THE
BLUE BOX (Recycled Ideas)
by Don Cox
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There will be a major world event on 1 Jan. 2000 as you
all have heard, and I sincerely hope everyone is prepared
for it. I don't wish to add to your concerns, but I feel
it's my social duty to warn you that another crucial event
will occur a week or two before 1 Jan.
This present column is the 196th Blue Box, which means
we are only four or five weeks from the duo-centennial.
Unfortunately I have no idea how many embedded systems will
swing into operation when the Blue Box changes from the
190s to the 200s, but it's as well to be prepared. It would
be advisable to set aside a few hundred dollars in cash
before the event. These can be sent to me for safe keeping
if you wish. Obviously, all hard drives should be defragmented,
and all back-ups should be up to date. I'm not sure that
we can expect power outages, but you never know, so get
some batteries and lay in a few extra cans of baked beans
just in case. We just can't be sure how seriously the world
systems will react to the Blue Box duo-centennial, but let's
not take chances.
A year or so ago I mentioned that writing is like woodworking.
When you build something there is always verbal sawdust
left over along with a few loose ends of paragraphs cut
at strange angles. I have no trouble sweeping up the literal
sawdust and throwing it in the intellectual furnace but
I tend to save the bits of paragraphs for future use. It's
just like carpentering, the left overs from making a chair
can often be hung together with a bit of tar-paper to make
a plant pot.
Today I think I'll clean up the writing room floor in
preparation for the duo-centennial. I'll want to make a
clean start on the 201th. So I'll give you a few fragments
I couldn't make something from and couldn't bring myself
to throw away.
Here's one for starters, "Great white sharks are picky
eaters. Instead of crunching down, they gently 'mouth' items
they catch to see if they are edible and tasty. Most surfers
they just spit out." It's difficult to connect anything
to that, except maybe that my dog's a bit that way, he's
mouthed a couple of people but hasn't crunched on them.
Let's try another, "In Massachusetts, authorities plan to
fill highway potholes with discarded computers. These account
for 68,250 tonnes of solid waste annually." Of course this
is nothing compared to the tonnage of paper that's discarded
annually, but who cares about that, it hasn't the shock
value of potholes full of computers.
There, I've gotten rid of two of them, now I'll just delete
the rest, wait for the duo-centennial, and hope for the
best.
Bluebox ©2001 Don Cox
Website ©2001 OttawaWEB
