A Simple Truth About
WRITER'S BLOCK
or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb*

I had this week's story all figured out a couple of weeks ago - especially the title "You Can't Have It Both Ways". It was a great idea. After two weeks of thought, however, I realized that I had no idea of what I had intended to write about - other than the title.

My request for ideas last time had a few responses:

"My question or request for a column is how can I get an 800 Megahertz CPU to work in DOS 5.0. Any help would be greatly appreciated."

Great question. I think DOS 5.0 was the best operating system to ever come out of Redmond, Washington. The answer to your question is actually quite obvious when you think about it. The size of your CPU is directly proportional to the release number of the operating system that you wish to use. So, 800/5 = 160. Now, 160 is 1/4 of 640 (your base RAM). So you'll have to physically remove 3/4 of your base RAM. This can be done using a small screwdriver to pry it off of your motherboard. Another option is to slow your CPU down by 25%. This can be accomplished by removing 200 of the pins (for a Socket 7 CPU) or scraping 160 of the connections (for a Slot 1 CPU) from your 800 MHz CPU. REMEMBER, these numbers only apply to an 800 MHz CPU in combination with DOS 5.0. All other configurations must be calculated separately.

"I would really enjoy more articles on gays. You seem to be so in touch with the cause. Do you know the Mayor personally? Keep up the adequate work."

Thanks for the kind words. To be honest, the article you are referring to was actually more about garbage pickup in our fine city but if you picked up the gay references, great! I didn't want them to be too obvious. I don't know the mayor personally, but from what I've heard he's a left-wing, cry baby who is prone to tears or fits of rage. He sounds like a fine "man".

I had one other response this week from a reader who had a great idea for the NDP to be able to end hallway medicine. He felt that in order for Doer to keep one of the biggest promises that he made during the previous election, all he would have to do is to install cloth partitions in the hospital hallways...

Some short "snappers" for you.

• The depression made in the snow by a skier who has fallen backward is called a "sitzmark."
• Women navigate by landmarks and visual memories. Men navigate by direction and distance, and tend to be better at reading maps.
• More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.
• Acorns are poisonous to humans, and, if eaten, will cause kidney damage.
• Nanotechnology has produced a guitar no bigger than a blood cell. The guitar, 10 micrometers long, has six strummable strings.
• The name "celery" comes from the French name "celeri."
• Cinderella's slipper, many scholars believe, was made of fur, not glass. The word verre, or "glass," they claim, was incorrectly substituted in early versions of the story for the word vaire. In medieval French, vaire means "fur."
• During the early days of the Gold Rush in San Francisco a glass of whiskey would cost as much as $7.
• A peanut is not a nut; it is a legume.

*The subtitle for the movie "Dr. Strangelove". Check out the website here.

As always, send me your suggestions for future columns on crang.com. Be with us next time for a discussion on "Baiting Game Animals". We'll have tips on what type of bait to use, where to set up the bait and how to effectively avoid doing prison time. Should be interesting. Oh, and I just remembered what the "You Can't Have It Both Ways" article was supposed to be about. Nice timing...

© April 8, 2001