A BRITISH passenger was recently jailed for refusing to turn off his cellphone during a flight. The judge suggested that airlines should now confiscate all passengersâ phones before take-off, switch them off and return them on landing. This prompted warnings from the airlines industry that some phones may have timers which could switch themselves on during the flight, and no one would notice the danger.
Curiosity aroused, we ran a simple test. Wrapping a cellphone in just one layer of cooking foil completely killed its reception. So if you confiscate phones and dump them in a sealed metal box, it would not matter if they decided to switch on during the flight.
By coincidence, the fashion industry is now promising jeans which cost ÂŁ100 or more a pair because they have a shielded pocket for a cellphone, supposedly for health reasons. Following our experiment, we suggest ordinary jeans and a bit of cooking foil might be a lot cheaper.
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CONTINUING our medical ethics theme (see 28 September), we have enjoyed reading the latest report from Britainâs Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority. This publication is more fun than its title suggests, one of the authorityâs roles being to rule on how far drugs firms can go in âeducatingâ doctors to prescribe their medicines.
The most recent issue recounts what must be the first case of a companyâs defence resting on its generosity being less lavish than its promises. Abbott Laboratories had organised a educational seminar in south Wales, plus subsequent hospitality. So far so good â the rules say firms can provide food and accommodation as long as they donât shell out more than the medics would pay for themselves.
In this case, however, GPs were offered a banquet at Cardiff Castle, plus rooms at a ÂŁ100-a-night hotel, even if they lived locally. A health authority member who ratted on the doctors complained that âa culture had developed, in south Wales at least, of GPs expecting a level of hospitality from companies that the general public would not understandâ.
Cheekily, one strand of Abbottâs defence was that while it had promised the medics a âbanquetâ, the meal hadnât actually been worthy of the name, so it should be allowed. The authority agreed, although it still ticked off the firm for other matters.
Oh, and the subject of the seminar that caused all this trouble? âObesity â Enough is Enoughâ.
YET MORE evidence that Elvis lives. Searching through Amazon.co.ukâs CD library, reader Adrian Tuff clicked on Elvisâs 30 Number Ones CD. Below Amazonâs review and the reviews of satisfied customers were the standard Amazon comment invitations: âI have listened to this recording, and I want to review itâ and âI am the artist, and I want to comment on my recording.â
We look forward to reading what Elvis has to say.
WORDS, of course, sometimes have more than one meaning. But there seems to be an additional quantum indeterminacy in the jargon of physics. Can someone explain what the high energy theoreticians at Harvard University were talking about earlier this month when they announced a âDuality Seminarâ on âClean time-dependent string backgrounds from bubble bathsâ?
AT THE end of the instruction sheet with reader Don Leechâs Rapid 105 multimeter for recording electrical voltage and current, it states: âGreat care has been taken in the complication of this instruction manual.â It seems they failed. Leech reports that despite the care taken, the manual was, for once, perfectly clear and uncomplicated.
A LOT of readers will have received that infuriating, persistent spam for the âwonder drugâ HGH. But how many have noticed, as reader Gordon Ramel has, the idiotic ânoteâ at the bottom of the email: âNote â This is NOT Spam [Oh yes it is] â you posted to one of our FFA sites or added yourself to the list. [Oh no we didnât.] This is a one-time email transmission [Oh no it isnât]âŠno removal is necessary. Click Remove button to be removed.â
What logic! But seriously, we hope all readers are aware that you should never ask spammers to remove you from their lists. This only confirms that your email address is a real one, and youâll get spammed more than ever.
FRUSTRATED reader Will Revell tells us that a couple of weeks ago he tried to print out the timetable for his new term studying mechanical engineering at Lancaster University. Instead, the printer in the engineering department computing room churned out an A4 sheet informing him that he didnât have the 3p in his print account required to print out an A4 sheet.
FINALLY, putting a hyphen in the right place can be important. In last monthâs issue of Community Dental Health there is a paper entitled âA randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness of providing free fluoride toothpaste from the age of 12 months on reducing caries in 54-year old childrenâ.
The governmentâs Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 contains a section defining different types of waste. One of these is non-hazardous waste, which is given this definition: âNon-hazardous waste is waste which is not hazardous wasteâ
