EUTELSAT, the European satellite organisation, was understandably pleased
when its latest craft, Hot Bird 2, went safely into orbit at the end of last
year with all of its systems working well.
It was, however, slightly less pleased that the world heard about the success
a week before it happened.
While Eutelsat鈥檚 staff were in Florida for the launch, the company鈥檚 PR
people were left in Europe with instructions to send out a press release as soon
as the rocket took off and the satellite safely reached its correct position in
orbit. This the PR people duly did, poetically adding a few notes about the
Atlas IIA rocket used for the launch and how the TV transmitters would soon be
switching on.
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Unfortunately, the PR team forgot to check whether the rocket had actually
lifted off. And it hadn鈥檛. Technical problems delayed the launch. So when
Eutelsat鈥檚 staff flew back to Europe, dejected because the launch didn鈥檛 happen,
they were greeted by press reports saying how everything had gone smoothly.
Happily, the rocket did launch successfully a week later. So Eutelsat sent
out the same announcement with the date changed. The PR people were less happy.
Their contract with Eutelsat has not been renewed.
A VET in Arizona, signing herself Dr Stephens, has been contacting health
forums on the Internet about possible Gulf War syndrome in a dog she is
treating. The eight-year-old dog was in Saudi Arabia during the war, and now has
鈥渋mmune mediated thrombocytopenia [an abnormal decrease in the number of
platelets in the blood]鈥� and 鈥渂izarre neurologic signs鈥�. This, says Stephens,
may or may not be related to the dog鈥檚 travel history. She wants to know if
anyone has any experience with canine disease related to exposures during the
Gulf War.
At least one fellow vet has taken the request seriously. Jack Edward Turner
told Stephens: 鈥淵ou will need to check the dog鈥檚 locations [postings] while
deployed in the Gulf region. If you can pinpoint the dates and locations, then
you may find that the dog was exposed to the plume produced when American forces
ignited the old chemical munitions found at one site.鈥�
PETER DOHERTY, who won this year鈥檚 Nobel prize for medicine, is a man of tact
and modesty. A few weeks ago at a meeting in Melbourne, Doherty invited a
New 杏吧原创 correspondent to join him for a coffee. When the bill came,
our colleague, who was a bit flustered (it was her first coffee with a Nobel
laureate), realised she had forgotten her purse. Doherty lent over, gestured
that she should relax, and said: 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry about it, I鈥檝e come into a bit of
money recently.鈥�
A FEW years ago, this column noted that television subtitles sometimes adopt
distinctly idiosyncratic versions of the speech they are supposed to reproduce.
Now Gary Wright has written to tell us that he was working in his shop while the
Chancellor鈥檚 Budget speech was being broadcast in November. In order to make
sure he didn鈥檛 miss the details while talking to customers, Wright switched on
teletext to see if there were subtitles.
There were, but they did not seem to match the Chancellor鈥檚 words in every
detail. For example, the word 鈥減articulates鈥� came out as 鈥減ar tick lates鈥� and
鈥渘ational insurance contributions鈥� came out as 鈥渘ational insurance
肠辞苍迟谤补诲颈肠迟颈辞苍蝉鈥�.
Most intriguing of all, however, was the teletext鈥檚 rendering of the words
鈥渋nclusive of VAT鈥�. This came out as: 鈥渋n lucid Swahili鈥�.
FEEDBACK is constantly surprised by scientific research
projects鈥攅specially common in the social sciences鈥攖hat set out to
demonstrate the unsurprising. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
Troy, New York, recently reported on experiments which revealed that people are
more agreeable when they are in the presence of the smell of baking cakes and
roasting coffee.
Strangers were more than twice as likely to retrieve a dropped pen or have
the right change ready when they were in the presence of such pleasant odours.
The study 鈥渓ends support to the long-held belief that pleasant fragrances yield
beneficial results鈥�, reports the professor of psychology behind the work.
The press release adds that the professor is the coinventor of a desktop
device 鈥渢hat blocks unwanted noises as it filters and freshens the air鈥�. This
sounds merely like a white noise and ozone generator to us, but maybe we鈥檙e in
need of a chocolate chip cookie and a large cappuccino to sweeten our
cynicism.
THE INTERNET is full of stories about Bill Gates and Microsoft which are
presented as 鈥渢rue鈥� but which are merely the product of spiteful imaginations.
Here, however, is a rather charming one which makes no pretence to
authenticity.
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle last month when an electrical
malfunction disabled all its navigation and communications equipment. Because of
the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter鈥檚 position and
course to steer to the airport. But he could see a tall building, so he flew
towards it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter鈥檚
window.
The sign said 鈥淲here am I?鈥� in large letters. People in the tall building
quickly responded. They drew a large sign and held it up in a window. It said:
鈥淵ou are in a helicopter.鈥� The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map,
determined the course to Seattle airport, and landed safely.
Once they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how the 鈥淵ou are in
a helicopter鈥� sign helped him determine their position. The pilot replied: 鈥淚
knew that it had to be the Microsoft building because, like their helplines,
online help system, and support manuals, they gave me a technically correct but
completely useless answer.鈥�
AND in the spirit of that joke, here is some information for those
vacillating over the decision whether to stay with Microsoft Word 5 or invest in
the cumbersome Word 6. There is a compromise: a converter which, once installed,
enables Word 5 users to read Word 6 documents.
There is one small problem. The installation instructions for the converter
use the Word 6 format.