Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Death meets his maker
TERRY PRATCHETT was, Feedback guesses, the favourite fiction author of many of our readers. What can one say when the person who invented Death dies? The vicissitudes of weekly publication prevented our making a timely tribute to his encounter on 12 March with the anthropomorphic personification that he made a grim fictitious celebrity (and what other kind is there?) and that speaks in CAPITAL LETTERS.
We turn therefore for asynchronous inspiration to his book Thief of Time, so titled for the proverb that begins 鈥減rocrastination is鈥︹�� and the plot of which centres on the conceit that devices called 鈥減rocrastinators鈥� can stretch time as necessary or, for dramatic effect, unnecessarily. In this he remarked that 鈥淣o other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up the evolutionary ladder. Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look at the universe and think 鈥極h, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?鈥� 鈥�
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Or, indeed, 鈥渋f I write that book鈥濃��
The poster that Jenny Narraway saw in a travel shop in the Netherlands promoted 鈥渘onstop return鈥� tickets. That鈥檚 even worse than going for the conference and not seeing the city at all鈥�
Egregiously exotic expertise
FEEDBACK thanks the University of Warwick, UK, for sending us its latest very serious . We particularly like the entry for Jack Cohen, a collaborator on several books with Ian Stewart and Terry Pratchett, listing expertise in: 鈥淪cience fiction, reproductive biology, exotic pets, animal handling, aliens鈥︹��
Probiotic fog of confusion
A COLLEAGUE opens their post to find a spray container labelled 鈥淏etterAir鈥�. The accompanying press release announces 鈥淲e all know that outdoor air quality causes massive health problems. What about indoor air? The same applies.鈥� So what is the solution? 鈥淵ou鈥檝e heard of adding probiotics to your digestive system鈥� now you can do the same with air鈥� by injecting good probiotic bacteria into your indoor space.鈥� It promises 鈥淪olid scientific research鈥� You can read more at 鈥� 鈥� but we don鈥檛 find any peer-reviewed papers there, nor a clue what these bacteria are. We are not encouraged by the : 鈥淒isallowing breathing for more than 5 minutes is lethal. So, any solution that contributes to enhancement of the air we breathe should be seriously considered鈥︹��
The cap stays on that spray until we know more.
A Guild of Thieves promotion
OOOH, aren鈥檛 we cosmopolitan? For years now, Feedback has dozed in the undercroft of London鈥檚 St Pancras station, waiting for trains to meetings in Brussels, Belgium. It was only when we went with a friend that we were alerted to a public-address announcement we鈥檇 been ignoring: 鈥淧roperty theft is a priority crime for your local British Transport Police Neighbourhood Policing Team.鈥� The friend was not at all reassured at the idea of theft done by qualified professionals.
Monstrous regiment of crooks
IF there鈥檚 anything we should learn from the internet, it鈥檚 that not all crooks are fools. The latest example to come to our eyes was the collapse of a supposed bitcoin exchange in Hong Kong. That 鈥渟upposed鈥� is what we journalists call a 鈥渨easel word鈥�: it covers a certain vagueness in the ascertainable truth.
The largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, collapsed last year after 鈥渓osing鈥� bitcoins that at the time were worth several hundred million dollars. This February, the South China Morning Post a smaller loss at 鈥淢yCoin鈥�, which bereft investors are calling 鈥渁 pyramid-style Ponzi scheme鈥� 鈥� one in which new mugs鈥� 鈥渋nvestment鈥� pays enough to earlier mugs to encourage more new mugs鈥�
Selling bitcoins was not the scam; they didn鈥檛 have any to sell, says Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. Nor did they have a vast bank of computers making calculations to 鈥渕ine鈥� new bitcoins (31 January, p 35). They simply had a website that pretended to list bitcoin prices and sell contracts for bitcoin mining. They took in an estimated $29 million.
They did not issue any documents to prove the investments existed. They vanished, but six were soon and may face the same kind of that capped the career of .
Guards! Guards! Drugs!
NOW we have come across an even sharper scam: set up 鈥淓volution鈥�, an online drugs marketplace, then . Allegedly.
Non-academic dinners
FINALLY, Feedback thanks Craig Borland for sending on the chemistry of flavours in Indian cuisine from the website of The Independent newspaper, borrowed from The Washington Post鈥�s .
What caught Craig鈥檚 eye was writer Roberto Ferdman鈥檚 observation that 鈥淢ost of the compounds have scientific names鈥�. Our trouble is that we know exactly what Roberto means. Incomprehensible ones. Not worth troubling your little mind with. Indeed, Roberto presents Venn diagrams mapping flavour overlaps, borrowed from , and each annotated with the advice to 鈥淚gnore the math symbols.鈥�
We can only hope that some young readers find this boring enough that, in the spirit of Terry Pratchett鈥檚 observation, they resolve to bother their minds after all鈥�