Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Mindlessness for health
READER Bernard Morcheles sends his tip for losing weight. He stresses that 鈥渢his is not a diet鈥� and we leave you to imagine the emphatic typography. His secret is simple: 鈥淒on鈥檛 put anything in your mouth larger than the size of the first joint of your thumb; chew everything completely before swallowing; and don鈥檛 put anything else in your mouth until you have swallowed.鈥� Ah, yes, that would be 鈥渕indful eating鈥�.
Feedback went looking for quotes from our very, very old friend, the Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, to see what he had to say about this aspect of mindfulness. We discovered that he has a whole book out, , with Harvard public health lecturer Lilian Cheung.
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But鈥� you must want mindfulness (at the same time as letting go of attachment to wants, natch). Hence research on mindless eating 鈥� on tricks we can play once on ourselves that keep on working, such as using different cutlery and plates 鈥� as reported, felicitously, on page 36.
It鈥檚 not an urban legend. Rick McCarty sends a photo of a cafe/filling station near Vail, Colorado, exhorting 鈥渆at here, get gas鈥�. But is it a deliberate bid for Feedback fame?
The boojum was seen, you see
SNARKS. Feedback demanded, modestly, that theorists come up with a particle of this name (8 November 2014). Readers reminded us that anyone on the brink of observing such a thing would 鈥渟oftly and suddenly vanish away鈥� as Lewis Carroll wrote in the (20/27 December 2014).
Now a colleague informs us that physicists have, contrary to Carroll鈥檚 rule, observed a boojum. Richard Webb, lamenting the fading-away of whimsical names for newly described objects of scientific enquiry, recorded that a geometrical pattern sometimes seen on the surface of superfluid helium-3 is called a boojum (快猫短视频, 20 December 2008, p 63). In fact, the isotope鈥檚 alternative configuration, the 鈥測ozh鈥�, is chased away by the appearance of a boojum.
A full account of how David Mermin 鈥渄ecided to make the word 鈥榖oojum鈥� an internationally accepted scientific term鈥� is at . Now: who has sighted a snark, and lived to tell the tale?
Scandal on a plate
INNOCENTLY, Feedback enquired why it was that people are sensitive about images of their car鈥檚 number plate being reproduced online (29 November 2014). Several readers were happy to explain. Their information is of course devoted to logical completeness only, as was our query.
Angus Stevenson suggests that having spent a great deal on a cherished number, 鈥渟ome owners belatedly discover that it is a great identifier and its removal is perhaps down to being caught in a possibly compromising position鈥�. We leave the rest to your imagination.
Steve Shrewsbury adds that the UK plate 鈥淯FO 1鈥� and its numeric successors may be an example of this. In trying to discover to what or whom he may refer, Feedback encountered an entire subculture whose existence should have, but had not, occurred to us: .
Not just the ticket
THE above suggestions about identification by number plates have enough of the flavour of schadenfreude to suggest that caution about them is, on the face of it, required. But the scenario that Robert Trybis suggests has the authentic ring of truthiness.
Imagine yourself, for a moment, to be crooked. Find online an image of a car that matches yours in make, model and colour. Obtain plates, perhaps from a crooked friend, bearing the number of that car. Fix them to yours. Proceed to collect speeding and parking fines 鈥� and penalties for non-payment of the daily 鈥渃ongestion charge鈥� applied to vehicles entering central London. Observe the penalty notices not arriving, because they鈥檙e going to the owner of the car whose plates you cloned.
Now stop imagining. NOW.
Chemistry by the numbers
ALSO, we asked about spottings of plates with interesting patterns (29 November 2014). Brian King suggests that 鈥淪SS 999鈥� contains two palindromes even when inverted, but does not claim to have spotted it. We find of it being auctioned with a reserve price of 拢1900.
Keith Clement may have come up with a richer seam, having observed 鈥淗N03 RNA鈥�. What ribonucleic acid nitrate would be, other than a smelly mess, we鈥檙e not sure. But there must be more chemical formulae out there.
Artificial masters
FINALLY 鈥� perhaps ultimately 鈥� a colleague makes an alarming observation. They were idly searching for background on the question of artificial intelligences deciding they could supersede humans鈥� messy wetware mind implementation.
They came across this announcement: 鈥�. The last issue published was Volume 6 Issue 2 (2014).鈥� The colleague 鈥渃an presume only that the machines took over and decided the less we know, the better鈥︹��
They can鈥檛 be that good, though, if they can鈥檛 hide the news of their takeover from a famous web search engine with ambitions to be one of them.
Just in case, Feedback wants it on the record that we welcome our new AI overlords.