SAMSUNG has banned the use of picture phones by workers in its factories, in case someone emails a snapshot that reveals production line secrets. This has caused some amusement because one of the things these workers make is 鈥� picture phones.
Over the years, Feedback has visited many factories around the world. Most of them have banned cameras for years, including those that make cameras. So banning picture phones as well is no big surprise.
What has always puzzled us, though, is why. These factories use off-the-shelf mass-production machines that work in routine ways, and bring to mind the comment made by the late Dennis Thatcher when he was dutifully following his wife Margaret, then prime minister, round yet another factory production line. 鈥淭here goes another one, just like the last one,鈥� he would say, in an effort to show a spark of interest in something indescribably boring.
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Feedback also remembers a trip to Japan that included a visit to Sharp, the company that leads the world in making LCD screens. A party of European and American journalists was driven many miles across country and treated to a long ceremonial lunch before being ushered past tight security into the company鈥檚 LCD factory. The production machinery was far off in the distance, in sealed rooms behind murky observation windows. Cameras were of course banned, even though there was nothing to photograph except a guide who spoke very little English and seemed to understand no questions.
After a walk past the windows, the party was ushered out and driven back across country, arriving at their hotel just in time for dinner.
As one American put it, 鈥淲as that a cowshed we just visited?鈥�
WE ALL know, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, that red wine drunk in moderation can offer protection against heart disease. Even so, a recent Ananova news report raised a few eyebrows when it revealed that The Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire, is giving two glasses of red wine a day to heart attack victims on its wards.
Unsurprisingly, as Ananova tells us, 鈥渢he move is a popular one with many patients, who say they can feel it doing them good鈥�.
HERE is a mathematically improbable extract from a recent Mitel Corporation press release: 鈥淢itel Networks today announced the deployment of an internet protocol contact centre solution for Whistler Lodging Company鈥ith the solution, Whistler Lodging Company has seen a 400 per cent reduction in call abandonment rates.鈥�
WHILE on holiday in the lovely New England village of Blue Hill in Maine, reader Chris Eccles purchased a sweatshirt which was attractively printed with 鈥淏lue Hill鈥�, followed by the latitude and longitude (44掳 24.8鈥� North, 68掳 35.2鈥� West).
Stuck on the sweatshirt was a bright yellow warning label: 鈥淐aution! Not intended for navigational use! Manufacturer disclaims responsibility if teeshirt is used as navigational aid and cannot be held liable for any damages, including shipwreck, loss of life or limb, or any other inconvenience. Have a nice day.鈥�
THE Royal Society has just sent out an email message that tells its recipients, with a fine disregard for logic: 鈥淲e are currently in the process of updating our contact database and would like to ensure that the email address that we have for you is still correct. If this address is no longer valid, we would very much appreciate it if you could provide us with any new details.鈥�
READER Stuart Neilson recently got into a lexicographical tangle over a 鈥淕rinding鈥� disc he bought for his angle grinder. There is, he says, a very good reason that it is a Grinding disc rather than a grinding disc: it is manufactured by an Italian company called Grinding Asciano and is clearly marked: 鈥淐utting wheel for portable machines. Unfit for grinding.鈥� Next time, he concludes, he will ask for a Grinding grinding disc.
We wonder if readers can supply any other examples of what we hereby name homomorphonymy.
HOW鈥橲 this for a mouthful? NASA has put together a team of high-powered astronomers to look into how and when to shut down the Hubble Space Telescope. Whoever is responsible for NASA nomenclature has called the team the Hubble Space Telescope-James Webb Space Telescope Transition Plan Review Panel.
Presumably this will become known more informally and catchily as the HSTJWSTTPRP.
FINALLY, it鈥檚 good to see that recent advances in teleportation have been taken up by businesses in London. Reader Rob Widdicombe reports seeing a sign outside an office in the UK capital saying: 鈥淎ll visitors must enter via the intercom.鈥�
For wine buffs with a philosophical bent, The Wine Society鈥檚 advice for its 1997 C么te-R么tie is: 鈥淏est decanted an hour before opening鈥�