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Capital of Nasty Vol. 01 Issue 04
Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Issue IV, Volume I, Year MCMXCVI AD
Monday , July 8th, 1996
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1. The reason for our delay & "Welcome Aboard"
2. I hate. I love.
3. The year of the "The Greatest Hardware Equipment Failures"
4. CON: Issue 4.
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1. THE REASON FOR OUR DELAY...
Well, I bought one of those power cords with the idea that
if something in the electrical power decided to ever go wrong, the
power cord would be the first thing to go, right? Well, not quite.
The power cord did experience a little bit of enthusiasm when it
met the 220 volts running through it, however it survived, and sent
the killer blast to my poor and defenseless computer which managed
to save the main hardware parts, by simply blowing up. Not much
damage, not much left of it either to begin with, so thanks to the
"R&S team" (rescue and salvage) the main part was pulled out (this
article) and so even with a little delay we go online again. There
are two people that will start helping out with the magazine and
today I have the occasion to present you one of them. The leader of
the "R&S team", the only person that can bring out data from a life-
less chunk of metal that once did look like a PC and now reminds me
of a toaster. So till my prehistoric machine is set back on it's
rock wheels and placed back in the cave, we'll be shipping it directly
from here =) Enjoy, and now a word from our new addition and editor
of CoN: Peter Sprokkelenburg
---
What do I say other that the fact that I was suckered into this
without a choice. Actually two, do the magazine, or eat feta cheese for
all three meals... I choose the lesser of the two.. ;)
Maybe we can add a technical Q&A section, time permitting..
If you have any articles, send then to Leandro and we will see that
they get published in the next issue.
If you have any questions.. contact me at psprokk@scinet.net
Enjoy this issue! or just eat that musty old, green feta that looks
like it wants to eat you.
ttyl
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2. I HATE. I LOVE.
I LOVE when things go my way
I HATE when life is a bitch and then you die....
Peter Sprokkelenburg
psprokk@scinet.net
---
I HATE the world.
I LOVE myself.
Suzanne (salad@ridgecrest.ca.us)
---
I HATE people that judge the way I try to do things.
When I try to learn something new which is hard, and when other
ppl slam you for TRYING, it hurts.
I LOVE people that LISTEN to what you have to say, and try to help you,
instead of ignoring you, or telling you that you're an idiot for what
you're doing.
Francesca Antonaci <antonaci@coewl.cen.uiuc.edu>
---
I HATE to love because it gives me no purpose; it takes away my
meaning to live; it drains me of all the energy I need to keep
going; it makes me want to hide in a corner and cry; but most of
all it makes me feel like a plant growing in a crack in the middle
of a street about to be run over.
I LOVE to love because it gives me a purpose; it gives me the
biggest rush; it gives me a reason to get up in the morning; it makes
me laugh; it makes me cry; it makes me feel wanted; but most of
all it makes me feel like a plant growing in a crack in the middle
of a street that screams "look what I had to do to reach the sun!!!".
Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro <leandro@ifront.com>
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3. The Year of the Greatest Hardware/Software Equipment
Failures. (recycled article)
Why I hate computers (especially ones with Windows based
programs) by Mitraya (janus@io.org)
Here I am, minding my own business, just doing a bit
of work on the computer... and all of a sudden, the little
instrument of the Devil called the mouse decides it's had
enough and it's time to retire.
"Okay," I think, "it's just a bunch of dust that got
trapped inside that screwing things up," but that was not to
be. I spend 5 minutes running around the house looking for
the precision srewdriver set. Then I open up the mouse and
clean off the rollers. No effect. I test them and find "to
my horror" that one of them is broken. The one that moves
up and down is fine, but the one that goes sideways is
completely out of action. And I can't figure out what's wrong
with it.
"Fine," I say, "I'll just break out the spare mouse
we got stashed." It's actually and old mouse that had some
problems, but I thought it was fixed. Of course, that would
be too good to be true. Apparently it contracted the same
illness that the other mouse did, except this one only moves
sideways. If only you could fuse the two of them into one.
Then everything would be just peachy.
So now I'm left with no mouse and a whole set of
application programs that are completely mouse-driven. I
just have to say, I'm glad I'm not a Mac user.
Mitraya (Janus@io.org)
The "Modem Saga"
by Leandro (leandro@ifront.com, rakam@io.org)
Part 1. When you begin to hate computers
To make life more exciting, other then the internet
provider being half dead (and me with it), my modem has
suddenly morphed. It changed. It is not a modem anymore.
For a new show's series "The Mighty Morphin Modem Changers",
the piece of equipment that sits on top of my computer, that
just a year ago used to be leading edge technology, (that
costed me a fortune then and now they laugh at me when I say
I got one) now risks to be falling over the edge if it
doesn't start to work correctly. My modem has turned into a
RADIO!!! It picks up only one station, and it picks it up
so amazingly friggen' well, that my modem has no clue when
it's BUSY or when it's clear. It says "BUSY" all the time.
"Oh, wow!" I could say "It's ringing!" and after the first
ring, you hear a woman singing in the back and the modem
cuts off with the rather rude errorlevel 4 answer "BUSY"...
busy busy busy busy.. always bloody busy! IT'S RINGING GOD
DAMN IT!! So now, not only I have to worry for slow
connections from a rather old and primitive provider such as
InterSEX OFFline, but the modem acts nasty on me as well!!
Just great.. so if I dial, it's BUSY, if I connect,
Internex doesn't work.. All I can do is enjoy the
elevator.. ahem modem music.. sigh.
Part 2. I know the modem knows I want to BYTE it.
So I unplug the friggen device known to normal man as a
modem. "Maybe" me thinks "Its the friggen phone line that's
having the interfeerence".. no, of course not, it's not
that. That would be too easy. I plug it into my parents
line, dial, and I hear the news, and the modem says BUSY..
and the line was ringing too! Not very nice thoughts
formulate in my head, not very nice ideas are born (or
raised from the dead) in my mind to what to do to this
modem. I know it's laughing at me. I grab from the shelf
what remains of my first computer. The only working part.
The modem. The "HIGH SPEED" (for the time, hey, it was,
considering the one before was a 1200bps) 2400 BAUD modem.
We are talking here of 2400 bits per second. A 2400bps
modem plugged where a sleek and fast looking modem that
could send data 100 times faster then that, was once plugged
in. I reset all the stupid windows programs, dial.. and no
music, no lady singing, no news, no nothing.. DIAL TONE,
DIALING, RING, CONNECT 2400BPS, Login:... "oh-kay" is the
only thing that comes to mind, and it makes me giggle, just
enough to loose the two thousand joules of energy that where
building inside of me, and that prevented me from tossing
the sleek-looking modem against the wall. Now if the speed
of the modem I was tossing was 40km/h, and the force was 160
joules, what would be it's apogee? Sorry, physics class
still has me by the balls.
If to surf the net I need a fast modem (and the 14,4 is
almost fast, considering the 28.8 is now out) I am on this
"wave" surfing with the Titanic as my surfing board!!! One
thing before I quit writing, the modem worked fine until
last year. Is this a sign from the Gods? Or just that my
life is so friggen' "INTERESTING"?(1)
(1) In China, when they don't like someone, they don't wish
them a terrible life. They wish them instead, a very
*interesting* life. If I have offended anyone out there
that is Chinese, I apologize!!! =)
Part 3. The Little Shops of Horrors
The sign outside reads "Beginners Computers". I am
holding a very expensive piece of equipment that transmits
on the same band that Radio Japan decided to use. However
the very expensive piece of equipment is not a radio -- not
yet at least. It's a sleek looking modem. Perhaps if they
can't fix it, at least change the channel to something I can
understand. I enter the store, and I see two guys working
on a computer, a woman wearing black sitting on a table, and
I am greeted by another young woman.
"Hi!" she says, very happy to see a client.
"Hello.." says I "do you fix computer equipment?"
"Of course!" she is damned too happy for my tastes.. hmmm oh
well.
"My little friend here" and I point at the modem, surprised
at myself I had not played soccer with it just yet "decided
it was tired of being just a simple little modem, so now it
picks up Chinese broadcasting, and it's KINDA interfeering
with communicating normally". Okay, so I was a bit
sarcastic.
"Your modem picks up a Chinese station?!" She began to
laugh. Rather loud. I was not amused. The other woman and
the other two guys turned around and asked what was so funny
and, how unfortunate for me, she told them. I now had four
people laughing at me, and a very sleek looking modem that
transmitted in Chinese, that I betcha was looking at me and
grinning, the grins expensive and sleek looking modems only
have. I was rather annoyed at that point. They finally
remembered that I was there, and hey what the heck, they can
give it at try fixing it. So the other woman comes near me
and askes me questions, I suppose to figure out what the
problem might have been. But there is something strange
about this woman. She is unshaven, and eventhough she is
wearing a bit of makeup, there is something terribly wrong.
At this point I am having trouble answering her questions.
I realize to my horror that she is not really a she, but
more like a he. To be politically correct, she is a woman
stuck in a man's body. Usually I don't have any problems
with people like this, but since lately I had this other gay
guy following me around at work I had developed a very bad
case of "bending down" paranoia when picking up something
from the store's floor. But then I thought of the modem,
and at this point I was the one grinning, and I just enjoyed
looking at it, suffering. So eventually they get my phone
number and my name, so that they could call me back whenever
they had figured out the problem. I left and I felt two
stares going down my spine. One was evil: I knew it was the
modem's. The other one stopped right above my butt. I will
not comment any further.
Now, I know one thing for sure, that things only stop
working when I am touching them. I bet that tomorrow I'll
get a call and they'll say that "The modem works fine!", it
will work in front of them, I will look like a fool, but
the moment I plug it back at home, Radio Japan will start
transmitting at full blast.
Part 4. I looked like a fool.
Ring.
Ring! RING!!
"Uhmmmyhello?"
"Hello!
Wearecallingregardingyourmodemwhichdidnotworkandweare..."
"Wooah, wooah! What?"
"We are calling regarding your modem.."
"The one I brought in because it picked up Chinese
broadcasting.."
"..ahem, yes, however it works fine here.. we tested it with
calls and other services, and it connects just fine!
Whatever is causing the interference must be at your home,
heh."
"..." (*%##@@!!!)
"Hello?"
"I'm here, I'm here.. okay, thanks, I'll pick it up this
afternoon then. Thanks again, yes, thank you. Bye bye.
Bye, yeah whatever.. BYE!"
Click.
Geeez....
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4. Capital of Nasty: Issue 4.
Well, I managed to get this issue out as well. I can't wait
to see "ID4" (Indipende Day 4). I can't wait to get some sleep after
staying up so long at work. Hey, after a month of no sleep, cold pizza,
pepsi that had no fuzz, servers that went up and down, system
administrators that speak binary but not english, computers that have
programs you have never seen, the CD player that plays the same CD over
and over and over and over till you know the lyrics so well you end
up typing the lyrics instead of what you are actually supposed to do,
we managed to get our virtual e-zine (electronic magazine) up and running.
It's buggy as hell, it only supports 1 out of 4 languages, half of the
stuff on it doesn't work, the other half is not sure half the time of
what it's doing, but hey, we did it! =) Check it out, and let me
know what you think of it, it's VERY important to me. Thanks =)
www.gamesmania.com
GamesMania: The Ultimate Challenge.
A big thank you goes to all the people that supported me in
keeping a smile, at the fact that I managed to shave and wash once in
a while. And thank you to those that contributed to this issue =)
Leandro (leandro@ifront.com)
