Time sink
EUROPEANS may feel like time is dragging after an energy dispute in the Balkans led to clocks running slow across the continent. Six minutes has leaked away from electric clocks in ovens and radios since January.
The problem arose after Kosovo failed to generate enough electricity to meet its needs. According to the body overseeing Europe鈥檚 electricity grid, Serbia is legally responsible for making up the shortfall. However, relations between the two countries have been fractious since Kosovo鈥檚 secession, and Serbia refused to step in. As a result, suppliers automatically slowed the frequency of the alternating current in the grid to spread the available electricity a little more thinly.
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This kept the lights on, but many electric clocks, such as those embedded in household appliances, use the metronome-like pulse of alternating current in the mains power supply to keep time. As the 50 hertz current has dropped to about 49.996 Hz, clocks from Portugal to Turkey began to slow.
Kosovo has started generating sufficient electricity again, but there are still 344 seconds missing from 鈥済rid time鈥�. The question of who is responsible for making up the shortfall is still being debated, and until it鈥檚 settled Europe will be living in the past.
鈥淔arewell Stephen Hawking, a man unfettered in both thought and driving style. Our colleague recalls: 鈥淗e used to go whizzing down the street scattering undergraduates like ninepins鈥濃��
Delayed gratification
THE UK government has pushed back the date of its proposed porn firewall after realising it couldn鈥檛 get it up by April. Introduced in 2016, the measure aimed to force every commercial porn website available in Britain to install age verification measures.
Critics argued that aside from being impossible to apply and easy to circumvent, building up a database of every British adult鈥檚 porn browsing habits, cross-checked with their credit card details, was a privacy disaster waiting to happen.
But the UK government is no stranger to misguided, unenforceable legislation; take previous efforts to ban text message encryption and the nonsensical Psychoactive Substances Act (30 January 2016, p 3). In February, it decreed the British Board of Film Classification was responsible for seeing this latest impossible policy through, and less than a month later, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport quietly extended the deadline 鈥渦ntil the end of the year鈥�, burying this news in a press release on 5G mobile networks.
Doing hard time
A MAN believed to have swallowed a stash of drugs has been released from police custody without charge after refusing to use the toilet for 47 days. Lamarr Chambers of Brixton, London, was arrested in mid-January by anti-drugs officers working under Operation Raptor. At that time, they tweeted that the suspect 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 think we have the power to keep him until he removes said items from his bottom, #thinkagain鈥�.
A lengthy battle of wills followed, as Chambers refused to turn stool pigeon. Essex Police repeatedly went to court to apply for extensions to his custody, and posted regular updates about the then suspect on Twitter (tagged #poowatch). But as hours dragged into days and then weeks, concern mounted for the man鈥檚 health. Chambers refused to budge, and after almost seven weeks he was released from custody.
In a statement, Essex Police noted that the force 鈥渨ill also not shy away from talking about the unpleasant truths that go hand in hand with the drug dealing lifestyle鈥�. There鈥檚 a good chance Chambers has netted a world record in lavatorial abstinence 鈥� probably not the kind of record the police hoped he would leave with.
Into the drink
A MESSAGE in a bottle has arrived 132 years after it was thrown overboard. Tonya Illman discovered the gin bottle lying in the dunes of a beach in Western Australia. Inside was a message recording the date and location it was dropped, along with data on meteorological conditions and a request to report the find to the German consulate.
It is one of thousands of such bottles dispatched for an experiment on ocean currents that ran for 69 years, of which 662 have been found so far. That鈥檚 a lot of gin to get through, but sacrifices have to be made in the pursuit of science.
Water weight
BEWARE of the little foil packets of moisturiser hidden in the pages of glossy magazines, like single-serving condiments for the human body. The advert that came with Christine Ri鈥檚 sample of Olay Whips moisturiser claims that its 鈥淎ctive Rush Technology鈥� means the cream will 鈥渉old and quickly release 1000x its weight in hydration and active ingredients鈥�.
No doubt this technology will be of interest to the space industry, where supply rockets could carry a tonne of hydration for thirsty astronauts in every kilogram of water. Christine, though, has more down-to-Earth concerns. 鈥淚f I use the entire 0.6 gram sample on my face, will it make it 600 grams heavier?鈥�
Liquid measures
IN DUBLIN, they are not doing things by halves. 鈥淚鈥檓 not saying we Irish have a drinking problem, but we do choose an odd metric to measure volume,鈥� says Cillian Campbell. A mural in Dublin Airport records the history of the terminal building, telling him: 鈥淥ver 72,000 m3 of concrete was used during construction. The equivalent of 127 million pints of Guinness.鈥� Building airports must be thirsty work.
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