill
Notice how they seem to have forgotten about
this
part (click on Title V, kids!). They CERTAINLY seem to have forgotten
THIS.
Useless Home Page of the Week:
God's Home Page
What if God was one of us? He certainly wouldn't have a page
like THIS!
- ^Gaber^uoko
"Jabberwocky" translated into Esperanto - a concept so pointless,
this is the first Gopher page to make The Useless Pages!
- Access Provider Disk Report
Is there anyone on the planet who does NOT have a dozen AOL disks?
- Adopt
a Vegetarian
Ha! As if a lifestyle endorsed by the likes of Albert Einstien or
Leonardo Da Vinci could have any merit!
- All about Adlai
Uh, thank you. You may sit down now.
- Analog and Paz
I just got back from an early Valentine's Day vacation with my fiancee,
so my tolerance for romance is pretty high. Even taking that into account,
this page STILL made me throw up.
- The Asylum's Virtual
Dartboard
Anything that encourages you to put kisses and hearts on Barney
the Dinosaur is useless in MY book!
- The Black Page
They can't fool me! It only LOOKS like a useless page!
- Car Talk
Staff
I used to date their Head of Computer Services, Dot Matrix
- The Caverns
of Carnac
You're in a twisty little maze of web pages, all alike.
- Connecticut
Technical Community College
I know it's not fair to pick on pages that are admittedly
"under construction", but in this case, I"ll make an exception.
- Data On the
Town
Trekkies scare me, but some more than others.
- Dick the
Computer Consultant
What is it about this page that makes me not want to hire him?
Is it the fact he considers a page like this "World Wide Web Publishing"?
Or that if he's so experienced in Excel, why can't he spell it? No,
it's that I would NOT trust a so-called consultant who uses AOL.
- The Dispatcher Home Page
Look at the descriptions of their products. Now do you see why they
didn't have them in the section labeled "Useful Links"?
- Electro
Thermal Dialator
Ouch!
- The Farolito
Page
The only thing better than Arts and Crafts is STUPID Arts and Crafts
- Fermat's
Last Theory Poetry Page
Unfortunately, I don't have room on this page to make a comment.
- Geezers on Parade
A very, very slow parade.
- Get
David Mentioned in Wired
Nyah nyah! I was mentioned in Wired and you weren't!
- Golfing
for Humanity
Winner of the coveted "He Just Doesn't Get It" award.
- The Hello
World Page
OK, I admit, I'm a geek! I chuckled at this...
- The
Interactive Scroll Lock Page
Honoring the most useless key on the keyboard.
- Jeff's
Free Floppy Disks
They just keep coming and coming and coming...
- The Knight Rider Page
Look at the gifs. I'm now using one as wallpaper.
- Lair of the
Anti-Martha
If Martha Stewart is the epitome of usefulness, then this page...
- The Mailbox Page
This is what people used to use a long time ago, before there
was E-mail, kids!
- Most Wired Page
I admit, it starts out pretty useful, but completely loses it
by the end.
- Mr. T Ate My
Balls
It's nice to know that jaded as I am, I can still run across pages
that make me say "Oh my God!"
- Mullet Watch
I took so long in putting this one on the list because I try not
to add pages I can't figure out.
- The Museum of Dirt
Dirt sent in from folks like John Waters (isn't that redundant?) and -
I am NOT making this up - Dave Barry
- The Nicole Simpson/Ron
Goldman Reward Fund
Obvious OJ jokes aside, this page states that there is a huge reward
to find the killer of Nicole Simpson. It also states you can send a
contribution to the person running this page. However, it does NOT
say there is ANY correlation between these two statements!
- The Pentomino Page
WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! Geek Alert! Geek Alert!
- Pee Wee's
Playhouse
I know you are, but what am I?
- The Perfect
Girlfriend Search
Isn't it nice to know that no matter HOW big a loser you are,
there's always someone who's MORE of a loser? Except for, of course,
the guy who made this page.
- The Physics
Page
But tell us how you REALLY feel...
- The Powder Page
Odd. If I put pages up like this on my own, I get flamed by the
owner of the pages. But these folks nominated THEMSELVES. Oy.
- Random
Number Generator
Funny, I keep getting "666".
- Reasons to
Love Microsoft
The sad part is he's serious!
- Roadkill
Trophies
And people say Western Civilization is declining.
- The Sand Page
Bringing you the latest dirt.
- Scott's
Kidney Stones
Thank you, Scott, for sharing.
- Sea Monkeys
Sea Monkeys are NOT primates! (That's a Sam and Max quote)
- Shakespeare's
use of the word "Spleen"
To grep or not to grep, that is the question.
- Shot Glass
Collection
- Snappy
Comebacks to Stupid Fortune Cookies
It's as if the gang at Mystery Science Theatre 3000 went to a Chinese
Restaurant.
- Social
Security Number Origin Finder
Mine is from Mars!
- Strips
Published in Viz
I don't understand this at all. He goes through all the trouble of
listing everything in a publication that regularly prints comics
like "Buster Gonads and his Unfeasibly Large Testicles" or "Jonny
Fartpants", and then he edits it "in interest of good taste."
- The Squid
Dress-up Contest
The REAL challenge is to dress up a squid so it DOESN'T look
like Senator Exon.
- Subliminal
Message of the Week
- Three
Part Names
OK, They finally have Charles Nelson Reilly. You can stop writing
now.
- Useless
Facts
People are going to have to start getting more imaginative in their
page titles.
- Useless
Information
Is there any other type?
- The Useless
Page
Not to be confused with The Useless Pages.
- Virtual
Valnetines (sic)
True story: These folks wanted me to plug their site for Valentine's
Day. I thought I'd wait a week or so until it was, well, useless.
- Walk on Water Page
Jesus!
- WebSmell
Yeah, I've seen it before. But it still makes me giggle.
- Web Virus
This was submitted by an email who's subject was "Good Times"
- Zen and the Art of the WWW
What is the sound of one hand slapping a webmaster silly?
Everything that was here before is now in the
Home for Retired Useless Pages - over 500 links to the utterly useless!
Please visit them, they get so lonely. Now with Retired Food
pages!
People have commented to me
about the Useless pages. Their thoughts are brilliant and you
must view them.
Last modified: 02/19/96
useless@primus.com