Word: cranked
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...SimEarth, as in the real world, the great natural processes that shape the environment -- volcanoes, erosion, continental drift -- interact with one another. Climate, vegetation and geology are represented as interrelated systems, each with controls that can be adjusted. Animals multiplying too fast? Just crank down the reproduction dial. Tired of waiting for evolution to work its wonders? Just speed up the mutation rate. Earth getting too hot for its own good? Just turn off the greenhouse effect...
...confuse us with the Action Man," hesays, referring to the mysterious man whoperennially crank-calls Harvard students. "We havenothing to do with...
...their capital. Meantime, the days of bulging classrooms are long gone. The 1965-75 baby bust led to a 10% dip in the number of college-age students in the 1980s; the head count will plummet a further 25% by the mid-1990s. The ability of institutions to simply crank up tuition and fees has also hit a ceiling. Last spring Princeton scaled back a projected 6.9% hike in tuition, room and board to 6.7%, leaving a still daunting annual bill per student of $20,498. "We used to view tuition as a tithe paid by grateful parishioners," says Northwestern...
...Peter Wexler is a crank. It has something to do with his belief that everybody is a liar or, as he puts it, "smug and self-satisfied and just close enough to the facts to get by." When young Holden Caulfield complained about phonies, it had the force of discovery. Wexler's grownup bitching sounds more than a little gratuitous. Wife Lily breaks the news sweetly: "These aren't great complaints, you know. They're tired, and small, and self-serving, they're vague -- if I weren't wife-of-wives I'm not certain I'd be charmed...
...night that Houston bureau chief Richard Woodbury arrived at Cedar Point park in Sandusky, Ohio, for a test spin in the Magnum XL-200, the world's highest (205 ft.) and fastest (72 m.p.h.) roller coaster. Since the weather was expected to worsen, park officials insisted that they crank up Magnum for a ride right away. "Suddenly the gigantic structure was ablaze with lights," recalls Woodbury. "There was no way to argue, and so, as the wind whipped off Lake Erie, I was harnessed into the front seat of a soaking, nearly empty train." But fear soon gave...