This is from the Spridgets list enjoy
Larry Macy
78 Midget
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date: 07/09/1998 1:01 PM
Received: 07/09/1998 1:10 PM
From: VaN8v@aol.com
To: Spridgets, spridgets@autox.team.net
From: Eddie Feather <eddief@imncorp.com>
Subject: FW: (fwd) Funnies: Ice cream and car problem
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 07:08:35 -0500
Eddie Feather
Manager
Technical Project & Interface Development
Integrated Medical Networks
972-402-4765
eddief@imncorp.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Etzler Jr [SMTP:larry@jlcomputers.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 1998 4:34 PM
To: Andy Lee (E-mail); Doug (E-mail); Eddie Feather (E-mail); Gene Hedge
(E-
mail); Kevin Knight (E-mail); Paula M. Etzler (E-mail); Cam Cole (E-mail);
John Lenhardt (E-mail)
Subject: FW: (fwd) Funnies: Ice cream and car problem
> For the engineers among us who understand that the obvious is not
> always the solution, and that the facts, no matter how implausible,
> are still the facts...
>
> A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:
>
> "This is the second time I have written you, and I don't blame you for
> not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact
> that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after
> dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night,
> after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream
> we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a
> fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips
> to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla
> ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I
> get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you
> to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it
> sounds: 'What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I
> get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other
> kind?'"
>
> The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter,
> but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised
> to be greeted by a successful, obviously well-educated man in a fine
> neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time,
> so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It
> was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came
> back to the car, it wouldn't start.
>
> The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man
> got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry.
> The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to
> start.
>
> Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this
> man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore,
> to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem.
> And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts
> of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth,
> etc.
>
> In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla
> than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store.
>
> Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the
> front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept
> in the back of the store at a different counter where it took
> considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out.
>
> Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn't start when
> it took less time. Once time became the problem -- not the vanilla ice
> cream -- the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It
> was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other
> flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When
> the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock
> to dissipate.
>
> Moral of the story: even insane-looking problems are sometimes real.
>
----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
Larry B. Macy, Ph.D.
macy@bblmail.psycha.upenn.edu
System Administrator/Manager
Neuropsychiatry Section
Department of Psychiatry
University of Pennsylvania
3400 Spruce St. - 10 Gates
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Voice mail 215 662-2890
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