Show me the way to the next whisky box
JAPANESE companies are fiercely competitive. So when JVC scored lots of free publicity by announcing a loudspeaker cone made from birch wood soaked in sake, it was inevitable that some rival would try and top the story.
Pioneer is first. One of the company鈥檚 engineers was visiting a distillery of Japanese drinks giant Suntory and saw that whisky was being matured in 100-year-old white oak barrels. He asked for a sample of the wood, took it home and tried drilling holes through it.
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All his drill bits broke because the wood was so hard. So Pioneer is now buying up Suntory鈥檚 whisky barrels, steaming them flat to make planks and building loudspeaker cabinets from the planks. The hardness of the wood means it vibrates less, so the sound is purer.
During the cabinet-making process the planks have to be shaved smooth. The ever-curious engineer collected the shavings, put them in a cup and poured hot water over them. He was rewarded by a drink tasting of the finest whisky.
Pioneer is now sending out publicity presents which are boxes full of wood shavings, with instructions on how to turn them into a whisky drink with hot water. The only snag is that the instructions are in Japanese. So foreign recipients of the gifts have been rummaging through the shavings thinking they are packaging for a gift that isn鈥檛 there 鈥� and throwing a superb whisky base into the waste bin.
鈥溾�滾uxembourg has successfully been loaded onto your device鈥�, Steve Heggie鈥檚 satellite navigation system tells him. How do the Luxembourgers feel about this?鈥�
The reincarnation futures market
IDAN BEN-BARAK, signing himself as president of InMyTime Corporation, is buoyed by the success of his scheme for buying time 鈥� you may yourself have noticed how the cost of Thursdays has risen since our report on it (1 April). 鈥淎s part of our expansion plans,鈥� says a new InMyTime statement, 鈥渨e have hired a team of past-life therapists to conduct some surveys.鈥� Ben-Barak naturally volunteered to be the first subject, 鈥渁nd it appears that I was Shirley MacLaine in a past life鈥�.
This might seem strange, since she wasn鈥檛 actually dead when we last checked. But apparently this kind of scheduling problem happens all the time, and it sorts itself out eventually. InMyTime thinks Cleopatra is to blame, as she has been quite overbooked for reincarnations lately, which wreaks havoc on the system.
InMyTime鈥檚 legal department has consented to release selected details of further findings of the study. It identified a school netball star in York, UK, and a real-estate agent in Orlando, Florida, who both appear to have been Charlemagne, apparently on a time-sharing basis. Joel R (London) has found out to his dismay that he鈥檚 a 鈥淔irstie鈥�, with no previous lives. As such he will be blamed for anything going wrong with his future selves. Elias Z, a dentist of Pasadena, California, was previously a particularly well-karmaed fruit bat named eeeEEeeee-EE-Eei in Madagascar, 1914-21 (estimated).
Intense competition for Charlemagnitude will of course raise prices when, as InMyTime expects, a market in reincarnation is opened. How well the fruit bat option will sell is less obvious.
A FEW years ago the music industry came up with a new idea. 鈥淯nplugged鈥� concerts give artists the chance to show they really can sing by performing live without amplification. So Feedback jumped at the chance of seeing the UK鈥檚 pop diva and self-styled bad girl Charlotte Church at an event held by cellphone giant Orange in a small London club. The invite promised an 鈥渆xclusive live and unplugged concert鈥�.
After nearly two hours wait the singer came on stage with a heavily amplified band of guitar, electric bass, electric keyboard and a drum kit fit for an octopus. She sang four songs, shouting very close into a microphone, which produced loud and distorted sound. The next day Orange sent out a press release confirming that 鈥渓ast night, Charlotte Church performed an exclusive unplugged set to celebrate the launch of Orange Broadband鈥�.
Presumably if you are as huge as Orange, it is okay to rewrite history.
THE pack of Orikaso Flatworld Picnicware that Paul Warden bought announced that it was 鈥淒urable, Easy to Clean, Space Saving, Lighter than Titanium鈥�.
鈥淲ell鈥r鈥es,鈥� says Warden. 鈥淚t鈥檚 made of plastic.鈥�
FINALLY, our piece about the likely number of deities in the universe, in which we came up with the answer zero (22 July), produced a huge response, so much so that we don鈥檛 have enough space to do it justice here. If you want to see how the argument develops, you can do so in this week鈥檚 Letters section on www.newscientist.com under the title 鈥淗ow many gods are there?鈥�.