Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Papering over a problem…
INCREDULITY was several readers’ response to the estimate in our special on materialism that US residents each use 1.3 million sheets of toilet paper during their lives (29 March, p 36). James Ferguson found the figure “incredible” and, at the risk of providing too much information, estimates his personal use at a maximum of 20 sheets a day, not the 46 on which the calculation was based.
Manek Dubash is even more frugal. “Can’t make my calculated consumption, projected forward until the age of 80, reach more than about 200,000 sheets,” he claims. Feedback notes, as does James, that the calculation was , which manufactures toilet paper and thus may have an interest in raising people’s expectations of what is proper in this sensitive area.
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Clover spread announces it is “lovingly made with naturally light buttermilk”: we have mixed feelings about the image James Bellchambers provides of “company directors giving each container a gentle kiss”
Sheets to the wind
INVESTIGATING the matter of toilet rolls further, we discover an earlier estimate in New Scientist that US citizens use 57 sheets a day and Europe as a whole uses “60 million rolls a day”, which, if it means standard 200-sheet rolls in the European Union, suggests 24 sheets per person per day (24 April 2010, p 5). But in 2009 a reported US usage of 23.6 rolls per capita per year – as few as 13 sheets per day. We await breakdowns by gender, quilting and number of ply. How long will it take us to get to the bottom of this story?
Great towering dungheap
MANY, many a of India producing “a stunning 72,000 tons of human waste each day”. That, Katy Daigle continued, is “the equivalent weight of almost 10 Eiffel Towers or 1800 humpback whales”.
Perhaps, Peter Edwards suggests, visualising it as a volume – so many Olympic swimming pools – “would be easier (but not better)”.
Or, he proposes, we could use the old Russian unit of weight, the . India’s daily production would then be about 4.4 megapood.
Microsoft Xtinct Program
LAST month saw the end of security support for Microsoft’s Windows XP system. Hackers can now devise new ways of stealing data and hijacking computers running XP without the inconvenience of Microsoft offering a protective fix.
An estimated 500 million people around the world are still using XP, many in China. One good reason for XP’s persistence is the unpopularity of its successor, Windows 8, which is so very different from previous versions.
Steve Ballmer, who took over as Microsoft chief executive from founder Bill Gates, presided over the birth of Windows 8 and the death sentence on XP. He stepped down in February, and a month later attended a question and answer session at the University of Oxford Said Business School. Feedback cadged a ticket to hear what he had to say about the woes of Windows.
Disappointingly, none of the questions touched on XP or Windows 8. The students were interested mainly in burning issues such as “what’s it like to be hugely rich and powerful?”
Arriving at the railway station to return home, we noted that the ticket-office computer was using XP: the clerk knew of no plans to replace it. We are now typing with fnigers crossed, hoping it isn’t storing our credit card details.
The fall of the house of doll
OUR report of ways of playing with Barbie dolls that do not preclude an interest in science (5 April) struck a chord. Katrin Hille reports that she “never really liked to play with dolls” but used one “to prove to my little sister that dolls are not alive”.
It did not cry when falling from a height. It was non-living. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Shelf life
JANET PRYCE-JONES was sad to hear of New Scientist being filed under “men’s interest” (5 April) because “it is over 40 years since I made exactly the same complaint to WH Smith in Glasgow”. Smith’s eventually agreed to move the magazine, but Janet has had a postal subscription since then and is not sure whither it went.
In Sydney, Australia, Michael Harrington was directed to find Scientific American (a monthly magazine) under “women’s interest”. Was it perhaps because its cover featured a flower?
Heartening enthusiasms
FINALLY, and more hearteningly, a colleague spotted : “In Waitrose. 8 year old girl bounces up to her dad. Magazine in hand. Says excitedly ‘Can I get the New Scientist‘ “.
Reporting based on Twitter hearsay would be a tad apocryphal, even for Feedback. But fortunately we have photographic evidence of Carlyle Mackenzie, aged 10, enjoying her copy of this magazine, to which she has her own subscription.
Carlyle’s favourite recent article was “Star burst” on the threat of solar superflares (10 August 2013, p 46).
And although Feedback isn’t entirely familiar with the fan base of Charlotte Church, we suspect that Carlyle acquired her interest quite independently of the singer’s glowing endorsement of this publication (newscientist.com/article/dn25171).
Normal cynical service will be resumed next week.