Chris Hansen’s blog

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John was a salesman’s delight when it came to any kind of unusual gimmicks. His wife Marsha had long ago given up trying to get him to change. One day John came home with another one of his unusual purchases. It was a robot that John claimed was actually a lie detector. When it detected a lie, it rang a bell and a speaker shouted “LIE! LIE!”

It was about 5:30 that afternoon when Tommy, their 11 year old son, returned home from school. Tommy was over 2 hours late..

“Where have you been? Why are you over 2 hours late getting home?” asked John.

“Several of us went to the library to work on an extra credit project,” said Tommy.

The robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”

“Son,” said John, “this robot is a lie detector, now tell us where you really were after school.”

“We went to Bobby’s house and watched a movie.” said Tommy.

“What did you watch?” asked Marsha.

“The Ten Commandments.” answered Tommy.

Once again the robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”

With his lip quivering, Tommy got up, sat down and said, “I am sorry I lied. We really watched a tape called Sex Queen.”

“I am ashamed of you, son,” said John.. “When I was your age I never lied to my parents.”

To his great surprise the robot’s bell started ringing and the speaker shouted: “LIE! LIE!”

Marsha doubled over in laughter, almost in tears and said, “Boy, did you ever ask for that one! You can’t be too mad with Tommy. After all, he is your son!”

The robot rang its bell again and the speaker shouted “LIE! LIE!”

Those religious people who say that birth control is immoral and that predictions of the Earth’s future can contain indefinite growth should watch this series of YouTube videos of a lecture that Emeritus Prof. of Physics Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado gave around 10 years ago, called Arithmetic, Population, and Energy. It might just be the most important video you ever see.

In the years since the video, nothing has happened to invalidate his major theorem, which is that there is no such thing as sustainable growth. Overpopulation makes sustainable growth an oxymoron. And, some of his conclusions may surprise you, such as that overpopulation is a problem not in developing countries, but in the United States.

Watch the videos.

Passing requires only 3 correct answers out of 10!

1. How long did the Hundred Years’ War last?
2. Which country makes Panama hats?
3. From which animal do we get cat gut?
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5. What is a camel’s hair brush made of?
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7. What was King George VI’s first name?
8. What colour is a purple finch?
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10. What is the colour of the black box in a commercial airplane?

ANSWERS

1. How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years
2. What country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3. From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and horses
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November
5. What is a camel’s hair brush made of? Squirrel fur
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs
7. What was King George VI’s first name? Albert
8. What colour is a purple finch? Crimson
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand
10. What is the colour of the ‘black box’ in a commercial airplane? Orange

How did you do? I got 5 out of 10.

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I have finally decided that my computer has accrued so many problems that it’s time to bite the bullet and wipe it clean and reinstall Windoze.

This might sound easy, but it’s easier to say it than to do it. For one thing, I have 13 years’ worth of email safely saved on my hard disk and I would be loth to lose any of it. I have lots of data of various sorts, pictures going over more than a decade, and lots of programs that I wish to preserve and reinstall. So my project for the next few months is to:

1) Take off on DVDs the data that I want to save. I had some foresight a while back in that I put a lot of it into a folder called data. I may have to put more stuff in it and perhaps subdivide it a bit. However, it’ll all be there and backed up.

2) Make a list (probably with Belarc Advisor) of all the programs on the disk. Then I will have to ensure that I have all the installation information, the registration keys, and the install programs put away somewhere. I will probably put them on another external hard disk. This will also give me the opportunity to ditch programs that have accrued on my system and been uninstalled but not very well. For some reason, when it comes to uninstallation, many programmers make very little effort to code it correctly, thus leaving cruft all over your system.

3) See if I can persuade HWMBO to let me buy a copy of Windows 7 and install that. Failing that, I’ll install Vista yet again.

4) Put the data back on the system and reinstall all the programs in item (2). This will take a while as well.

There are some people who do this once a year, whether they need to or not. Unfortunately, I have never done this, as every operating system I’ve ever purchased has been an “upgrade” from the previous one. So some of this cruft could go back four computers and all the way back to Windows 95.

I will still have my netbook, my Ubuntu notebook, my Apple iMac, and my Sun 10 Sparcstation, all of which are usable in a pinch. And, of course, my own computer will never be the same after all this is reinstalled. However, needs must, and I’m tired of fighting with it.

…and many happy returns of the day!

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