THE travel industry complains that business is bad because people are frightened their plane might be hijacked. We wonder whether airlines would make things better or worse by taking up an idea patented 30 years ago by Jack Jensen from Fort Worth, Texas, which was unearthed recently by a colleague.
US patent 3841328 reveals his master plan. Every seat in the aircraft has an airbag concealed in the backrest. If the cabin crew think the passenger in seat 15A is behaving oddly, they can press a hidden remote-control button that sends a trigger signal to the seat. The bag rapidly inflates to force the passenger鈥檚 head and shoulders down towards his knees. At the same time, a hypodermic syringe under the seat shoots a needle up through the comfy cushion and slams it into the trapped passenger鈥檚 bottom. This, says the Texan inventor, 鈥渋nstantly sedates or kills the passenger鈥�.
We are, of course, all in favour of safe travel, but sincerely hope we鈥檙e never on a flight using Jensen鈥檚 system when one of the cabin crew acts too hastily and has to say 鈥淪o sorry 鈥� I thought my colleague said seat 50A.鈥�
Advertisement
THANKS to all the readers who responded to our question about whether Einstein believed in astrology (Feedback, 5 April). They inform us that the quote we gave, which was supposedly from him and suggested that he did believe in it, is discussed and debunked on several websites, including and James Randi鈥檚 .
It seems the quote first appeared in 1950 in the preface of Manuel d鈥橝strologie, a book by a Swiss-Canadian astrologer called Werner Hirsig. But Hirsig died without ever giving any source for it, and though those who believe in astrology have been quoting it ever since, Einstein biographers and historians dismiss it as fake.
Alice Calaprice, editor of The Expanded Quotable Einstein, lists the quote under the subheading 鈥淧robably not by Einstein鈥�. She goes on to give another quote, this one genuine, from his introduction to Johannes Kepler: life and letters by Carola Baumgardt. 鈥淭he reader should note [Kepler鈥檚] remarks on astrology. They show that the inner enemy, conquered and rendered innocuous, was not yet completely dead.鈥� This gives an idea of what Einstein really thought about the subject.
FEEDBACK doesn鈥檛 condone violence of any kind, but has a sneaking admiration for George Doughty, who was sent to jail in Colorado last month for shooting his computer four times in front of customers at his Sportsman鈥檚 Bar and Restaurant, after the computer crashed 鈥渙nce too often鈥�.
According to The Associated Press, Doughty was jailed on suspicion of felony, menacing, reckless endangerment and the prohibited use of a weapon. In police reports, Doughty said he realised afterwards that he shouldn鈥檛 have shot his computer, but at the time 鈥渋t seemed like the right thing to do鈥�.
Unfortunately, the reports don鈥檛 tell us whether the computer was a Windows PC or a Mac.
JUST FOR FUN, we鈥檝e been glancing at a paper in the Journal of Research in Personality entitled 鈥淭he control of death and the death of control: The effects of mortality salience, neuroticism, and worldview threat on the desire for control鈥�, by Jamie Arndt and Sheldon Solomon.
What struck us most about this cheerful piece of research was not so much the unwieldiness of its title, but what the subjects were required to go through. 鈥淩esults indicated,鈥� the abstract informs us, 鈥渢hat if participants scoring low in neuroticism were confronted with a threat to their worldview and were then reminded of their death, they showed reduced desires for control.鈥�
No doubt they also showed increased desires to punch the researchers in the face.
EXTREMELY upset by students and others trading copyrighted songs on the Internet without paying, the Recording Industry Association of America has filed lawsuits against four college students who it claims have each offered between 27,000 and more than 1,000,000 songs to other students.
The association claims damages of up to $150,000 for each song named. If the students had enough money to pay for computers, then presumably they have some financial resources, but has anyone pointed out to the RIAA that even Bill Gates couldn鈥檛 afford to pay damages of $150 billion?
FINALLY, people dusting up their teaching skills with the West Sussex Adult Education Service鈥檚 Tutor Survival Kit CD-ROM have to use a mouse to navigate the contents. Helpfully, for those with disabilities that make mouse operation difficult, the very first instruction is what to do if you cannot use a mouse. And guess what that is? Yes, that鈥檚 right, you click on an icon.
Is the clothes store Next in danger of creating a temporal rift? When reader Brian Clegg placed an online order with the firm, he was told: 鈥淵our order should be delivered anytime on Saturday, 30 December 1899鈥�