Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume II, Issue 22, Year AD MCMXCVII Monday, June 2nd, 1997 ------------------------------------------- "We can do anything we want. We have an artistic... uh... freebie. We have a license to kill." ------------------------------------------- "Violence and technology: they just don't go!" -- ??, Lost World ------------------------------------------- 1. Readers' Letters A. CoP: Capital of Philosophy 2. Anti-Spamming Bills introduced in Congress 3. Jason ruins scientific progress 4. The Duck World: Jurassic Pond 5. 50 movies with goats in them ------------------------------------------- This week's Golden Testicle Web Award goes to: The disfunctional Family Circus http://www.spinnwebe.com/dfc/ ------------------------------------------- 1. Readers' Letters A. CoP: Capital of Philosophy From: anonymous (the author desired to remain unknown) To: "Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro" Subject: CoP? Date sent: Wed, 28 May 1997 10:23:39 -0400 Leandro, I thought it was Capital of Nasty, not Capital of Philosophy. I was looking forward to reading the latest issue of CoN to cheer me up after battling road hogs on the 401 for forty minutes in a bid to get to work on time for once. Instead of the usual lighthearted humor I read about your midlife crisis. Cheer up man, believe me, you don't want a MIDlife crisis at twenty...unless you're thinking of saying sayanara when you're forty. You're right, life seems pretty pointless sometimes but most of the times it's because for some reason it's easier to dwel on the bad things. We forget the nice things because we consider that to be the norm. later anonymous --- [Editor's Response] Thank you for your letter. Rest assured that Leandro has received appropriate treatment for his negative outburst and is heavily sedated--even as you read this letter. He required more sedation than the doctors expected. We suspect it's because you suggested that Capital of Nasty has some philosophical offerings. We ask that you refrain from this in future correspondence. Colin Barrett C.C.C.P. Webmaster & Editor ------------------------------------------- 2. Anti-Spamming Bills introduced in Congress courtesy of Olga Altshuler (eugenea@ifront.com) While the FIREWALLS list is onto e-mail spamming, the following might be of inteest... Two bills with vastly different philosophies have been introduced into Congress to deal with the e-mail spamming issues. The Senate Bill S.771 authored by Senator Murkowski is rather focused and gives oversight to the Federal Trade Commission (not the Federal Communications Commission). (text available at http://www.senate.gov/~murkowski/commercialemail) The House Bill (unnumber) authored by Represenatative Smith (NJ) would just extent the anti-fax-spamming bill to apply to e-mail. (text available at http://www.cauce.org) If you have opinions on this subject, you might want to make them known to your senator or representative. The Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) and others are against legal regulation of this type, and prefer to put together a study group first to develop a best solution. Apparently, the spammers have irritated enough people that the word has gotten to Washington. One can only hope we come out with a sensible solution. ------------------------------------------- 3. JASON RUINS SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS by Jason MacIsaac (jason@ifront.com) Some University of Saskatchewan students, possibly with too much time on their hands, decided that they would get together and calculate the force of beauty. To this end, they needed some kind of standard measurement, like kilometers, or joules. Such measurements are often named after a significant scientific historical personalities (as "joules" were), so they wanted someone beautiful they could name their unit after. Some of the more literary types suggested Helen of Troy. Helen, after all, was said to be so beautiful that she had a face that "launched a 1,000 ships." So, they did a little research, and began to draw computer models of Greek warships of the period. They then calculated how much force would be necessary to launch one of them, then a thousand--and named the result of their calculations "1 Helen." This would be the standard measurement of beauty. This was all well and good until I came along. I mentioned that the quote about Helen of Troy came from the Christopher Marlowe play "Doctor Faustus." The actual line is "Is this the face that launched a 1,000 ships, AND burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" (all caps mine) "The topless towers of Ilium" weren't actually topless, they were just said to be so tall that the human eye could not discern the top of the towers from the ground. Burning them would be no small accomplishment. Therefore, the unit "Helen" must be a great deal more powerful than the energy necessary to launch 1,000 ships. Strangely enough, I was not thanked for pointing this out. I'm told they're working on revising their calculations. ------------------------------------------- 4. The Duck World: Jurassic Pond Leandro+ For the new movie "The Lost World", an entire web-site was put online at http://www.lost-world.com. I went to see the site (on the 28th of May, at around 10:30 AM EST) to find out a little more about this plotless movie, and instead of the Jurassic logo, a "The Duck World" logo appeared. Apparently some hackers had managed to change the image. I tried getting in contact with the webmasters of "lost-world.com" but never got an answer (as if). I wonder if the crakers (the electronic community freaks when you say 'hacker', they prefer cracker. I wonder if Mr. Christie will complain saying that we are giving a bad image to their cookies) saw the Lost World movie, and since they were completely blown away by the incredible story, full of deep emotional feelings, decided to say what they really thought. Ironically the image is signed by "hackers". I was told later on that the fact had been mentioned by CNN. Hey, free advertising... You can see the hacker's logo (which is incredibly well done) at this web site: http://www.gamesmania.com/tm/dw-logo.jpg One cannot help but wonder if it was done on purpose by Universal Studios to get some free advertising. Review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park After seeing "Can't stop the music" (Issue 23 will have two reviews about this bad movie and the atrocious experience seeing it), "The Lost World" becomes automatically a good movie, with a plot. Seriously speaking, "The Lost World" is another one of those movies where if it wasn't for the amazing special effects, they could've just as well retitled it "Can't stop the dino". Since we had not suffered enough from the first "Jurassic Park", they had to make a sequel to it, and as all sequels go, they tend to suck (just take a look at "Philadelphia Experiment II"). Poor Jeff Goldbloom tried his best to make this movie a little more interesting. Unfortunately, other than "The Fly", everything else he was in blew goats left, right and center. I guess if it wasn't for him trying to give more life to the movie, I would be still under some deep mental shock. His part was basically divided between saying witty stuff in the attempt of being humorous, the usual rantings about mixing technology and violence, not petting dino-babies and hanging from a cable for way too long. THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK by Robert Willette (IMPROV) So I line up at ten in the morning to see the "biggest box office open ever"...I'm just as excited as the next guy...well maybe not as excited as him he's a fat comic books store owner whose been masturbating to the thought of another dinosaur movie scince '94. But nevertheless I'm looking forward to the blockbuster hit of the summer. Putting aside the fact that I wasn't too impressed with the first one. I watch the movie with an open mind...hoping for some shread of a plot...or something to keep me awake...needless to say I could have been fast asleep by the third scene of the movie. OOOHHHH the T-rex is after Jeff Goldbloom AGAIN....Big deal...EAT HIM AND PUT US OUT OF OUR MISERY!!! As for Spielburg...with the exception of Schindler's List I guess it's been all downhill scince E.T.!! Why not get a real director like John Woo or Sam Raimi to direct a multi-million dollar budget movie? Oh well I guess that's wht I'm not a producer. IMPROV ------------------------------------------- 5. 50 MOVIES WITH GOATS IN THEM by Jason MacIsaac (jason@ifront.com) 1) THE GOATFATHER 2) STRAW GOATS 3) HOW THE GOAT WAS WON 4) THE QUIET GOAT 5) POLTERGOAT 6) A BOY AND HIS GOAT 7) JURASSIC GOATS 8) LITTLE SHOP OF GOATS 9) GOATS OF THE LOST ARK 10) THE GOAT STRIKES BACK 11) NATURAL BORN GOATS 12) GOAT FICTION 13) RESERVOIR GOATS 14) THE OXGOAT INCIDENT 15) THE GOAT, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY 16) GOATY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION 17) THE GOAT BRIEF (not based on the John Grisham novel) 18) GOATS III: The New Generation 19) THE TEXAS GOATSAW MASSACRE 20) GOAT 9 FROM OUTER SPACE 21) SHOWGOATS 22) 2001: A Goat Odyssey 23) 2010: The Year The Goats Make Contact 24) GOATENSTEIN 25) GOAT 3D (This time, it's personal) 26) CITY OF LOST GOATS 27) THE HUNCHGOAT OF NOTRE DAME 28) ALL THE FINE YOUNG GOATS 29) THE LITTLE GOAT WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE 30) STAR TREK VI: The Undiscovered Goat 31) FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH PART SEVEN: The New Goat 32) CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE GOAT KIND 33) GOATBUSTERS 34) ONE OF OUR GOATS IS MISSING 35) GOATFINGER 36) GOAT FLANDERS 37) THE BIG GOAT ONE 38) TAKE THIS GOAT AND SHOVE IT 39) GOAT OF AFRICA 40) GOAT DURHAM 41) HEAVEN'S GOAT 42) DAS GOAT 43) SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR GOATS 44) D3: THE MIGHTY GOATS 45) ENTER THE GOAT 46) JAMES AND THE GIANT GOAT 47) UNFOGOATEN 48) CONAN THE GOAT 49) A CHORUS GOAT 50) THE GREAT GOAT ROBBERY -------------------------------------------