Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
And then there were lawyers
IT STARTED with a whimper, and ended up with lawyers. In 2006, Arctic wildlife biologist Charles Monnett reported sighting dead polar bears in the Beaufort Sea, concluding that 鈥渄rowning-related deaths鈥� may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice鈥� continues鈥� (6 May 2006, p 10).
Someone complained, possibly miffed that photos of beleaguered polar bears then captured the public imagination.
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Monnet was suspended from his job at the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (6 August 2011, p 8) and cleared of scientific misconduct, but reprimanded for leaking US government emails (6 October 2012, p 7). He sued, not least under law protecting whistle-blowers, supported by . Finally, in December, he settled for $100,000, agreeing to retire at 65 and not seek re-employment. Congratulations, of a kind, then.
Monnet tells Feedback that 鈥渢he process was unnecessarily鈥� lengthy and disruptive primarily due to the cowardice of key decision-makers in the US Department of Interior [who] should have known better than to allow a 鈥榳itch-hunt鈥�.鈥� He is now looking at 鈥渙ptions for making a useful contribution in my discipline鈥�.
The polar bears were, sadly, unavailable for comment.
Can anyone help reader Kevon Kenna interpret an offer to sell us 鈥溾��? On the bunnings.com.au website it looks like perfectly normal Astroturf
Wandering pole problem
INSPECTING a map of St Albans, New South Wales, at 1:25,000 scale, Guy Cox read in the margin that 鈥渕agnetic north value is correct for 2008 and moves easterly by less than 0.00 degrees per annum鈥�. So has the mapping authority been unduly cowed by Feedback鈥檚 inveighing against absurd precision (for example 18 January 2013)? Is the change in magnetic north in that part of Australia and measured with about the same precision? Or is it, as Cox suggests, moving by any amount you care to name, but westerly?
Lasers were big in 1964
SINCE discovering it (11 January), Feedback has found even more amusement and bemusement in The World in 1984 鈥� the collection of predictions published in 麻豆传媒 in 1964. It is tempting to focus on what they got wrong 鈥� and we expect to succumb later. But what was correct, or close?
Of the 99 essays, only a couple mentioned George Orwell鈥檚 Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nobel physicist Abdus Salam, hailing from Pakistan, was 鈥渞esigned to Orwell鈥檚 grim picture, with want and misery unchecked鈥�.
On a brighter note, lasers were big in 1964. Though at least five essayists predicted their use in communications, none got fibre optics. Ronald MacDonnell of the International Civil Aviation Organization was one who foresaw 鈥渟ilvered plastic tubes鈥�.
The internet before its time
WHAT, though, did the experts of 1964 have to say about the internet, whose domain name system joined the world in 1984? Gerald Barry of Granada TV predicted teleconferencing, telework and online newspapers. Arthur Samuel of IBM discussed what we would now call 鈥渃loud computing鈥� 鈥� but believed that 鈥渢he 鈥榖ig brother is watching鈥� aspect will be very much less pronounced than was predicted [by Orwell] in 1948.鈥� Not quite.
Kenneth Tupper of the National Research Council of Canada also predicted something rather like the original vision of the internet: 鈥渂y dialling the public library one may be able to read any book while sitting in one鈥檚 house, the printed page presented on the television screen鈥�.
Tupper went on: 鈥淭he blind, the lazy and the illiterate can listen instead.鈥� Oddly, a colleague reports efforts last month at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva to extend the rule that works can be copied for the blind, without permission or payment, to those with 鈥渙ther disabilities鈥� 鈥� so widely defined that they could include laziness.
T-shirt for Standard Model
CERN T-shirts are now, Claudia Shearman informs us, offered at 鈥� in both 鈥溾�� and 鈥溾�� flavours. They bear an image described on the label thus: 鈥淭his equation neatly sums up our current understanding of fundamental particles and forces.鈥� The blog believes the souvenir version of the equation is off by a factor of two, since it includes a term 鈥渉.c.鈥� for a 鈥淗ermitian conjugate鈥� that is already implied. Contributors to that blog suggest it鈥檚 an in-joke, standing for 鈥渉ot coffee鈥�.
It鈥檚 the thought that counts
FINALLY, could the above story be an instance of the phenomenon reported by Monique Pollmann and Ilja van Beest in 鈥淲omen Are Better at Selecting Gifts than Men鈥� ()? The title says it all, but the conclusion has that essential sciency feel: 鈥淎s hypothesized, the analysis also showed鈥� that women鈥檚 gift selection (Mean = 5.66, Standard Deviation = 1.38), was better than men鈥檚 (M = 5.33, SD = 1.63).鈥�
Doubtless by coincidence, this was published on 26 December 2013. Feedback can add only: 鈥渋t鈥檚 a lovely sweater, Pamela.鈥�
