FOLLOWING our recent excursion into the theme of time travel (5 April), a colleague has alerted us to a witty science fiction story on the topic.
âWikihistoryâ by Desmond Warzel appears in the online magazine Abyss and Apex. It consists of quotes from the membersâ forum of the International Association of Time Travellers, dated 15 November 2104.
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It begins with an excited report from FreedomFighter 69, an ingénue time traveller just back from his first trip. He says he has been to Berlin in 1936 and has successfully assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic games.
SilverFox 316, an old hand at time travelling, responds in a huff. He too is just back from 1936 Berlin, where he has incapacitated FreedomFighter69 and prevented the assassination. âAs you are a new member,â he admonishes the youngster, âplease read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.â
However, another old hand is more indulgent. âTake it easy on the kid,â says BigChill. âEverybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, whatâs the harm?âŠâ
So why does the time travel association forbid the assassination of Hitler? The answer â a clever variation on the grandfather paradox â is at . Enjoy.
âAccording to an advertisement spotted by Anne Sanderson in the London Radio Times, Thompson & Morgan tomatoes are âbred using traditional methods not geneticsââ
MEANWHILE, Giles Hogben was curious to know how someone as apparently undistinguished-looking as Hitler could exert such a hold over millions of Germans in the 1930s, so he downloaded an MP3 of a recording of one of the FĂŒhrerâs original speeches. He was startled to find it listed in his Windows Vista Media Library under the heading âDJ Adolf- Hitlerâs Speechâ.
READERS of this magazine are experts at spotting hi-fi nonsense â expensive ways of making perfect sound even more perfect by using technology that defies scientific reason and brings benefits that cannot be measured but are supposedly clearly audible to the keen ears of customers with more money than sense. So we think you may enjoy from the UKâs Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA has upheld a complaint about adverts for mains power cables costing up to ÂŁ1805 a metre â yes, really! â and sold by UK dealer . The adverts claimed that making mains cables from woven wires âvastly reduces distortion levels⊠letting you hear a sound that is vastly clearer and purer, more detailed and far more dynamic⊠eliminating system sound fluctuation⊠allowing more believable dynamics⊠and a much more cohesive musical soundâ. In his defence, Andrews cited what he claimed were recognised facts, techniques and effects which are âeasy to hear but impossible to measureâ. The ASA was not impressed and told him not to make the claim again until he had ârobust scientific evidenceâ.
âWe are incensed at what we feel is a serious injustice,â Andrews told us when we emailed him about the judgement. âThe ASA has told us that we cannot use these claims again unless we could substantiate them with robust scientific evidence. We have commissioned a research scientist to investigate our claims and provide such evidence.â
We wait for this evidence with bated breath, but not much hope.
HOPING to unsubscribe from the History News Networkâs newsletter, Diana Lutz clicked where she was told to on the newsletter section of the HNN website. : âTo unsubscribe from the HTML edition of HNNâs newsletter simply fill in your email address below⊠Then click on the button that says âsubscribeâ. This is the world of George Orwell. The âsubscribeâ button will remove your name from the HTML database. Yes, this is crazy. But we are not able to modify the form.â
Lutz proceeded to unsubscribe in this way and got a confirmation email saying that she had âbeen successfully added to the subscription listâ. It thanked her âfor subscribingâ.
Feeling bemused, she asked a friend whether he thought she was now subscribed or unsubscribed. He replied: âYouâre both subscribed and unsubscribed. Youâll only collapse to a definite state when someone measures you. Itâs all to do with quantum entanglement.â
FINALLY, it is hard to keep up with all the programming languages around these days, and if youâre not careful you can easily get wrong-footed when you believe youâre being asked about them.
Michael Francis tells us of an interviewee applying for a position as a software developer with a company that has its head office in Cambridge, UK, and a development office in the south London borough of Croydon. During his interview in Cambridge the programmer was asked how he would feel about programming in Croydon.
âIâm a little rusty on the more recent languages but Iâll soon pick it up,â was his reply.
Despite this, Francis says he got the job.
