Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume II, Issue 21, Year AD MCMXCVII Monday, May 26th, 1997 ------------------------------------------- << CAPNASTY.ORG HAS MOVED >> After the political problems that have arised at Internet Frontier over the name of one of the sites I wanted to create (Gamesphobia), I asked my friend Gard to adopt the Capnasty.org website. He accepted and now I am glad to announce that we are part of the great SCRIBA ORG collective (http://www.scriba.org). Although we start small, already Scriba and CoN have developed a great attitude towards literature and the proliferation of electronic media. Together we plan to work on making this world a better world. Special thanks to all the other people that have helped in one way or another to keep things going. ------------------------------------------- "Some Issues are great, some issues just blow. This issue blows." ------------------------------------------- 1. Readers' Letters A. Genetic mice & haircuts 2. POEM: Alone 3. Do you really think that ICQ is better than IRC? 4. Pondering about life ------------------------------------------- This week's Golden Testicle Web Award goes to: If you are good, you shouldn't use Microsoft products. http://netspace.net.au/~hinks/gatesdvl.gif ------------------------------------------- 1. Readers' Letters A. Genetic mice & haircuts From: FitchDonS@aol.com Date sent: Wed, 21 May 1997 03:42:30 -0400 (EDT) To: leandro@capnasty.org Subject: Message of Comment on CoNEM II.20 Hi, Leandro: You published (in CoNEM II.20): >With a single genetic switch, scientist have created a strain of >supermice two to three times more muscular than usual, with big, >broad shoulders and massive hips. Now if they can find a way of chemically inhibiting that "single gene that appears to limit muscle growth" only temporarily, it _could_ be useful, both medically and commercially, yes, not to mention the way it might revolutionize _sumo_ wrestling. But I suppose such a discovery would run afoul of the same attitudes that cause some people to boycott foods that have been genetically altered to reduce the speed with which they decay in storage, or to die of diabetes rather than use insulin produced by genetically altered bacteria. And then there are those tonnes of Toblerone chocolate the British have impounded, because they contain "a genetically altered soy product" (presumably soy-based lecithin, which is apparently normally ok in chocolate) -- I guess because those Mad Scientists have genetically altered a strain of soy beans to cause them to produce a larger-than-normal yield of that material. Sounds to me like the old "There are Things Man was not Meant To /K/n/o/w/ Do" cliche. As far as I know, however, it's still ok for man to breed plants or animals (possibly excepting humans) for desirable characteristics, as long as they work with accidental ("natural") variations rather than calculated ones. To Believers in this school, those things that _look_ like tomatoes are perfectly acceptable since they were developed before artificial genetic manipulation was. >I found it while reading "The Toronto Sun" at the Barber. Oh? You actually pay money to have your hair cut? What interesting priorities this implies. Don Fitch (who stopped going to Barbers when the price of haircuts went above two dollars (U.S.), and who recently decided that there are better things to do with ten minutes every day than to shave -- which permits spending a bit more time online, and results in a long gray beard which might cause people to take me seriously. ++++++ -- Hello Don, thank you for your letter: I don't see the problem with genetics. I think that in a sense it's like we were given a computer (the body) and not the "programming language" it has been programmed with. The DNA is a very complicated system, and for any effective changes to take effect, they have to be done in the early stage of development (when we are but one or two cells). Can you imagine changing several million cells to achieve something? It is possible, by altering genetics to make life longer as well. We will never be immortal, because genetically the cells know how many times they will have to divide. Once reached that stage, the cell lives until it dies. Unfortunately, like you said, many things have a certain concept behind it, mostly religion based as well. Perhaps it is true that we are not meant to tinker with stuff that God created. At the same time, we have the technology and the knowledge to do it.. why not? It's tempting to play God. As for the barber, I go to the barber once every month, or depending how long I want my hair. Lately I like it short, and I don't have gray hair yet to look wise. In fact I am way too young, and even if I don't feel like an ignorant teenager, society considers me something to watch out from. Credit Card companies refuse me. Banks think I live off my parents. School despises the way I behave. My barber is one of the few people in the neighbourhood that treats me with respect even considering the tremendous age gap. To each tHAIR own ;-) Leandro+ ------------------------------------------- 2. POEM: Alone Like a piece of fragile clay, my heart has been dashed upon the shores of loneliness. Forever to be crushed beneath its stones and eroded by its torrents. My life as it was is no more. The path that lies ahead is long, cold, dark. There is a light that reaches out to me from the depths of longing, yet the closer I claw towards it the fainter it gets. Confusion, despair, meaningless, cruel. I am. Alone Anonymous ------------------------------------------- 3. Do you really think that ICQ is better than IRC? By Emanuela Corso (manu@ifront.com) The first time that I used ICQ, I was very amazed about this new program, so different by irc: in fact you can talk only with people that you want. So this was the beginning of ICQ for me, I selected the people I wanted to talk with............I thought nobody could find me on the internet with this method. So, after a while, one day at home, as I was talking with a friend on ICQ, I see the sentence (which is common for ICQ users): "The user ".." added you to his contact list". ICQ user have their name available publically on the Mirabilis server. Nobody needs an authorization to talk to me.... and when I saw these "unknown" nick names like "Lemon Tree", I told myself:"Oh my God, here we are again!". You see, those few times I was on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to chat with my boyfriend at work), strange people which, just because I'm female, would ask me some pretty weird questions (I wont say the kind of questions I got, I'm sure you've understood!). I thought ICQ was my escape from the IRC world and I found it can really be like the old IRC.. So my finally advice is: pay attention to the strange nicks or make joke of them:)!! Good luck! manu Note: ICQ is a small program which load and stays in the background of your Window environment. It allows for direct chatting, file transfer, URL exchange, and other neat little features (such as paging) to "improve" communication between users. The userlists are unfortunately available for everyone to see, so lamers seeing a female name, automatically attempt try their moves on the girl. For further info, visit the site http://www.mirabilis.com and reduce your office productivity down to zero. ------------------------------------------- 4. Pondering about life by Leandro The other night my girlfriend and I wanted to see "A summer in la Goulette". Unfortunately it seems that the movie is very popular, and when we went to the booth to buy tickets we were told it had sold out. Still in that "movie-watching" mood, we decided to see another movie, and ended up at the Eaton Centre. The Eaton Centre is known for having screens the size of your television screen, but we gave in because of lazyness. The movie we ended up seeing was Jerry McGuire. The movie wasn't really anything great, although one part left me thinking afterwards. It's when Jerry (Tom Cruise) realizes that he is not really living his life. What he was doing was because of his job, and not something he wanted to do with his heart. Life at times really does seem like a complete waste of time. All you do is work work work, come home, try to get some rest, and repeat the cycle. Add into this bills you have to pay, taxes, the daily rip-off from people as they want to feed you their bullshit. Parents that live their life and want to live yours as well. Add into this money one is saving up for university or to take that miserable tiny vacation after working for two years non-stop. You come to work and your are a nobody in the collective mass. You come home and you have to listen to the family hysteria as they drag you in their problems. Why bother going on, at times I wonder. What do I have to look foward to in this life? Bills, taxes, pollution, abuse from people. My parents house and the mortage that will come with it, work, and a ton of other problems. I'll have to work for 40 years, sitting down, in front of this computer screen, to then retire and hope that if I have a heart attack the ambulance will come in time. Life is hell. Already I can see everyone saying to me "life is hard" or the new favorite "life is harsh" (too many Tequila commercials?). I did not expect life to be easy. There are just too many problems, too many things to worry about and I am not always willing nor have the mental energy to worry about them. "But problems will make you strong" I've been told. Yes, it's true. I've had some experiences in my life that made me strong. But I'm tired of having to be strong. I want to get up in the morning and worry about what to put on. Instead of rushing to work to get a lousy paycheck to barely pay the many bills I have. The truth is probably that I am scared. Scared to fail in life. Scared to find myself holding nothing in my hands. Scared of losing in a world where if you lose, people will gladly walk on top of you. No one there to help you. Lost and alone. I'm not exactly a pessimist, but somedays what I see around does get to me. It's at moments like these when I have to stop, take a long deep breath, stop over-thinking, and realize that I am only twenty. Perhaps my future holds a lot more, and I don't have to stay in one place. I have someone wonderful in my life that has helped me in moments of trouble and I have friends that accept me for who I am (ie. they put up with me). I guess all I can do right now is to swallow the bitterness, and try my best to achieve something more in this life. A life away from the collectiveness, and rush hours and all the other mental abuse that deprived, frustrated people put other people through. I just hope that now I'll be able to worry less about work and the problems that arrive in life, and dedicate myself more to the things I like and the people I love. -------------------------------------------