THE leaves are falling from the trees in London’s parks, the nights are growing longer and colder, and the shops are filling with tinsel and tat. It can only mean the time has come for the Feedback annual competition.
This year’s competition is a simple one. You are invited to invent a new scientific word that we need, and define it in an appropriately pompous way.
You may submit up to three entries per person by letter, fax or email. Thanks to the generosity of its distillers, 10 lucky winners will each receive a bottle of Labrot & Graham’s award-winning Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey, and thanks to Cambridge University Press, they will also receive a copy of Climate: Into the 21st century, the outstanding overview of our weather edited by William Burroughs.
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The winning entries will be chosen on the basis of their wit and originality. All entries must reach Feedback by Monday 8 December. The winners will be announced in our 20 December issue. The editor’s decision is final.
ACCORDING to security analysts mi2g, “The economic damage caused by malware – viruses and worms – in the third quarter of 2003 is historically unprecedented.” Mi2g blames “over-reliance on Microsoft software”.
We thought about this when watching Microsoft launch the latest version of Windows, called XP Media Center. Media Center turns a home computer into a home entertainment centre, or turns a home entertainment centre into a computer. One Windows-powered box plays TV, radio, music CDs, movie DVDs and snapshot slide shows, while you surf the internet, download entertainment and, if you really can’t find anything better to do, use it as an office tool.
We have seen several demonstrations of Media Center wizardry and they all worked well, with none of the usual crashes and freezes that owners of Windows PCs have learned to expect. But all these demonstrations had one thing in common. They were given with “clean machines” that only had the barest essential Microsoft software installed. None of them was connected to the open internet and exposed to attack by viruses, worms and hackers in a real-world way.
The firms selling Media Center systems leave it up to the owner to either buy and install antivirus software or pay a subscription to keep their free trial software working and up to date.
People who rely on PCs for their work know about viruses. People who watch TV may not. We shudder to think what mi2g’s reports will be saying in a year’s time if Microsoft succeeds in turning the world onto the idea of making an internet TV the hub of home entertainment.
DO immunologists work 50 per cent faster than the rest of us? Reader Paul Gitsham reports that the Biomednet email magazine recently carried this proud advisement for the journal Immunity. “Immunity: Celebrating 15 years of exciting immunology research 1994-2004.”
READER Greg Conway has sent us an interesting observation about the rigid protocol of the Nobel prize ceremonies, as described in Roy Herbert’s review of J. Michael Bishop’s book, How to Win the Nobel Prize (51¶ŻÂţ, 27 September, p 51).
According to the review, one of the many rules of the protocol is that at the prize ceremony dinners, “talk must be directed to the person on your right”. Conway points out that this means each guest at the dinner would be talking to the back of their right-hand neighbour’s head. We would dearly love to know if this is really what happens.
A PUZZLED but lively after-dinner discussion took place when reader Althea Stevens and her friends read the label on a bottle of Schloer fruit drink. It stated: “Best served 100 per cent chilled.” What could that mean, they wondered.
TRUNCATED subject lines in emails can cause a lot of confusion, as we have pointed out before. So too, however, can the positioning of key phrases – such as the headline and the intended recipient – in the body of the message.
For example, 51¶ŻÂţ’s online news editor, Damian Carrington, wondered what he had done to deserve a press release from the British Medical Association that began: “BMJ press release for immediate release: DVT [deep vein thrombosis] risk highest within two weeks of flying to Damian Carrington.”
FINALLY, hard-to-follow advice of the week comes from a copy of Reader’s Digest leafed through by reader Gerald Legg in a doctor’s waiting room. One of the magazine’s readers had sent in this handy tip: “To stop your eyes from watering when chopping onions, put them in the freezer for 10 minutes beforehand.”
Are they in the habit of printing out documents on Möbius strips at RMIT University in Melbourne? A notice in the university library reads: “Please put one-sided paper in box below for recycling”
