WHAT would you think if you found someone in possession of the following list: âMow lawn; do laundry; buy groceries; clean gutters; do homework; trim trees; mail anthrax; pick up dry-cleaningâ?
Doran Amos has this list. Doran Amos is not a suburban teenage terrorist. We definitely believe this reader should not be subject to âextraordinary renditionâ, nor made to wear orange.
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Amosâs story, and he is sticking to it, is that he was just trying out the experimental âSetsâ program at . Type in a few words or phrases, such as âmow lawnâ, âbuy groceriesâ and âdo laundryâ, and it tries to create a list of other related words by checking its vast database for words that go together on web pages.
The program is not very good at culturally specific lists: feeling peckish in London, we typed in âfishâ and âchipsâ and got âsausage, beer, breadâ and so on⊠and when, given the German flavour of that response, we tried âWurstâ and âBierâ, we got a list including âWintersportâ and âBaustoffeâ â building materials.
But it does seem to be rather good at the international language of physics: âboson, leptonâ produces âbaryon, gluon, fermionâ and so on. But how do âKyotoâ and âBushâ go with âNirvanaâ?
âAt Londonâs Heathrow Airport, Tom Nielsen-Marsh saw a sign in the front window of a police car saying: âExplosive police dogâ. Presumably its bang is worse than its biteâ
And, yes, when we tried âmow lawn, do laundry, buy groceriesâ, we got the same list as Amos did. We vividly picture alarm bells going off at the National Security Agency as soon as this item gets onto our IT network. Please, nice Mister Spook, it wasnât us. It was the computer. It was the web. Honest.
HAVE you ever had a bright idea that you thought would make a great book or movie, but you lacked the time or energy to sit down and do all the tedious storytelling? Why not patent the idea instead, says Andrew Knight, a registered patent agent based in Washington DC.
As any movie fan can testify, there are only a limited number of storylines around, and Hollywood continually recycles them with minor variations. Patent the plots, and you can make film-makers pay you megabucks in royalties.
Knightâs website () says that he has âconceived of a variety of unique fictional storylinesâ. But instead of pounding the keyboard for endless hours to create the great American screenplay, he has turned his ideas into patent applications.
Knight concedes that the courts have yet to approve the concept, but he reckons itâs only a matter of time. He recommends filing your own applications early âbefore the Federal Circuit approves storyline patents and the floodgates openâ.
We are already at work on a patent application for a story in which an attorney files patents on storylines, and look forward to a comfortable retirement on the French Riviera when Hollywood buys the rights.
THE online newsletter of Fitness First Australia has a section on âThe secret life of enzymesâ which states: âEnzymes are essential for proper digestion. Without them you are not able to digest your food properly. It simply takes too long, and your body eliminates the food before you have received the benefit of any of the foodâs nutrition.â
What follows took Keith Lapidge by surprise: âThe body produces most of its enzymes first thing in the morning, as the sun comes up. It continues producing enzymes through the noon hour as the sun peaks and stops producing enzymes around 6.30 pm, as the sun sets. So, for most effective digestion and nutritional absorption, it is essential to eat a big breakfast, preferably early in the morning, when your enzyme production is at its maximum. It is best to eat your big meal at lunch, when you are still producing adequate enzymes, and to eat a smaller dinner, preferably before 6.30 pm, when your body stops producing enzymes.â
This startling revelation has given Lapidge a brilliant idea for a book, which he will call The Sunset Diet or, perhaps, The Nocturnal Diet. All it will recommend is that people who donât want to put on weight eat as little as possible during the day and as much as they like at night, when, if Fitness First is to be believed, everything they eat will simply be eliminated before it can make them fat. Lapidge believes this idea will make him rich.
Tongue-twisting circumlocution
FROM the department of technobabble: a member of John Hastingsâs family has been prescribed an oral analgesic, fentanyl, in a form which the manufacturers, Cephalon, describe as a âcompressed lozenge with integral oromucosal applicatorâ. When you open the packet, Hastings tells us, itâs a lollipop.
FINALLY, Giovanni Barbieri canât resist telling us that the professor in probability and statistics at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo is called Doctor Chance.
