WONDERING whether to plan a day outdoors, reader Chris Shaw went, as one does
these days, to the BBC’s weather website at www.bbc.co.uk/weather. He was a
little alarmed to read that the outlook for the west of England and Scotland and
the whole of Wales and Ireland included “sunny spells”.
The overnight outlook, that is. “I had been planning to get some sleep
tonight,” he wrote at 01.46 am on 3 September, “but in view of the sunny
intervals, I think I’ll top up my fading tan.” You can see proof that they did
say that—or, this being the wicked Web, that Chris knows a very good
digital faker—at www.chrisshaw.co.uk/ britainsummary.jpg.
LIKE MANY companies, the BBC likes to put confidentiality clauses on the
faxes it sends out. Reader Paul Gorton received a misdirected fax from the
corporation recently. At the bottom in bold type, it stated: “Confidentiality:
This is a private facsimile transmission for the named recipient only. If you
are not the named recipient, you must not read, copy or use the contents, or
disclose them to any other person, and should please notify the sender
immediately by telephone that you have received the transmission in error.”
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Gorton points out that he normally reads from the top of a page to the
bottom. So he had disobeyed the warning before he reached it. What’s more, he
had to read all the way through before he found who the sender was. So, sorry
BBC.
YOU DON’T GET a “true scientific breakthrough” every day, so it was with
mounting excitement that we read the Penta Water website
www.pentawater.net/pages/what_is.html.
Water forms large clusters of H2O molecules, the site says, and we
can’t argue so far. These clusters apparently have to be broken down by the
cells in our body to make use of the water, but as we get older this breakdown
process, well, breaks down.
Now the breakthrough bit. Bio-Hydration, the company behind Penta Water, has
developed a process that “restructures the large molecular formations usually
found in nature into the less common small clusters”. This increases the
clusters’ ability to hydrate our cells. The process is accomplished by means of
advanced physics, without the use of any chemicals or additives, so it must be
good.
“The result is Penta-hydratetm [sic], a water like none other.” We are
astounded, having lived under the delusion that the highly transient nature of
the hydrogen bonds that link individual molecules of H2O offers no
serious barrier to the absorption of water by our cells.
The invention of Penta-hydrate must be a breakthrough: it will apparently
reduce stress, improve physical and mental performance, and reduce free radical
damage. Moreover, “There are no limits to how many bottles you can drink each
day” and “It’s best to drink the whole bottle at one time”, at $45 for 24
half-litre bottles, plus $9.95 shipping within the US.
We wonder how closely this breakthrough material is related to that 1960s
favourite, “polywater”, and the processes involved in cold fusion.
READER David Moore recently joined The Camping and Caravanning Club, and duly
received the “new members” package, which included a catalogue of items he might
want to purchase. One of these was a Pir intruder alarm, which, according to the
catalogue, has adjustable sensitivity detecting “up to 7.5 mm”.
That’s as much use as a chocolate teapot, unless you carpet your caravan with
about 10,000 of these gizmos. Then you’ll have a fair chance of detecting a
burglar—mostly by the sound of crunching alarms underfoot.
DUE credit to the designers of the IBM Compact Flash Microdrive, the
ultra-miniature hard drive for digital cameras. The packaging tells us that it
“withstands a shock of 1500G”.
This is an enormous shock, so the drive must be tough indeed. Or is it? In
the instruction manual for the drive, we are advised: “Warning—do not
DZ.”
Where from? The top of the Empire State building?
DIGITAL formats like CD and DVD have killed off the vinyl disc, right? Wrong.
Or so Feedback recently learned from one of Britain’s most respected cutting
engineers, who transfers music from tape to grooved LP disc with a diamond
cutting lathe.
One thing digital technology still cannot provide is the hands-on feel that
DJs need to mix, match, preview and “scratch” grooved records with a mechanical
pickup live in cutting-edge dance clubs.
So there are now more lathes in London than ever, our engineer tells us,
around 45 in all.
TUFF STUFF CARPETS from Natco are, according to the label, made with “100 per
cent undetermined fibre”. How do they know?
THERE WERE two warning labels on the “Lacing Fun—Deluxe beads” set that
was given to reader Stuart Corney’s daughter for her fourth birthday. On the top
of the packet on the left-hand side was a standard age indicator for toys, which
said “For ages 4 and up”. And on the right-hand side was a sign that said:
“Warning. Choking hazard—Small parts. Not for children under 8 years.”
Corney has been in a quandary ever since. Is it safe to let his daughter play
with the set, should he wait until she is eight, or should he go for the average
and wait until six?
A COUPLE of weeks ago we reported on the Queensland state government press
release that promised “E for Everyone”
(25 August).
On similar lines, we’ve just come across a headline that appeared in the May issue
of Chemistry in Britain: “Lords call for speed in cannabis trials”.
FINALLY, another example of Feedback’s uncanny power to exercise a
synergistic influence on the course of events. On 4 August we ran an item
mentioning how Paul Robeson used to give concerts down the telephone when he was
banned from leaving the US in the 1950s. Three weeks later, leading indie rock
band Manic Street Preachers released their new single—Let Robeson
Sing.