CHRIS Elliott鈥檚 name comes well down the circulation list for New 杏吧原创 at his work, so it was a while before he read our story about the Kyocera batteries that are liable to 鈥渞apid disassembly鈥� (17 April).
When he did, he couldn鈥檛 help feeling a twinge of sympathy. He is an engineer working in aerospace, and occasionally has to write FMEA, or failure mode effect analysis reports. This is where you list everything that can go wrong and what will happen if it does.
There is a ban on some specific words though, and Elliott ruefully admits that he is obliged to use euphemisms such as: 鈥淔ire 鈥� uncontrolled thermal event鈥�; 鈥淓xplosion 鈥� spontaneous rapid disassembly event鈥�; 鈥淏ursting 鈥� unplanned loss of containment鈥�; 鈥淐rash 鈥� deconstructive deceleration鈥�.
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NO, we鈥檙e not going to start nominative determinism again. But we can鈥檛 resist passing on something that Nick Dingle noticed on . It appears that the US navy spokesman put up to answer journalists鈥� questions about the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is one Lieutenant Mike Kafka.
As the article on The Register observes: 鈥淵es, you鈥檙e reading that correctly. A man named Kafka has been deployed to field questions about a prison where the criminals are only vaguely charged with crimes, can鈥檛 speak to lawyers and likely will never get out.鈥� Any resemblance this reality bears to an actual fiction is entirely coincidental.
WANT a gift with a difference? Then you should have a glance at the Firebox.com catalogue that David Simmons received. One of the items that struck him was monkey-picked tea: 鈥淭his delicate brew has been hand picked by monkeys! No, really! The well cared for monkeys are specially trained by their Chinese owners to pick rare, wild tea plants in inaccessible places such as cliff faces.鈥�
The other was weasel coffee: 鈥淭his unusual organic brew has been eaten and then regurgitated by rare Vietnamese weasels鈥he weasels鈥� gastric goings-on radically alter the taste of the coffee and the result is a stronger, smoother, heady-flavoured coffee.鈥�
We have to say we find these claims a little hard to believe. The canonical version of the coffee urban legend features an Indonesian civet cat anyway. But whatever the truth, Feedback will be sticking to tea and coffee that has been touched by human hand only. Especially the coffee.
FEEDBACK likes jazz, so was rather pleased to be sent a copy of the very popular new recording by pianist and singer Jamie Cullum, called Twentysomething. The disc arrived to promote Super Audio CD, the new super hi-fi digital system that uses a recording technology called Direct Stream Digital.
A publicity note inside the CD sleeve promises 鈥渢he ultimate audio quality (because) Direct Stream Digital technology reproduces the original sound without any distortion鈥othing will ever sound the same again.鈥�
So isn鈥檛 digital wonderful? But we cannot help wondering how carefully the system鈥檚 backers have read the rest of the sleeve note. Writes the record鈥檚 producer, Stewart Levine: 鈥淭his album was recorded and mixed entirely in the analogue domain鈥� I have extensive experience in both formats (analogue and digital)鈥nalogue tape gives it a warmer and also clearer, more realistic sound鈥he analogue format has worked just fine since the days of Louis Armstrong on to the Beatles, and through to the White Stripes. Don鈥檛 fix it if it ain鈥檛 broken.鈥�
CHRIS Brown was constructing a model rocket and was puzzled on reading the instructions to find that one of the materials required was 鈥渟low setting instant glue鈥�. In similar vein, Tom Yates tells of a Chinese takeaway he knows that proudly states on its menu: 鈥淓very dish is instantly cooked to order, therefore short delays may occur.鈥�
IT SEEMS that Internet mail service Yahoo! has decided only to allow its customers negative mail storage. Nick Laurie received this peremptory message the other day: 鈥淵ou are currently exceeding your Yahoo! Mail storage quota by a very large amount. You are only allowed 鈥� 2048.0MB of storage but you are currently using 0.0MB of storage. Your account has been temporarily disabled from receiving new messages.鈥�
FINALLY, for 拢12.50 you can buy a set of Eternal Life rings on eBay. These rings 鈥渁re believed鈥�, as the promoter is careful to say, 鈥渢o allow humans to stay physically young forever鈥�.
On the other hand, as Owen Thompson was interested to discover, the risk-free guarantee offered with the rings allows you to return them within 30 days 鈥渋f you are not completely satisfied with your purchase鈥�.
Shaun Plumb received a message signed 鈥淐ustomer Service Advisor BT Psyphones鈥�. So that鈥檚 how their shiny new phone network will work.