NASA is understandably embarrassed by the recent loss of its Mars Climate
Orbiter as a result of confusion between imperial and metric units. In view of
this, the following paragraph from a press release put out by the Kennedy Space
Center on 11 September 1998, soon before the orbiter鈥檚 launch, is rather
enlightening:
鈥淎t liftoff, the spacecraft will weigh 1418 pounds (3120 kilograms). It is
7.6 feet (25 meters) high, 6.4 feet (21 meters) deep, and 5.4 feet (18 meters)
wide. Power is provided by a single large solar array which is 18.6 feet (61
meters) long and 6.8 feet (22 meters) across. After cruising in space for 286
days, the spacecraft will be captured in an elliptical orbit around Mars.鈥�
This press release is preserved in its original form on a number of websites,
including those of Astronomy Now
(www.astronomynow.com/breaking/980914marsorb/index. html),
and New Mars (the journal of the Mars Society). Interestingly, though,
in the archives on the Kennedy Space Center鈥檚 own web-site
(www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/release/1998/100-98.htm),
the offending paragraph has been amended and the wildly inaccurate metric measurements removed.
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TALKING of measurements, a recent article in New Civil Engineer (2
September) seems somewhat optimistic about the number of people that can be
squeezed into a small office: 鈥淥ve Arup & Partners Hong Kong is moving to a
new 104 sq ft office location in a bid to achieve better quality work and
improve conditions for staff . . . Arup is currently based at the Hopewell
Centre in Wan Chai. During its 15 years there staff have risen from 236 to more
than 800.鈥�
READER Geoff McNamara has a colleague who teaches ophthalmic optics at Sydney
Institute of Technology. While he was running a practical workshop recently, a
student asked to be reminded which button on the lens-edging machine they should
use for a particular process. From the other side of the workshop he called out:
鈥淧ress the middle one.鈥�
After a few seconds, the student asked: 鈥淲hich side are you looking
蹿谤辞尘?鈥�
ONE OF the worst design faults of the computer keyboard is the proximity of
the Control key to the Shift key. Feedback has often hit Control by mistake when
trying to type a capital letter and found the text behaving in mysterious and
unwelcome ways.
A friend of reader Douglas Gray had a particularly unfortunate experience of
this. He was attempting to type the word FALSE in the Textpad text-editing
program, but held down the Control key instead of the adjacent Shift key. Ctrl-F
had no significant effect (it performed his most recent 鈥淔ind鈥�). Ctrl-A selected
all of his document. Ctrl-L converted the whole thing to lower case. Ctrl-S
saved the new form. Ctrl-E centred each line.
The outcome was that he had a document entirely in lower case and resembling
a Christmas tree. This was amusing until Gray鈥檚 friend discovered there was no
way of recovering a sensible version, as the Undo key (Ctrl-Z) wouldn鈥檛 go
beyond the last save.
YUKSEL YALOVA, a government minister in Turkey, was less than delighted when
a ram and a calf were sacrificed in his honour in the city of Izmir earlier this
month. Yalova was there to mark the opening of a veterinary hospital on World
Animal Day.
Intervening to stop a second ram having its thoat cut in the entrance to the
hospital, he observed: 鈥淥n a day like this, especially at the opening of an
animal hospital, scenes like this are really not appropriate.鈥�
FREEDOM of information is a subject dear to most journalists鈥� hearts.
Britain鈥檚 National Union of Journalists has a wide-ranging website commenting on
the Labour government鈥檚 proposals on the issue
(www.gn.apc.org/media/foi.html).
One of the many links provided on the site is to 鈥淟abour election manifesto
commitments鈥�. Hit it, and you get a site search page which reports 鈥�0 items
found鈥� for 鈥渇reedom of information鈥� and the same number for 鈥渞ight to know鈥� and
鈥渙pen government鈥�.
Need one say more?
HAVE the people at Netscape got psychic powers? On the cardboard CD holder
containing the Netscape Online discs currently adorning computer magazine
covers, there鈥檚 the usual blurb saying if you don鈥檛 want to receive information,
tick the box and send it back to Netscape Online data services. But they don鈥檛
ask for your name or address, so how will they know who it鈥檚 from?
IT鈥橲 AMAZING the lengths that some people will go to try and get a good
bargain. Just ask Phil Tapley. Recently, he advertised a gas cooker in the
Manchester edition of Loot, the free ads paper. He was pleased when
someone rang up, but his pleasure soon turned to disappointment when the caller
said: 鈥淲ell, actually, it鈥檚 not your cooker I鈥檓 interested in, it鈥檚 the one
above it. Do you know anything about it? They are not answering the
辫丑辞苍别鈥︹赌�
FINALLY, what do you think is the country of origin of the supermarket
Tesco鈥檚 finest Mediterranean peppers?
Holland.