Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Do solar cells suck sun?
SOLAR energy is part of the mix we need to avert climate catastrophe (21 June, p 32). Improved efficiency may be on the cards (page 42). But what of the risk that solar cells suck sun?
Four readers alerted us to a story appearing on a website called National Report in May: 鈥淪olar Panels Drain the Sun鈥檚 Energy, Experts Say鈥�, . 鈥淚s this the biggest load of tosh you鈥檝e ever come across?鈥� asks David Cross.
Advertisement
鈥溈烀ǘ淌悠祍 at the , a privately owned think tank,鈥� the National Report specifies, 鈥渄iscovered that energy radiated from the sun isn鈥檛 merely captured in solar panels, but that energy is directly physically drawn from the sun by those panels, in a process they refer to as 鈥榝orced photovoltaic drainage鈥�.鈥�
The myth-busters at dug out a 2013 in which the National Report announced that 鈥淎ny resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.鈥� Indeed, when we looked the site was also promoting a report by the alleged Wyoming Institute on 鈥渃hemtrails鈥� (22 June 2013).
Feedback rather fears that won鈥檛 stop people believing it, or some wanting it to be true. We鈥檒l try to keep a watch out for this meme resurfacing.
Alan Branford鈥檚 new modem announces that it 鈥渇eatures advanced security for your piece of mind鈥�. He feared a pact with Mephistopheles, but happily still had a whole mind after plugging it in
The first fruitloop of summer
SUMMER is getting into swing in the northern hemisphere, prompting a whole new round of fruitloopery. First, we regret the wide coverage given to claims by a Colorado company called Osmosis. As the Daily Mail : 鈥淲orld鈥檚 first DRINKABLE sun cream goes on sale 鈥� and just a teaspoon will offer three hours鈥� protection鈥�.
鈥淏ut does it work?鈥� asks Jacqueline Houtman. Let鈥檚 see. Osmosis founder Dr. Ben Johnson that the so-called Harmonized H2O UV Neutralizer 鈥渋s made by manipulating radio waves that naturally occur in water to give them UV-cancelling properties, then duplicating that process hundreds of thousands of times, and bottling that water up鈥�.
He鈥檚 lost us there.
No-energy energy drink
NEXT 鈥� has the sun made you sleepy? Do you need some get up and go? But have you resolved to cut down on those fattening drinks? Then clearly you are the target market for the 鈥淶ero calorie energy drink鈥�, a poster for which puzzled Nick Daggit.
We surmise that Nick does something rational for a living and doesn鈥檛 appreciate the magic of marketing, for he observes that 鈥淪ince calories are how energy is measured, it seems unfortunate to call it an energy drink.鈥�
Powdered booze to go
NOW, after a day in the sun you may fancy a stiff drink. But it鈥檚 such a bore schlepping heavy bottles around. Perhaps powdered alcohol might help? Not yet. The US government鈥檚 approved the labels for seven flavours of 鈥淧alcohol鈥� in April, and . There is controversy about possible Palcohol abuse.
Feedback was concerned about how it could work. We were rather surprised to discover it鈥檚 possible; but it may not taste good. Likely recipes use cyclodextrins, which are also used to mask flavours.
Repetitive invention syndrome
WHAT is more, we seem to remember 鈥渋nstant booze鈥� 鈥� mentioned above 鈥� being one of those stories that comes around once every decade or so, much as 鈥渧ideophones鈥� used to (until they finally happened, not as predicted but as a side effect of mobile technology). Can anyone refresh our memory?
The music of the spams
AFTER the sun and a sangria, perhaps some poetry?
鈥淲alnut door clip is also nourish the brain over it? Slip squatting.
鈥淯nconsciously big belly, have a child no father. Flower Bucket.鈥�
These lines come from Feedback鈥檚 archive of spam email headlines, courtesy of a machine translation from the original traditional Chinese.
A translation shift scheme
MACHINE translation: can we trust it? The example above makes us wonder whether there is a way of gaming it.
It seems that computer translation mostly works by taking phrases from human-translated documents that are statistically likely to be appropriate.
Our first thought involved the creation of thousands of web pages that are easily detectable as accurate translations of each other 鈥� except for carefully chosen words. Possibly, we could convince it that the German for 鈥渉omeopath鈥� was 鈥渜uack鈥�, and so on.
Then we recalled the suggestion that the point of Google scanning books 鈥� despite legal challenges from authors and publishers 鈥� may have been to build an authoritative corpus of translations. Do we have to publish prolifically on paper to influence its results?
Anti-marketing masterpiece
FINALLY, Windows 8, the latest operating system from Microsoft, has been unpopular with users. But dealers trying to sell new computers have to be careful what they say about it. Feedback is taken by the in an advert from Misco. It offers a Lenovo Thinkcentre machine with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Edition 鈥� and the option of a 鈥淲indows 8 Pro 64-bit Edition downgrade鈥�.
Do you have more examples of such anti-marketing?