Two Kooky Krackpots: IQ Alone Is Not Enough

Did you ever . . . Get lost at work coming back from the mens room? Design an exercise machine that lets you reason with it? Build a superpressure bean cooker that erupted like a volcano and paint the ceiling with bean juice? Rent a car and couldn't find where to put in gasoline? Ask a CIA Security Escort to join you in a mens room stall? Convince your boss that "Dear It" is the nonsexist way to start a letter? Show by mathematics that 4 hours is a full day of work? These guys did. They may be brilliant scientists, but Harold's wife worries that he'll get lost coming home from work, and Sid regularly forgets to go to work. Harold can make equipment talk, and Sid can figure angles to convince administrators to do whatever he wants. They're an ideal, but kooky pair. The two, who always get their research equipment at the salvage building, find certain people glow orange in the video system they built. Circumstances convince them that people acting deceitfully have the orange glow. They convince administrators that the machine works but is untestable - they say a lie told for the sake of testing sometimes may not be a lie. Laboratory administrators are afraid to get near the machine because it might expose them, but they see the deceit detector as a money cow for research funds. Management says the project is too important for working scientists to manage and put a wheeler-dealer in charge. With plenty of funds available, new deceit detector projects sprout, machines to detect potential deceit, past deceits, . . . Sid and Harold lay low and keep puttering with scientific toys they get at salvage. Sid and Harold discover their machine does not work. However, they elect to tell nobody and figure keeping quiet will let their funding go on for years and years.