鈥淥H NO! I鈥檝e killed the internet!鈥� Feedback鈥檚 musings on whether the internet is fated to collapse into an infinite spam-complaint loop (16 July) reminded a colleague of the time back in 1995 when he sat bolt upright in bed at 3 am in Jaipur, Rajasthan, uttering this cry of anguish and others that cannot be printed in a family magazine.
Before leaving for his holiday 鈥� he had gone to India precisely to avoid the internet, which did not arrive there in a big way until the following year 鈥� he had set up a 鈥渧acation message鈥� apologising for not being able to answer messages, and telling correspondents when he would be back. Unfortunately, he did this on two different email accounts, one of which, he remembered that awful night, was set to forward messages to the other. Any such forwarded message would be answered with the apology, which the first machine, when it received it, would respond to with its own apology, leading all too quickly to an infinite number of apologies for not replying to the apology for not replying to鈥�
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And responding to those same musings about loops, Duncan East wrote to tell us of a more recent occasion when he set up a vacation message while still subscribed to a service that sends out periodic news alerts. This sternly tells people who reply to it that it is a robot and it is not reading their vacation message apologising to it for not reading its news alert. But this message in turn provokes another response from the vacation message, which in turn鈥nd so on, forever, ad infinitum.
Fortunately, such robots are getting better all the time at detecting and ignoring recursive regrets, and the torrents of apologetic messages do stop when mailboxes fill up. But, like Feedback鈥檚 colleague when he returned from India, it took East the whole of his first day back from holiday to delete the thousands of messages that had arrived.
THE recently completed Millau bridge across the Tarn valley in southern France has set John Walker thinking. The aim of this magnificent structure was to cut the travelling time on the road from Paris to the Mediterranean by bypassing the traffic-clogged town of Millau itself.
For many motorists, however, it is conspicuously failing to do this: they are so impressed by the bridge that they stop to gaze at it in admiration. It has, in fact, become a tourist attraction, with the result that the time saved in not driving through Millau is now spent sightseeing at the bridge. So the total journey time to the Mediterranean is the same as ever, if not greater.
Walker鈥檚 question is: what do you call a project that is so hugely successfully that it completely negates its original objective?
HERE is some wonderful twaddle from the autumn magazine of the National Trust, part of whose mission is to preserve the beauties of the English countryside. 鈥淒o trees help protect us from radiation?鈥� it asks, and goes on to explain: 鈥淭rees have electrical currents running through them, and so create electromagnetic fields around themselves. Because there are billions of trees, it seems likely that they contribute to creating and maintaining the Earth鈥檚 magnetic field, which shields us against radiation from the sun and the cosmos. However, the magnetic field appears to be declining, and there is a theory that massive global deforestation could be a factor.鈥�
Rob Gill, one of several readers who spotted this, suggests: 鈥淢aybe the National Trust should campaign for more overhead power lines, since these surely have bigger and better currents flowing through them and would thus protect us even more effectively.鈥�
鈥淪tern notice spotted on gates near Exeter in south-west England by Brian Evans: 鈥淲arning 鈥� these gates may close without warning鈥濃��
WE have reported on readers鈥� intensive research into the length-incidence relationship for repetitive misspellings such as 鈥渂ananana鈥�, starting on 2 April. It was inevitable that someone would apply similar thinking to Google itself, and Tim Clarke is he.
Pages exist in which the name has been stretched to include up to 124 o鈥檚. And amazingly, many of these have been registered as domain names, including gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com (that鈥檚 59 o鈥檚). So hello to David Golumbia, who registered this one, and who is clearly someone who knows how to make wise use of his time. Now we鈥檒l go outside and play.
ON the side of the Goodwill thrift store near Anders Nienstaedt鈥檚 house in Iron Mountain, Michigan, there is a list of things that cannot be donated to the store. Among items such as beds, microwave ovens and bowling balls is 鈥渓arge organs鈥�.
Nienstaedt comments that it is not clear if the organs in question are the musical or biological type, or both. Either way, he wonders how you can tell if your organ is small enough to be acceptable.
FINALLY, one from the department of signs of the times. Carey Hickling tells us that Microsoft Outlook鈥檚 spellchecker changed her request for a 鈥�3pm meeting鈥� in an email she was writing to an 鈥渕p3 meeting鈥�.