Floating in a most peculiar garb
HOODED plastic ponchos imported into Canada by the company 3230121 Canada Inc are described as: “lightweight; reusable; one size fits all; a must for emergencies, space travel, space etc”.
“The cost of space travel is truly falling,” surmises Christopher Garner, and similar comments appeared on . But a little research shows that was perhaps a hope too far: the company on 29 September 2011.
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Instrument supplier Anton Paar has filed a for “measurement of the theological properties of material samples”. Andy Prior applauds this concern for smart materials’ beliefs
CHANCELLOR of Britain’s Exchequer George Osborne on 29 November that “maths free schools are exactly what Britain needs to… produce more of the engineering and science graduates so important for our long-term economic success.”
“That’s educashun in safe hands then,” notes Peter Holness. Where does the hyphen go among the first three words? May we ask whether Osborne’s education (non-free schools, followed by modern history at Magdalen College, University of Oxford) was maths-free?
MIRACULOUSLY, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to provide of our satellite’s . Or it would be a miracle if we took literally the description that Hadrian Jeffs found in of the orbiter’s mission as it launched in 2009: “its stable polar orbit… will vary from an epilune (low point) of only 30km over the south pole to a perilune (high point) of 260 km over the north.”
Hadrian has gently explained, in response to Feedback’s puzzled messages asking what is puzzling, that the perilune is the closest approach to the moon and the epliune the furthest point, especially when, as is usual, it’s called the apolune.
The Society for the Promotion of Numerate Proofreading (SPNP) has been informed. We fully expect a sarcastic Selenic sprite to insert a similar error on this page, as happens all too often when one draws attention to others’ slisp.
THE aforementioned sprite has already struck. Several readers write of our assertion that a manufacturer that “wanted to increase our deliciousness by 200 per cent, so… put two bars in each pack” implied that “the bars are now two-thirds as good as they used to be” (12 November). Yes, of course, they would have to be one-and-a-half times as delicious as before.
APPROACHING the 6th-century Sutton Hoo Saxon burial site in Suffolk, UK, Cliff Leftly and his wife Ann came across a notice in red lettering: “No exit from burial ground.” Was it some kind of macabre joke?
“It was impossible to fathom a rational meaning,” says Cliff, until, at the end of their circular tour, they discovered a disused path, guarded by the sign. They were, happily, able to exit the burial ground in the approved way and report back.
CONSULTANTS at accountancy firm PwC (formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers) helpfully announced to a colleague at Â鶹´«Ă˝ the results of asking people who know how much Stuff they think we have left. Their conclusion – “not very much” – was no doubt arrived at at much greater expense than simply reading a few copies of Â鶹´«Ă˝ (starting with 18 June, p 36, and working back).
The lists 14 raw materials as “critical” because “the risks of supply shortage and their impacts on the economy are higher compared with most of the other raw materials”. Their “high supply risk” is, PwC says, “mainly due to the fact that a high share of the worldwide production mainly comes from a handful of countries: Antimoon, Beryllium, Cobalt, Fluorspar, Indium…”
Our colleague responds: “I couldn’t help thinking that the high supply risk of Antimoon was down to factors other than those mentioned.”
Given the uncertainty over most other investments, Feedback is thinking of moving its meagre savings into Antimoon futures. Or, reading PwC’s last sentence again, perhaps we should emigrate to the lovely country of Indium.
FINALLY, the terminally dark 1964 film Dr Strangelove is restored. The film negatives were wrecked by overuse, so the restorers took the three best surviving copies, scanned them at 8 million pixels per frame, de-blemished and blended them, a frame at a time.
The biggest laughter at a London preview of the digital cinema version was for the British officer played by Peter Sellers telling mad US air force commander Jack Ripper about life in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. “Swine,” Sellers says, “Pity they make such bloody good cameras.” Dr Strangelove was made by Columbia Pictures and restored by its current owner – Sony, which among other things is a camera-maker in Japan.