5/15/09  Help Wanted

      Infrequently Answered Question #33: Where do evil masterminds get their army of nameless, faceless henchmen in jumpsuits? Who wants a job where the price of failure is not getting fired, but being jettisoned into a bottomless abyss or whirlpool of bubbling acid? Don't these potential employees know that when the evil plot goes south the leader's escape pod only has room for one?

      A: To answer the first question, they get these folks from central casting. As for the rest, it's Hollywood, reality and logic don't really apply.

      Though for my money one Hollywood bit of editing that makes less sense is how people carry on a conversation over a series of cuts over a period of hours. You know, person A asks a question while walking down the street, person B answers while they're riding in the car, person A responds while they're eating dinner, person B replies to that in the bar over drinks. How did this bit ever get started? This only works in the movies, but it would never happen in real life.

4/11/09  With Friends Like This...

      Infrequently Answered Question #32: How is it possible WWII ended the Great Depression? Is war profitable?

      A: Economically war is a losing proposition. History is littered with countries going bankrupt by waging war. War production builds things like tanks, planes, ammunition and warships that don't generate further wealth and are destroyed at an alarming rate. Bombing places and shooting people don't make you much money.

      So then, why do they tell us the Big One pulled the US out of depression? Here's what I think.

      The only way war is lucrative is by looting. This is how it generally worked in the past and WWII was no exception. Only the US didn't make out by looting Germany, Italy or Japan, as there wasn't that much left to loot after having the bejeezus bombed out of them. In this case America got rich by looting their allies, mainly Britain.

      This was done by selling and leasing war material, which was paid for in cash up front. The British were almost bankrupted by the war and their gold reserves were very nearly depleted. Shortages and rationing continued in the UK after the war into the 50s and the country didn't fully recover from depression and war until the 60s. If war production was supposed to be a boon to the economy, it sure didn't work for England.

3/25/09  Odd Chance

      Infrequently Answered Question #31: I've heard you're more likely to be struck by lightning ten times than to win the lottery. Yet people win the lottery all the time, but I don't hear of anyone getting hit by lightning ten times. What gives?

      A: That's because they're calculating the odds of a single ticket winning the lottery. But who buys just one ticket? Thing is, you can increase your chances of winning by buying more chances.

      Say to win the lottery you need five correct numbers from 1-40. Your chance of winning are one in 78,960,960. That's pretty long odds. If you buy ten tickets you improve your chances to ten in 78,960,960. If you buy 100 tickets... you get the idea.

      On top of that, you aren't the only one playing the lottery. If ten million people each buy ten tickets the odds that there will be one winning ticket are about 100,000,000 in 78,960,960. Better than even odds that someone, though probably not you, will win.

      I don't know what the odds of getting struck by lightning ten times are, but you can't increase the chances unless you create more of yourself. If there were a thousand you clones, the chances go up. But that's you as a collection, not a single you or any one of your clones. Either that or you have to be in a thousand places at once. What are the chances of that?

      Then again, the first lightning strike may kill you. Then you'd be dead and buried or cremated. Which would make another bolt hitting you pretty unlikely.

3/6/09  Wishful Thinking?

      Infrequently Answered Question #30: If you're so smart, how come you're not rich?

      A: The simple answer, smarts don't make you rich, lots of money makes you rich.

      Ask yourself, does being rich make you smart? There's no cause and effect relationship between brains and money. Sitting around on a rock thinking fine thoughts doesn't in itself put bread on the table or clothes on your back. Ever notice that Rodin statue of The Thinker is naked? Not every thought is a million dollar idea. Anyway, million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen.

      Though if you have lots of spare cash laying around you can become one of the idle rich. Then you and your money can lay around while you think fine thoughts, well-dressed or otherwise.

      Infrequently Answered Question #29: How long will the world last? Will it end with a bang or a whimper?

      A: Doomsayers have been predicting the end of the world as we know it for a long time. Think of the cartoon cliche of a scruffy bearded man carrying a sign, "The end is nigh." Personally, I wouldn't listen to anyone who uses the word nigh.

      Astro-physicists say the world will end when the sun expands into a red giant at a diameter that will swallow the Earth. This shouldn't be any time soon, meaning not nigh. On the other hand, one of the greatest scientists ever, Isaac Newton, calculated the world will end in 2060. Whether this is supposed to be a bang or a whimper isn't disclosed.

      Science rarely uses the term whimper, but there was the Big Bang. Then again, like trees falling in the woods, since there wasn't anyone around to hear it was it a bang at all? Since there's a vacuum between the Earth and the sun it can't transmit sounds. So would its expansion make a bang? It might expand faster than the speed of sound anyway.

      So the answers to the questions are, quite a while yet and probably neither.

      Infrequently Answered Question #28: If dog is man's best friend, is cat woman's best friend?

      A: If you believe songwriters then diamonds are a girl's best friend. But then, that lyric was probably written by a man. So, take it for what it's worth.

      In the old saw when it says "man" that includes woman. The use of "man" in this case is the same as saying "mankind." Though there is no time using "woman" means "mankind" in the same way. I guess what I'm getting to is dog is woman's best friend because woman is included in man. If you notice "man" is part of "woman" and so woman is part of man in this case. Maybe. Sounds goofy, but there it is.

      Now for an old joke about why a dog is a better friend to a man than a woman. Unlike your wife, no matter where you go, what you've been doing, who you were with, or how long you were gone, your dog is always happy to see you when you get home.

      Infrequently Answered Question #27: Why is it a pair of trousers and a pair of scissors when they're both only one object? Can you have a trouser or a scissor? Would a scissor cut a trouser?

      A: A pair of trousers is one of those odd bits of language that's singular and plural at the same time. I mean, you can have a shirt, but you can't have a trouser because they only come as pants. Pants are plural even though they are one thing. Pants without the "s" would be pant, which is something else altogether involving hanging out your tongue and breathing hard.

      Glasses come in pairs to help you see 20/20. Or glasses come singularly when they are filled with liquor which can have you seeing double. Which I guess would be 20/20/20/20 vision. Then there's monocles, but you don't see those much anymore except on Mr. Peanut. As fruit, pairs don't come in pairs even though they're pairs. You can pare a pair, but not with a pair of scissors.

      To put this nonsense to rest, why not ask if a pair of bifocals are a quartet of glasses.

      Infrequently Answered Question #26: Did proto-humans start losing their body hair because they started wearing clothes, or did they start wearing clothes because they were losing their body hair?

      A: Ahh, the old chicken and the egg conundrum, though chickens don't wear clothes or have body hair. Truth is, nobody knows. At least I don't know. I suppose anthropologists have hypotheses, but no good proof as there are very few photographs or portraits of cavemen around with or without body hair and/or clothes. By very few I mean none.

      You might wonder why people lost the body hair at all. I imagine it was more hygienic. The less hair, the less fleas, ticks, crabs and body lice. Then again the less protection against heat, cold and mosquitos. So maybe we invented flyswatters and smearing ourselves with mud to protect ourselves from flies before clothing.

      Here's another puzzle, what was the first bit of clothing? Shoes, shirts, capes, loincloths, hats, neckties, or fig leaves?

      Infrequently Answered Question #25: Why is there no channel one on broadcast tv? Why does it start at two?

      A: For the answer we must go back in the mists of ancient history before cable tv, before color tv, before UHF tv, when everything was analog and tvs were the size of a jukebox and packed with glowing vacuum tubes. In other words before most of us were born.

      At first there was a channel one. Then UHF came along and they needed a place on the dial to switch the tv's receiver to UHF which had its own separate knob. They wedged that into the channel one spot and whatever was there before moved up the VHF dial to another number. In many cases this was NBC going from channel one to four.

      On tv sets these days there are no separate dials for UHF and VHF, or dials with fine tuning rings around them at all. With our push-button remotely controlled modern tvs we really don't know we change from one spectrum to the other past channel 13. On cable there's no difference at all. And with DTV we can get several signals on the same frequency if the broadcaster compresses the signal. So you can have channels 2.1 and 2.2 and 2.3.

      All the same there still won't be a channel 1, or 1.1 or 1.2...

      Infrequently Answered Question #24: What's the world's greatest bargain?

      A: There are so many, it's hard to say. I might make the case it is mailing a letter. It costs less than 50 cents to send a letter from coast to coast. You might wonder, where's the bargain in that?

      Look at it this way, if the USPS didn't deliver your letter you'd have to do it yourself. How long would that take? A week? How much would it cost you in gas alone? How about sleeping each night in a motel? So in time alone it takes a week to go there and back, plus whatever time working to cover the expense.

      Now then, how long does it take you to earn 50 cents? There's your bargain.

      Email might be cheaper, but harder to figure. While you can get email service for nothing, you have to pay a monthly fee to have on-line access. So what is the actual cost per email? Who knows.

      Infrequently Answered Question #23: Why does nodding your head up and down mean yes and shaking it back and forth mean no? Where does that come from?

      A: Imagine me shrugging my shoulders and raising my eyebrows. Meaning, "I dunno." Maybe nodding comes from bowing to your superiors, kind of a "Yes, sir" movement. Maybe shaking your head comes from turning away in mild disdain. Or maybe it was the opposite of the up and down "Yes, sir" movement. Those two motions would be pitch and yaw to a pilot. Since it's unnatural to roll your head, shoulder shrugging for "I don't know" was the best alternative to up and down and back and forth.

      Everybody seems to use gesticulations when they speak. Who starts these things? Do they start out small and become exaggerated? How self-conscious are they to begin with? Is it a case of monkey see, monkey do? Still, some monkey had to do it the first time. That being the case, I imagine the blind don't gesticulate at all.

      Infrequently Answered Question #22: Is it really better to cook potatoes in their skins? Are most of the nutritional goodies in there?

      A: The answer to part one of your question is, maybe or maybe not. The answer to the second part is, no. I'll explain in reverse order.

      It's a common misnomer that potato skins are more nutritious in and of themselves. Not so. The reason potatoes cooked in their skins are better is because the skin acts as a barrier to keep the goodies in the white bit from leaching out during cooking. Like most plant foods, the skin, shell, rind, husk, whatever, is a protective layer comprising the plant's natural defense. This defense includes natural toxins to discourage bacteria and whatnot. This makes the skins the more dangerous part, though the levels are too low to harm you.

      On the first part, if you boil potatoes in their skins they'll be more nutritious, but not if you cut them up first. You should always bake potatoes in their jackets because, well, they just don't work without them as they fall apart. Which makes it something akin to cooking beans on a grill. I suppose you might manage it somehow, but the results likely won't satisfy.

      Infrequently Answered Question #21: Why do people call that ugly, gray tape "duck tape"? They aren't taping up ducks with it. Shouldn't it rightly be called "duct tape"?

      A: Actually, no. This tape is not intended to be used on duct work, and really shouldn't be. It's rightly called duck tape because it's supposed to be waterproof. You know, sheds water like off a duck's back. I believe it was developed for the military around World War II. That's where the name comes from.

      Proper duct tape is a silvery, metallic and quite different. Why duck tape is such an ugly gray I couldn't say. Maybe it's camouflage, battleship gray. So the enemy, and maybe the crew, couldn't tell the ship was held together with tape.

      Infrequently Answered Question #20: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

      A: That depends on the size and strength of the woodchuck and what species of wood the woodchuck would chuck. Also, what the heck chucking wood would entail exactly. Like tossing a caber as Scotsmen would do in Highland games or what. While a big, burly MacGregor would chuck wood this way I would suspect a woodchuck wouldn't or couldn't.

      On the other hand, how many pecks of wood would Woody Woodpecker pecker if Woody Woodpecker would pecker pecks of wood?

      Infrequently Answered Question #19: What's the most under-rated thing ever?

      A: I'd have to say dirt. People hate it. They don't want it in the house, on their clothes or in their food. Something next to worthless is called dirt cheap. Someone next to worthless is considered lower than the dirt beneath your feet. Being a rat is bad enough, being a dirty rat is worse.

      Where would we be without dirt? Farmers couldn't farm without it. Your yard would be nothing but rocks and astroturf. After all, grass doesn't grow on trees. Dirt makes the world go round, in fact dirt makes the world. We should all drink a toast to dirt. Here's mud in your eye.