IT SOUNDS like two nightmares blended into one. You find yourself in an exam
you weren鈥檛 prepared for. Worse still, you鈥檙e wearing next to nothing. There鈥檚
just you and your reflection in a mirror. And you have to do maths problems.
Feedback is relieved not to have lived through this experience. But this was
the fate that befell some volunteers at the University of Michigan. The result?
Women wearing a swimsuit did worse in the maths exam than those who were fully
clothed. Were they too self-conscious to concentrate? Barbara Fredrickson, who
carried out the study, suggests that women are so concerned about their body
that it 鈥渄isrupts their mental performance鈥�.
Not so the male test subjects. 鈥淪ome were even heard to laugh through the
closed dressing room door,鈥� Fredrickson writes in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology. What鈥檚 more, she says that men tended to perform
better on the maths test when dressed in less.
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What鈥檚 next for this research programme? Feedback would like to see the
results of a test in which fully dressed women and scantily clad men take maths
exams together. Who would be laughing then?
THE SEVENTH International Buy Nothing Day is fast approaching. This year the
protest day will be held on 27 November in Europe and 28 November in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and the US.
Initiated in 1992 by Ted Dave, a Canadian who had become disillusioned with
life in the advertising world, the day promises 鈥渃heerful and critical protest
against Western over-consumption, the unequal worldwide distribution of
wellbeing and wealth, and the influence of advertising on our daily lives鈥�.
Events include 鈥渆ye-catching street actions鈥�, although the organisers insist
that the easiest way to get involved is to stay at home. Feedback would like to
scotch the rumour that International Buy Nothing Day T-shirts will be available
for purchase on the day.
IT TURNS out that turds have their uses: providing genetic information about
their producers (鈥淏owels of the beasts鈥�, New 杏吧原创, 22 August, p
36). But S. L. Navaratnam has discovered that they can be even more useful,
especially if they鈥檙e of the large, squishy variety.
He read in two Sri Lankan newspapers that a company called Maximus is
manufacturing and marketing paper made from elephant faeces. After drying and
washing the dung, the paper makers boil it up and mix it in what鈥檚 described as
a 鈥済iant blender鈥�. They then combine it with recycled paper and pour it into a
mould. Every 250 kilograms of elephant turd produces 1000 sheets of paper.
Since the ecologically aware company doesn鈥檛 use bleach, it reports that the
colour and texture of the paper varies with the elephants鈥� diet. Much to
Feedback鈥檚 relief, no more details were available.
COMPUTER error messages are programmed responses to standard computational
cock-ups. Or are they? At the final stage of downloading some antivirus software
from the Internet, Tom Backer Johnsen was confronted with this enigmatic message
from the server: 鈥淯ndefined鈥擳here is not an explanation yet for this kind
of error. You should hardly see this status鈥�.
The first part of the message suggests work in progress. But it was the
second part that really intrigued Johnsen. Had the computer somehow 鈥渟ensed鈥�
that his vision was failing?
EARLIER this year, Feedback explored the bloated world of research papers
with multiple authors. Now Richard Watson Todd has latched onto something
altogether more peculiar鈥攖he most authors with the same name to publish an
article. Todd has uncovered a paper in Psychological Science (vol 4, p
316) by Bahrick, H., Bahrick, L., Bahrick, A. and Bahrick, P.
With a surname like that, it can鈥檛 be sheer chance. Did a whole family get
together over dinner to write the article?
FACT, Britain鈥檚 Federation Against Copyright Theft, recently warned that
video pirates had graduated from making counterfeit VHS tapes to DVDs, the new
digital disc format. This is rather surprising, because there are only a handful
of factories around the world capable of pressing DVDs, and all are owned by
highly respectable companies.
鈥淚 can assure you that there are pirate and counterfeit DVDs,鈥� FACT鈥檚
director general Reg Dixon assured us. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a big problem,鈥� he added, citing
Titanic and Men in Black as examples of pirate discs already
seized.
Dixon went on to explain that the pirated discs came in multipacks, with an
hour of movie time on each disc. Which means that they are actually Video CDs
rather than DVDs.
If only the pirates knew as little about video technology as FACT.
SOME CLAIMS for products are highly dubious. Others are simply meaningless.
While in Dublin, David Haworth bought a box of eggs from a supermarket which had
a label proclaiming they were 鈥淚ndividually date-stamped for added
蹿谤别蝉丑苍别蝉蝉鈥�.
AND FINALLY John Gledhill received a birthday present comprising a pair of
鈥淢r Men鈥� socks and a matching mug. The socks were packed inside the mug. The
pack bears the instructions: 鈥淩emove socks before use鈥�.
Is this because they think you might try to make coffee in the mug without
removing the socks? Or that you might try to wear the socks without taking them
from the mug? Or is it just a philosophy of life?