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Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Fenestration fun

FEEDBACK is delighted to discover the US National Fenestration Rating Council, which rates the energy performance of windows. You can visit it at 鈥� and its UK counterpart, the British Fenestration Rating Council, at , and furthermore the Australian Fenestration Rating Council at .

These are doubtless worthy organisations doing useful work. But they remind Feedback of the far more gripping topic of 鈥渄efenestration鈥� 鈥� etched into our minds by history lessons and the in 1618. A classic of its kind, this event involved contentious political figures being thrown out of a window, and marked the start of the very bloody Thirty Years鈥� War.

Computer enthusiasts have borrowed the term to describe ridding their machines of Microsoft Windows in favour of the open-source Linux operating system. And Feedback has uncovered a UK heavy metal band named .

Can we or should we have a Defenestration Council or two?

A lack of frames for informational posters at Lichfield railway station led the operator to use one to display a poster announcing more 鈥� which Ian Shardlow kindly describes as 鈥渟elf-fulfilling鈥�

Global flattening squashed

GLOBAL flattening 鈥� the suggestion of a hitherto under-recognised effect of carbon dioxide emissions on the pitch of musical instruments 鈥� was too cute to challenge too much (15 March). We did mention that we had 鈥渘ot tracked down鈥� an article that David Fletcher mentioned as having appeared in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Acoustics.

Indeed, as this went to press, that journal title was a Googlewhack 鈥� that is, a search for it on a famous web search engine returned precisely one result: our mention of it.

We should not have been surprised, then, to receive calculations from Donald Roworth. 鈥淎tmospheric CO₂ has risen from perhaps 250 parts per million to 400 ppm over the last 300 years,鈥� he writes. 鈥淎 quick calculation (based on details in the old standby Kaye and Laby, formally ) shows that this would cause a vanishingly small change in the speed of sound.鈥� Charles Sawyer puts the change at 0.07 per cent and points out that the change as rooms have got warmer is around 0.9 per cent.

It gets worse: 鈥淏earing in mind that exhaled air contains about 45,000 ppm of CO₂,鈥� Charles writes, 鈥渨ind instruments would be impossible to play consistently in tune if the CO₂ content had any significant effect on pitch.鈥�

Memetic engineering and you

FEEDBACK has a confession. We were wondering whether 鈥済lobal flattening鈥� would strike a chord among those who would really rather global climate change were equally fictitious. It turned out to be hard to find out, because the term had already been used by The New York Times columnist for the US losing its monopoly power in international relations, and by educationalists for the loss of special status for 茅lite colleges and universities.

We really should have checked that before indulging in this kind of memetic engineering. A week after the item went online, we hadn鈥檛 found anyone taking up the idea in the context of climate change 鈥� please do let us know if you do.

What a card!

BANKING seems to be getting ever more complicated, as developers of digital services play whack-a-mole with inventors of ingenious ways of stealing. But one company seems to be missing the wood for the trees.

Last year a colleague of Feedback discovered, by accident, a glaring loophole in the 鈥渃hip and PIN鈥� security system for a major preloaded travel cash card. To register the card, he had to set up crime-preventing security questions. But the card helpline is fully automated, with no humans to ask those tricky security questions. All a crook would need to learn the vital PIN for a stolen or lost card is the card number (on the card), the helpline number (also on the card) and one very basic personal detail. They could then take all the money that had been loaded onto the card.

Our colleague wrote to the company鈥檚 chief executive, offering to explain the loophole rather than publicise it and risk being accused of helping criminals. In return, the company could then make a donation to a mutually agreed charity.

The person who responded initially seemed surprised and concerned. But a few days later they replied formally, saying that the system is a trade-off between security and convenience for users who forget their PIN.

There have been no reports of abuse yet, they assured us. But the system might be changed. We have dutifully waited a full four months and checked with the latest cards issued. The loophole is still there.

We will stand with what?

FINALLY, Feedback shares Martin Edwardes鈥檚 puzzlement over a leaflet published by the Woodland Trust, a UK conservation charity. It announces: 鈥淲e will stand for those who fell鈥︹�� Yes, the idea to 鈥渃reate thousands of acres of Centenary Woodland to commemorate the First World War鈥� is possibly a good one. But surely they could have promoted it in a way that doesn鈥檛 bring to mind rueful lumberjacks?