Posts by Dr. Boli

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.

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On this day in 1252, Alfonso the Wise became king of Castile and León, beginning Europe’s one and only experiment with wise kings—an experiment generally regarded as a failure that ought not to be repeated in the future.

EVERY SUPPORT THREAD IN EVERY INTERNET FORUM.

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Puzzled User. I want to do A in Useful App, but I can’t figure it out. I tried X, Y, and Q, in that order, like it says in the help file, but it didn’t work.

Mr. Helpful. Why would anyone want to do A? Nobody needs to do A.

Puzzled User. I want to do A because it is the standard practice in the field for which Useful App was designed. I cannot get my work done unless I can do A. I tried X, Y, and Q, in that order, like it says in the help file, but it didn’t work.

Mr. Helpful. Nobody does A. I’ve been a professional in the field for ten years, and nobody does A.

Puzzled User. Look, it’s a job requirement, okay? If I don’t do A, I get fired. I tried X, Y, and Q, in that order, like it says in the help file, but it didn’t work, and I’m getting frustrated.

Mr. Helpful. Well, I’d change jobs if I were you. But if you really want to do A, here’s how: do X, Y, and Q, in that order. Maybe you should read the help file.

Puzzled User. Forget it. I bought an abacus.

Random Flyby. Useful App works for me.

A DEPRESSION-ERA SUBURBAN TRAGEDY.

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In the 1930s, this happy suburban family in Mount Lebanon, south of Pittsburgh, ordered the Build-Your-Own Traditional Pennsylvania Farmhouse Kit. And they lived happily ever after.

Traditional Pennsylvania Farmhouse

This unfortunate family ordered the same kit—

Jumbled Pennsylvania Farmhouse

—but they lost the assembly instructions.

ASK DR. BOLI.

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Dear Dr. Boli: People keep telling me I should get a hybrid to replace my 1973 Chrysler Newport. But I don’t want to get one until I know what a hybrid car is and how they pollinate cars. —Sincerely, Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy.

Dear Madam: The sexual reproduction of motor vehicles is a branch of biology outside Dr. Boli’s field of expertise. Fortunately, however, it is irrelevant to your question, because the word hybrid here is used in a metaphorical sense.

A hybrid vehicle is a failed attempt at a perpetual-motion machine. The turning of the wheels generates power, and the vehicle uses that power to turn the wheels. If perpetual motion were allowed, that would be the end of the story. But in spite of the best attempts of various legislators to repeal the laws of thermodynamics, they are still on the books; and therefore perpetual motion is not an option. Power must occasionally be injected into the system to keep it running, and thus your hybrid vehicle, which desperately wants to drive on electric power alone, also has a gasoline engine. This is the sense in which the word “hybrid” is used: a hybrid is like an electric car crossed with a gasoline-powered car by some ambitious technician at the agricultural extension agency.

It is not, however, necessary to use the gasoline engine all the time, or even at all. There is a source of unlimited energy into which all vehicles can tap, and it does not live under the feet of greedy foreigners who hate us. Gravity is freely available to all. As long as you drive downhill, you can make use of this free energy indefinitely. This one weird trick eliminates the need not only for the gasoline engine, but for the electric motors as well.