Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Particle softly vanishes away
SNARKS: what kind of particle would they be? Confronted with a piece of fruitloopery defining 鈥渜uarky behaviour鈥� as emitting 鈥渟mall, negative message clouds鈥�, our sense of lexical symmetry demanded a particle of that name (8 November).
We had in mind 鈥渟nark鈥�, in the sense of a snippy comment. Magnus Peterson was just one of the readers who reminded us that Lewis Carroll had anticipated us in his poem : 鈥淭o deal properly with quantum fruitloopery, you need a boojum. Because, encountering it, purveyors of management gonads and all that ilk will softly and suddenly vanish away.鈥�
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John Davies points us to Vonda McIntyre鈥檚 novelised version of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which mentions sub-subatomic particles called 鈥渟narks鈥� and 鈥渂oojums鈥�. A novelised film could possibly be a metafiction. It鈥檚 just as well we didn鈥檛 make this up, because that鈥檇 be a meta-metafiction.
Cloud-backup service Carbonite informs Barny Shergold that if he takes no further action, his file will be deleted in 49,698 days. Do they know something about the year 2150 that we don鈥檛?
Red tape cuts red tape
WHAT are your views on the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1992? The UK Law Commission proposes repealing of this Act, on the grounds that it only required ministers to make a report on its functioning by the summer of 1997 鈥� which they did.
This is part of a that proposes to delete from the statute book parts of 49 Acts of Parliament, including the SF(C)A and the Statute of Marlborough of 1267, and the whole of 56 more. Some of these Acts have, over the years, had every section except that defining their title repealed. Feedback sees the point of removing these. But why bother with the report-making provision? Surely, like apparently non-coding DNA, it鈥檚 a harmless part of the history of the code?
Heaven forfend that the Law Commission should create a piece of 鈥渞ed tape鈥� for the sole purpose of being able to claim that the maximum amount of red tape has been ruthlessly cut.
Tying ministers up
SPEAKING of which, Feedback has mislaid our sample of actual, physical red tape. Fortunately, 快猫短视频鈥榮 London office is a short walk from a purveyor of legal supplies that 鈥� in fact magenta 鈥� which is used to tie up legal document bundles. We are minded to buy some for ministers to cut, to distract them from repealing useful regulations.
Yes, I want not to hide
SOME knotty tape that could usefully be cut reaches a colleague from Arun District Council, a local authority in the UK. The registration process for voting has changed here. 鈥淚f you wish your name to be removed from the open register,鈥� Nigel Lynn, registration officer, warns: 鈥渢hen please complete the box overleaf鈥�.
Chuffed about the possibility of preventing people from getting identity details, the colleague turned over the page and read the box to sign: 鈥淚 wish my name to be added to the open register鈥�. We reckon this gives signers an evens chance of achieving the opposite of what they want.
A pioneer writes鈥�
PRECISION being a virtue: while thanking Robert Cailliau for sending a film on information-science pioneer Paul Otlet, we called Cailliau 鈥渃o-inventor of the World Wide Web鈥� (15 November). He prefers to be described as 鈥渨eb pioneer鈥�.
Alarming architecture
ARCHITECTURE isn鈥檛 a field of expertise that Feedback claims. But we have a question for those who are qualified. The other week, leaving London from St Pancras station, we glanced at the , an interdisciplinary medical research facility being built next to it. When first proposed, it aroused some anxiety because it will contain 700 square metres of laboratories rated at containment level 鈥溾�� 鈥� though the Institute鈥檚 website that it will not handle Containment Level 4 bugs.
What we want to ask is: given this, was it really necessary to make the defining feature of the roofline, 鈥� and thus the first thing some visitors from Brussels and Paris will see on arrival 鈥� a busy array of vents and chimneys?
Modelling the festive tree
THIS time last year, Jon Hinwood wrote of 鈥減ausing in decorating my Christmas tree for a cuppa and a read of 快猫短视频 鈥� and finding that I had set up a simple demonstration of the master-slave oscillator system described in the article 鈥楥rashing market, hidden dragon?鈥� (23 November 2013, p 8)鈥�. He described chaotic motion of the baubles and its resemblance to the financial-market excursions discussed in the article. Please take care what you accidentally model, should you be arranging seasonal ornaments of any persuasion.
Thank you and happy new year
FINALLY, it remains 鈥� in this, 快猫短视频鈥榮 issue 3000 鈥� for Feedback to thank you for the 3362 other messages we have received in the past 12 months. Almost all are very interesting, though sadly we have had neither space to mention nor time to thank you individually for all of them. Season鈥檚 greetings to you all!