FEEDBACK is covered in shame, and more confused than usual. Tom Roche was just one reader who posted a comment on newscientist.com to say that Dublin Ferry Port 鈥� which the UK鈥檚 National Rail online map located at 0掳 N, 0掳 W (on the equator in the Atlantic ocean, 1000 kilometres south of Ghana) 鈥� isn鈥檛 at D煤n Laoghaire, as we asserted on 22 August, either. That was just the first result of our search on a famous web map service.
It is in fact at the mouth of the river Liffey, closer to Dublin itself.
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Sometimes it is, anyway. Tim McCulloch has spotted it in the Netherlands. Our link to the National Rail site didn鈥檛 work for him, so he visited 鈥� where, as you will see if you get there before they read this, the ferry port is located on a smallish inlet called Simonsgat, near Groningen. At least this location has the essential requirements of land near water.
We can offer an explanation: Dublin Ferry Port is close to coordinates 53.35 掳N, 6.2 掳W and Simonsgat is at 53.35 掳N, 6.2 掳E. And thus it appears we have another challenge to issue 鈥� where else have you spotted Dublin Ferry Port in its migrations?
In response to our earlier request to list the places populating 0掳 N, 0掳 W in map-world, John Arthur reports finding 鈥渟urprisingly many鈥� houses for sale out there in the south Atlantic. Fearing rising damp, if not worse, he has eliminated the vendors involved from his enquiries.
Simon Norton, meanwhile, has investigated the National Rail website further and discovered that, when he looked, Corby and East Midlands Parkway railway stations in the UK were also mapped to 0掳 N, 0掳 W. He is pleased, therefore, to conclude that he can avoid crossing the Irish Sea and get from London to Dublin by train in just over an hour, taking the new direct service to Corby, 鈥渨hich is in the same place鈥� as Dublin Ferry Port. And logically it is, if not in the real world.
鈥淭he packet of sweet peas bought by John Priestland from online garden centre Van Meuwen assured him: 鈥淵our pants have been grown in a perfect greenhouse environment鈥濃��
WE HAVE written before about the fates of iPods that went through the washing machine or fell into the toilet (8 September 2007). Now the MacInTouch website reveals an interesting way in which the puddle can come to the iPod rather than the usual way round.
, a family friend noticed that the sound of a game on his iPod Touch irritated his Shetland sheepdog, so he made a point of teasing the dog with it. In retaliation, when his owner left the iPod unattended on his coffee table, the dog climbed up and urinated on the source of the noise. As Rob writes, 鈥淗e found his iTouch pooched in a puddle of pee. Deader than a parrot in a Monty Python parody.鈥�
Some iPods recover from other types of soakings, but this one was still dead after six weeks, so the victim took it to the Apple Store, prepared to buy a replacement. Much to his surprise, a technician there couldn鈥檛 find any sign of moisture damage 鈥� which would void the warranty 鈥� and gave him a replacement.
鈥淕uess sheltie pee doesn鈥檛 leave any evidence. Sure does in the neighbour鈥檚 lawn, though,鈥� writes Rob, evidently drawing on experience of neighbourhood disharmony.
Program鈥檚 problematic preference
RESIGNED acceptance is the only sanity-preserving response to the myriad program error message synonyms for 鈥渃omputer says 鈥榥o'鈥�. But Feedback is impressed by the message presented to Lucy Taylor while she was trying to find out how much credit she had left in her University of Sussex printing account: 鈥淓rror: Unwilling To Perform鈥�. She wondered why the university has not trumpeted its acquisition of a computer with built-in free will. But then she realised it would probably get criticised for wasting British taxpayers鈥� money on a machine that just can鈥檛 be bothered to do what it was built to do.
AN ADVERTISEMENT that appeared on Jemma Pollari鈥檚 Facebook profile exhorted her: 鈥淕et your own pair of ballerinas made from all recycled materials.鈥� What could this possibly mean? Perhaps the picture of a pair of shoes beside the advertisement offered a clue.
FINALLY, the latest heroic attempt at virtual printing comes from the UK鈥檚 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Browsing DEFRA鈥檚 website, Rob Fitzmaurice was struck by images of the UK鈥檚 latest nasty pest, the citrus longhorn beetle. Keen to know more, he clicked onto the website鈥檚 , where he was informed that what he was reading was: 鈥淧rinted on material that contains a minimum of 100 per cent recycled fibre for uncoated paper and 75 per cent recycled fibre for coated paper.鈥� That鈥檒l be binary paper, of course.