Fresh Loaf

Superman is able to use his super strength to squeeze coal into diamonds. Theoretically, if someone had unlimited strength in real life, would it be possible to do this?
— marcusbrute

You realize, Marcus, we’re talking about what (a) a fictional character of virtually unlimited powers (barring kryptonite-related issues) could, (b) if real, be (c) theoretically but (d) realistically expected to do. Even by the Straight Dope standards this takes us into a pretty abstruse realm. That’s probably why I got into a big argument on the subject with my assistant Una, who’s normally as tranquil as a September morn.

Admittedly, I started off behind the eight ball owing to my scandalously inadequate knowledge of artificial diamond making. I submitted that squeezing coal into diamonds was impossible. Somewhere I’d gotten the idea that fake diamonds were all made by a process known as chemical vapor deposition, and that CVD approximated how natural diamonds were made. CVD involved heat and pressure, but the main thing was you started out with a seed crystal you bathed in carbon-rich vapor and from this the diamond was basically grown. That was a far cry from the scenario in the comic books, where Superman grabbed a chunk of coal, squeezed, and voila, a diamond. For one thing, growing a diamond via CVD could take two or three days. Not to slight this achievement, but it wasn’t the kind of dramatic gesture that was going to thrill Lois Lane.

Continue reading Straight Dope

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

Bookmark It

What’s the final word about Y2K? We were told this was a serious problem, and that huge dollars and man-hours were needed to head off trouble. Why didn’t the sky fall, as predicted? Were the dollars spent before January 1, 2000, well spent or not? The date change seemed seamless to a layman. Was this because we headed off most of the trouble before it happened, or because it wasn’t as serious as predicted?
— Paul Wheeler

One may inquire: Why am I answering this now? Because the question keeps coming in, and at some point you have to ask, if I don’t take it on, who will? So here’s the best answer you’re likely to get: 1) While the true extent of Y2K issues will never be known, what we do know suggests the problem was wildly exaggerated. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to focus resources on a few truly high-risk areas, wait till 1/1/2000 for everything else, and fix what broke. Looked at in that light, the money spent on remediation, estimated at between $100 billion and $600 billion, was mostly wasted. 2) That’s hindsight talking. To put things in perspective (I realize the argument cuts both ways) many now say the world as we know it is going to end due to global warming. You think the smart choice is to say “relax”?

Continue reading Straight Dope

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

Bookmark It

There’s an old saw about God protecting drunks and fools. I’m particularly interested in the drunks part. Almost nightly, it seems, we hear on the news that a drunk driver killed one or more people in another car but the drunk survived, sometimes without injury. A family member suggested drunks are saved because they’ve passed out and are more relaxed, but I’m skeptical. Is it just the crashes where the drunk walks away after killing another that make the news?
— PLT, Indianapolis

If somebody’s going to walk away from a fatal car crash, you really want it not to be the inebriated loser who caused it. However, while all the facts aren’t in, there’s reason to think drunk drivers sometimes get a break they don’t deserve.

We’ll call what you’re describing the lucky-drunk hypothesis. Although it’s been floating around for a long time, scientists apparently first examined it seriously in a 1982 study of trauma victims treated at a Texas hospital (Ward et. al, American Journal of Surgery). Roughly a third of the 1,200 patients had been drinking.

Continue reading Straight Dope

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

Bookmark It

I once saw a man on “Oprah” who always unplugged appliances because he didn’t want to pay for “phantom” electricity that would leak through the plug even when the appliance wasn’t being used. Recently, a coworker told my husband he saved a lot of money unplugging TVs, computers, etc. Am I really wasting money leaving appliances plugged in even if I turn them off?
— Rebecca

I’ve heard people are selling capacitors to lower electrical bills. Is that possible?
— Big Red

With everyone trying to economize these days, you’re going to hear a lot of dubious ideas about reducing energy costs. Here are a couple. We’ll start with the dumber one.

Continue reading Straight Dope.

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

Bookmark It

In The Bad Girl’s Guide to the Open Road, Cameron Tuttle suggests the following technique for getting out of a DUI: If you get pulled over, immediately step out of the car with a bottle of your favorite liquor and chug a couple shots’ worth. The officer now has no way of proving you were drinking before you got out of the car. Interesting thought, but is this actually true? Perhaps the most the officer could do would be to cite you for public intoxication/open container in public?

— Hazle Weatherfield, via the Straight Dope Message Board

Yes, Hazle, that’s an interesting thought. But can you imagine this ridiculous gambit actually working here in reality land? I didn’t think so. Tuttle concedes as much, prefacing her advice with the comment that “if you’ve been drinking and have an open bottle of hard liquor in your car, you’re already in deep shit. So what do you really have to lose?”

Let’s back up a bit. Prior to Breathalyzer-type technology, which measures blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, drunk driving was a tough charge to make stick – prosecutors needed witnesses to testify about the defendant’s slurred speech, unstable gait, and so on. Things got only slightly easier after BAC testing devices became available in the 1930s. Although a high BAC was telling evidence, you still needed corroborating testimony about drunken behavior, plus you had to have an expert witness explain what BAC meant. Eventually states wised up and passed “per se” laws, which defined drunk driving quite simply: operating a vehicle with a certain minimum BAC. Today it’s .08 percent. Read more.

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

Bookmark It