HOW MANY readers have been spammed by messages apparently emanating from the
WorldTouch Network? The promotional e-mail bearing this company鈥檚 name is the
most infuriating of the many spams that regularly arrive in the New
杏吧原创 offices.
Last week, Feedback received it nine times in two days, having already
received it hundreds of times over the past six months. Each mailing, of course,
bears a different e-mail address, and replies to that address are invariably
bounced. Messages left on the Los Angeles number given on the e-mail鈥�213
969 4930鈥攁re ignored.
Ironically, this pestilential message is headed: 鈥淓-mail marketing works!鈥� In
this instance, we doubt it. If WorldTouch Network is indeed the sender of this
message (rather than a malicious prankster), who would want to do business with
a company that behaves so irresponsibly?
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REMEMBER those awful jokes told by your science teacher in a vain attempt to
make a particularly dull topic interesting? They, and a few more, can be found
in the Science Joke Archive collected by Joachim Verhagen
(http://www.princeton.edu/~pemayer/Science Jokes.html).
The extensive collection has been split into 13 sections, featuring the
different science disciplines and sections on pranks and mnemonics. There are
old chestnuts aplenty. Here, for example, is one which was published with a
slightly different wording in a Feedback Christmas competition (19/26 December
1992, p 66).
鈥淭wo atoms are walking down the street. One turns to the other and says, 鈥淥h
no! I think I鈥檓 an ion!鈥� The other responds, 鈥淎re you sure?鈥� 鈥淵es, I鈥檓
positive,鈥� is the reply.
Boom, boom. If this kind of hilarity leaves you thirsting for more, there鈥檚 a
section giving further sources of science humour on and off the Net.
UGLY ENGLISH still seems to be the preferred language of some scientists.
Stephen Sparrow recently received the promotional material for a new journal,
Practical Reviews in Forensic Medicine and Sciences. It begins: 鈥淎s
editor of an all-new college-sponsored educational enduring material
补肠迟颈惫颈迟测鈥︹赌�
If anybody can tell Sparrow and Feedback what these words mean, we would be
grateful. In particular, we would like to know how you edit an
activity鈥攏ot to mention an enduring material one.
We can only trust that this ghastly prose is not a foretaste of the journal
itself.
STEVE GRAY recently arranged for a CAT scan (where you lie on a couch as it
moves through the scanner) at his local hospital. On the back of the appointment
letter was the phrase: 鈥淵ou may be asked to hold your breath while the scanning
takes place. The examination may take up to 30 minutes.鈥� Gray is now quite
nervous about his appointment.
MICROSOFT鈥檚 Houdini-like skill at wriggling free from the US government鈥檚
antitrust investigation makes Feedback wonder whether any officials have ever
actually tried loading the Internet Explorer 4 Web browser onto their own PC. If
they do they will see pretty clear evidence of how hard Microsoft has made it
not to fuse IE with Windows.
The IE4 program discs are distributed free, like sweets, and putting one in a
PC starts an automatic process, which includes the option to choose 鈥渟tandard
installation鈥�. Then comes the choice of using the 鈥淲indows Desktop Update鈥�, with
Yes the default. There is no clear explanation of what this means. So most
people will accept the default, rather than risk defying it.
From then on, installation just chugs away. But once the process is finished,
the unsuspecting PC owner finds that Internet Explorer has completely hijacked
the PC. The screen is now black, and is dominated by coloured pictures which
show the Internet information channels which the Microsoft Network offers.
Understandably some users panic, or get very angry. The explanation of how to
put things back to where they were is buried behind another command. For anyone
now staring at a hijacked screen, the trick is to click on 鈥淪tart鈥�, then click
on 鈥淪ettings鈥�, then on 鈥淎ctive Desktop鈥� and look for 鈥淰iew as Web Page鈥�. The
culprit is the tick against it. Click on 鈥淰iew as Web Page鈥� and the tick
disappears. Wait a few seconds and after some hectic hard disc activity the
screen should look normal again.
Simple. But only when you know how.
THE BOUNDARY between the real and the virtual worlds is already becoming a
little fuzzy for some, and may become more so in the future. So Sony should be
congratulated for the warning accompanying its PlayStation game Gran
Turismo鈥擳he Real Driving Simulator.
It says: 鈥淚n the interests of road safety, before setting off on any [real]
journey, repeat the words `I am not playing Gran Turismo鈥� three times.鈥�
SINCE the last outing of nominative determinism on 25 April, Feedback has
been inundated with yet more examples of the phenomenon. Many thanks to all
those who contributed, but we have decided, with much sadness, that the time has
finally come to lay the subject to rest.
By way of valediction, here is one last offering, sent in by Jeremy
Humphries. It features not nominative determinism itself, but a related
phenomenon he calls 鈥減ositional determinism鈥�.
According to Reader鈥檚 Digest earlier this year, Michael Goldman from
London sued the organisers of a Scrabble championship for 拢5000 damages,
claiming that tournament officials had given him insufficient time to go to the
lavatory.
Where did this happen? At the Hotel Burstin, no less.