Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume IV, Issue 3, AD MCMXCIX
Monday, February 8, 1999
ISSN 1482-0471
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George Carlin said that if four people are doing something, there's a 
magazine for it.

Now, if there's one person doing it, there's an Internet site.

-------------------------------------------

Hey, the second heads makes us all do stupid things.

Brain:  She will get us killed.  Do you understand?  KILLED.  DEAD.  

Penis:  Yeah, but look at that body!  Let's try her out!

Brain:  Okay!

-------------------------------------------

1.  Editorial
2.  The Meaning of Life
3.  Jason's Republic: Nearly Ten Minutes of Philosophical Training
4.  On the Eve of Tomorrow
5.  Duckism
-------------------------------------------

This week's Golden Testicle award:

http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?patent_number=5501650

-------------------------------------------

1. Editorial
By CoN Staff

Welcome to Issue 3 of CoN.  If you are wondering why the long delay, 
you have no one else but me to blame.  While this issue was ready to 
go last Monday, I was incredibly tired from the College/Work 
combination.  The only priority I had in mind once I got home was to 
put my face on the pillow.

College has proved to be quite the opposite of the challenge I was 
expecting.  In one class we had a three hour lecture on printers.  We 
learned that printers are devices that when hooked to a computer, 
print.  Or that hard drives store data magnetically and should not be 
kicked.  That scanners scan.  That telnet is like DOS but different.

In our software class, the highlight of the first week was how to make 
folders and rename them on our Macs.

English is always a surprise.  One day is a 3 hour long video on 
everything you never cared to know about our province.  The next may 
be some story about Freud.  A three hour lecture on Freud done with a 
German accent.

And of course, assignments.  You can't go wrong here (unless you are 
in the graphic design class, where if you are a dot too much to the 
left, you'll get a lecture on how to respect positive-negative space), 
in fact if you miss to talk completely on the subject assigned, you 
are bound to get a B+.

I digress.  In the mean time, college coffee has become my best 
friend.


NativeOfSF writes:

> Hot puppies & also yippie!!!
>
> Ah gottz mah furst one!!! Hot damn...eye's a-rare'in 2 down-load
> dat file & guezz whatz??? No file attached. Nope. Zero. Nada. No
> contentz!!! X-cept'z itz got notin 2 download.  Ken U-all fix it???? 
> 
> I really, really need that download...please.
>
> Keep up dis coolness!!!
>
> I'm about 6'6^', over 100 kilos++ & eye know how 2 run with
> scissors & other stuff...please.

Okay.  For any other AOL user out there that is having problems 
receiving the issues of CoN, be advised of the following: AOL's mailer 
has a whole set of weird and absurd filters, some of which do not 
allow attachments of a certain size to be received.  If you receive 
the headers but not the content and you are an AOL user, you'll have 
to change the settings so that you can receive large attachments.  
It's not our fault, please do not write to complain to us.

THE RESTROOM ETIQUETTE article got quite a few responses.  The first 
is from Gregoire Seither:

> On top of an overall  excellent issue, this is the cherry ! So
> true ! It made me laugh out loud as I was reading it, making my
> co-designers think I am some kind of weirdo (since I am supposed
> to be doing this plumbing catalogue with lots of tables in
> QXpress - and who would laugh while doing that...)

Crystal proves to us that if you are a woman who likes to pee standing 
up, the test might not be so hard:

> just a quick comment for ya, i was a bit surprised that,
> being female, i actually answered all the urinal questions
> CORRECTLY...  hmmm...



I'll leave you with a site suggested by one of our readers, Quonie:

> www.lateboomer.com---this site has music and lyrics of a
> political nature that are both humorous and scathing.

Next issue of CoN will be about horses water skiing -- no hands -- on 
lakes of 100% pure margarine. They use their trunks to hold onto the 
line. Or something.

Have a great issue.

-------------------------------------------

2.  The Meaning of Life

By Lilith DemHareIs

"There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your
philosophy..."
 -- Wm Shakespeare

I feel I know the meaning of life.  In fact, I'm pretty convinced I've 
figured it out.  I've also had sufficient proof to convince me that 
I'm on the right track.  As a result, I experience extreme joy.

No doubt there are countless others who can claim the same thing.  And 
each one probably has a different viewpoint to me.

But the question is: Has their philosophy already proven itself?

Or are they just hanging on, hoping that they're right, not so much 
that what they believe is right, but only because they know that what 
is wrong is wrong.

It's like those Christians who believe in Christianity not because 
it'll get them to Heaven, but because they're afraid if they *don't* 
believe, they'll go to Hell.

Do not believe in something because you fear something.  Believe in 
something because you *don't* fear.

Knowing the meaning of life involves some knowledge (or at least 
faith) about where you once were, where you are now, where you are 
going, how you are getting there, and -- most importantly -- WHY you 
are going there.

Don't forget to ask yourself WHY you are going there, and what do you 
expect to do once you get there.

I could never understand the Buddhist viewpoint, especially that 
becoming One with whatever it is the One is.  WHY would someone want 
to become One with the One?  And after they do, then what?  Surely 
that One beingness has a purpose.

I can understand wanting to reach Nirvana (as some of certain 
religious persuasion are wont to do).  But the process it takes to get 
there seems a little long, slow, arduous, and I don't see how the 
journey justifies the destination.

Perhaps it is my own philosophy that gets in the way.  

In my views on the Meaning of Life, it takes only one cycle to get to 
where I'm going.  If I do the right things, not only will I make it to 
where I'm going, but the journey's gonna be downright pleasant.

And then, once I get there, it's not just harps and hallelujas.  I've 
actually got things planned to do.

The Rest of Forever is not going to be boring.   And WHY it's not 
going to be boring is my philosophy on the Meaning of Life.

What completely baffles me is why would anyone settle for anything 
less?

-------------------------------------------

3.  Jason's Republic: Nearly Ten Minutes of Philosophical Training

By Jason MacIsaac 

The very first philosophy course I ever took was on modern ethics and 
issues.  I don't remember the exact course name or code (hardly 
surprising for reasons that shall be clear in a moment), but the 
course description was very promising.  It covered very hot issues 
like abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, and so on.  Doesn't 
that sound interesting?  I thought if nothing else, I should go for 
the screaming fights.  I remember some rip-roaring good-ones in high 
school on such issues.  In University, a person's cultural or 
political leanings get extra support from meeting like-minded people 
on campus.  If you were a hardcore socialist in high school, than 
University clubs made you so hardcore your centre mass was so dense 
you actually gave off a gravitational pull, sucking in less powerful 
socialists.  With people like that around, I was prepared for some 
verbal exchanges like gunfights.

The reality was extremely disheartening.  Our teacher could have made 
anything boring.  Send her into regions of the world with bitter 
religious and ethnic conflicts to lecture both sides, and they'd lose 
interest in killing each other.  She sure killed all potential 
conflict in our class.  She probably could have said, "Gay people are 
evil" to the Gay and Lesbian campus group, and instead of outrage, 
they probably just would have yawned and turned over.  The woman could 
weaken the impact and fallout damage from a nuclear warhead by boring 
it into submission.

Her first sin was her tendency to stretch out material much longer 
than necessary.  One day one we learned about "The Slippery Slope 
Theorem."  This is basically the idea that once you permit one morally 
questionable act, it becomes easier to take a step closer to the next 
morally questionable act, and so on, until you're doing things that 
are just plain wrong, or something you wanted to avoid doing in the 
first place.  For example, (WARNING: SIMPLISTIC EXAMPLE AHEAD BUT WITH 
SENSITIVE ISSUE AHEAD.  DOES NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF THIS AUTHOR 
OR CAPNASTY.  IF YOU WRITE AN ANGRY LETTER, IT MEANS YOU 
MISINTERPRETED THIS AND WE GET TO MAKE FUN OF YOU), you could argue 
that if you legalize abortion within the first trimester, it becomes 
easier to legalize it for the second.  And the third.  And early 
childhood.  And finally the adolescent years, when quite frankly, 
abortion becomes extremely tempting for parents putting up with surly 
and smelly teens.

Ok, do we understand the slippery slope thingy?  Good.  Now imagine my 
teacher spreading this out for another 20 minutes.

But that's not all!  You've got to add her speech pattern, which did 
nothing to reduce the running time: "And so, and so.if we consider.if 
we.consider, the slippery.and so, the slippery slope, if we 
consider.the slope.and."

Her lectures were two hours long.  During the hour-long "classroom" 
portions, she took attendance too. This is sacrilege.  Skipping 
classes isn't a privilege; it's a right.  I paid tuition, and if I 
chose not to be in the spot I paid for, my loss.  And in fact, her 
gain.  One less pratt to worry about.  Of course, keeping attendance 
is an easy and cheap way of giving marks to people (it accounted for a 
percentage of our grade).

I skipped those classes anyway.  Then, one day, I got to thinking 
about the midterm.  I reflected that I'd better start catching up on 
the work I was missing, and find out when then midterm was.  So I 
opened up my student planner, and determined that the philosophy 
midterm was six hours ago.

Oops.

I dropped the course before she could flunk me.

***

The only other course in philosophy I took (and I completed this one), 
was an Existentialist class.  The teacher of that one I gathered felt 
rather above his assignment.  It was in his mannerisms.  During his 
first class, he sat there jotting notes in a book before saying a damn 
word.  We sat there, not knowing what to do.  I suspect he was running 
some kind of "test" on us, as humanities teachers are wont to do.  The 
worst offenders are Psychology teachers, who feel that the world is 
theirs to experiment on, but are unprepared for the consequences of 
doing so (i.e., the people experimented on get pissed and kick the 
shit out of the teacher).

As he jotted, my room-mate from Saskatoon, Zaphod (she was and is a 
strange girl, but damn I miss her), passed me a note that said "This 
guy has 30 second to say something useful or I'm out of here."  
Mysteriously, our teacher consulted his watch, said "Five minutes," 
and then began his lecture.  No one ever asked what he was doing.  No 
one, I suspect, really cared all that much.

The thing I carried away most from this class was a stark trembling 
fear. Around essay time we got out the usual shovel and hoisted our 
fair share of bullshit, but then I learned that he had given a 0 on 
two essays from the previous class.  Why?  "Because they weren't about 
philosophy."  Uh, okay, but ZERO?  Come on, you'd think just writing 
your name on a sheet of paper would be worth a percent.  It was then 
that we realized our teacher was certifiable insane and should not be 
provoked so long as he could give us a mark.

Because of this, the class was hard to enjoy.  In particular, we 
seemed to go over the same sort of ground again and again because some 
students couldn't get with it.  I think this is because there were a 
lot of Journalism students, who are notoriously bad at absorbing 
information.  No, I'm serious.  I remember one girl, a promising 
future columnist for the Toronto Sun I'm sure, who couldn't hack the 
fact that a certain region of the world was once controlled by Greece, 
but is now currently in Turkish possession.  I remember wasting twenty 
minutes on these simple Before and After conundrums.

Still, it was worth it.  The information I absorbed from that class 
allowed me to write a short story several years later.  I even copied 
the personality of our teacher, and also a part where someone corrects 
the tech about the real circumstances surrounding Lord Byron's death.  
In real life, that was me.  He claimed that he knew Lord Byron had not 
been killed in battle, but had been bled to death by leeching.  I 
wonder why he passed the inaccurate information on to our class 
though.

So, while my education doesn't allow me to understand the nature or 
absurdity of the cosmos, I did get to write a good story, with an 
excellent title, too.  

Too bad all my classes weren't as helpful.

-------------------------------------------

4.  ON THE EVE OF THE FUTURE 

By Joe Tomorrow

This is our history.

I still remember the day it happened -- March 3, 2013. At 11:15 in 
morning it was announced simultaneously around the world the Bill 
Gates' personal net worth had exceeded the national debt of the United 
States and in a hostile, but unchallenged takeover, achieved through 
absorption and complex stock splits, the United States became an 
incorporated, wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The country was 
now known as United States of Microsoft, inc. The Whitehouse moved to 
Bill's palatial home, the Senate and Congress moved to "The Campus". 
The flying windows Microsoft logo replaced the stars in the upper 
corner of old glory and the entire work force of what was America was 
laid off and hired back as perma-temps at lower wages, no benefits and 
no unions. Unions were outlawed. These were President/CEO/Chairman 
Bill's changes in the first week.

Surprisingly, there was not too much protest. Mainly Free Mason's and 
some militia groups in the Michigan area but they were quickly rounded 
up by the USMS commandos and shipped into Microsoft Users Re-education 
Development EnviRonments -- or MURDER as they came to be known. Most 
people figured they would all have life time jobs with Microsoft after 
the take over but like most corporations, Microsoft did a lot of 
downsizing after the change. It only took 3 days for the labour laws 
to be repealed and everyone in the country was hit with pink slips. It 
seems that contract labour on demand is the only way to work in the US 
of M now. The hourly wage is frozen at $8.00 per hour regardless of 
the work you do. It's almost enough to survive on but not enough to 
allow for any strongholds of resistance to be funded. And overtime pay 
is non-existent. Perma-temps simply work the hours required by the 
employers or face permanent unemployment. With absolutely no social 
safety net, the fear of unemployment effectively silences all 
protesters.

Everyone was also issued with Microsoft SmartBuyer cards. Which were 
basically combination credit cards and personal info cards. It was law 
that everyone had to show their card when asked by an MSMP officer. 
Penalty for not having a card was internment in one of the MURDER 
centers. The credit accumulated on these cards followed not only the 
users but the users descendants. Indentured servitude guarantees a 
work force for the future.
 
Washington, Oregon, and California became a single walled state. 
Accessed only by those of the upper echelons of Microsoft and the 
former US government. CEO of competitors of Microsoft were rounded up 
and either interned or expelled from the country all together -- minus 
their personal wealth, belongings and companies. Every industry in the 
former US of A was absorbed into a branch of Microsoft. It took less 
than a month for Bill Gates' wealth to return to the pre-takeover 
level.

The only aspect Bill didn't beat down completely (not for lack of 
trying) were the hacker's and the paranoid types (which most serious 
hackers are). We saw it coming and prepared. We have our own 
counterfeit SmartBuyer cards.  Our own non-Microsoft proprietary 
computer networks. And we're growing. Not in physical size, but in 
infiltration of trojans, worms, viruses, password capturing software, 
email monitoring, etc. Through our understanding and use of 
technologies such as Tempest, Microsoft has not detected our presence. 
But they will one day. But then it may well be too late. Because as 
our last line of defence we have a smashing offence -- but it can only 
be used once. The damage will be done and there will no recovering. At 
least not in our lifetime. You see there are still a lot of untapped 
resources -- knowledge bases -- to use an MS friendly term that are 
available to Joe Average. And we've tapped those sources and learned 
all we could. And we found out how (relatively) simple it was to 
manufacture our own electro magnetic pulse bombs. 

If need be, we will effectively cut off our nose to spite our face and 
use the EMP weapons. History will judge us accordingly.      

-------------------------------------------

5. Duckism

By Neux

     Well, when you said that the subject this time around would be 
philosophy, I decided I had to contribute my somewhat unique take on 
things. You see, since October or so I have been conducting a 
philosophical experiment.  Specifically, I have decided that everyone 
and everything, including yourself, myself, and even Crazy Uncle Joe, 
is a duck.  As in, yellow bill, webbed feet, says "quack".  It is not 
uncommon to see me go up to a random person and say, "You... are a... 
duck!"  So by now you're looking at me pretty funny, so I should 
probably explain.  Duckism dates back to an english class back in 
October or so when we were discussing the poetry of Wordsworth.  We 
were getting pretty deeply into various romantic themes, one of which 
happens to be reality of perception; do things have some sort of 
underlying realism to what they are, or is it all in the eye of the 
beholder? So, in the midst of this quagmire of quasi-romantic 
Wordsworthian philosophy, I asked the teacher, "So, um, if I see that 
table over there as a duck, then at some level is it a duck?"  And she 
said yes.  "So then that table is a duck?"  And she said that if I 
really wanted to believe that, then yes.  "Then how about Scott?  Is 
he a duck too?"  Well, you can imagine where it went from there.  
Suffice to say, there is not a single man, woman, child, or inanimate 
object that is somehow a duck.  And I am sticking to that.

	"So why a duck?" you might ask.  "Why not a wolf, or a piano, or 
silly putty?"  Well, I will tell you why a duck.  I believe that ducks 
really stand for something, a childlike innocense and silliness that 
ins't represented by much of anything else.  Probably comes from hours 
of watching Bert and Ernie sing "Rubber Duckie" on Sesame Street... 
y'know, "Rubber Duckie, joy of joys, when I squeeze you, you make 
noise..."  Anyway, I think that ducks symbolize the need to have fun, 
and be silly, and to not take everything too seriously.
In other words, to lighten up and enjoy life.  So I've embraced 
duckism, and so have most of my friends.  And, however strange and 
misguided it may be, I've become accustomed to carrying a stuffed duck 
doll with me during my day, just as a little reminder to myself about 
duckism.  And to throw at people when they act stupid.  I mean, 
really, I find it somehow fitting that the price for stupidity should 
be having a duck thrown at you.  So that's a little look into my wacky 
world.  Geeze, stop staring at me like that.  You're such a duck.

-------------------------------------------

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Yapper can KIFF my ass.

Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine    "media you can abuse"
In memory of Father Ross "Padre" Legere
Published every second Monday (or when we get around it)
Disclaimer: unintentionally offensive
Comments, queries and submissions are welcome

http://www.capnasty.org  ISSN 1482-0471

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