BACK in the summer of 2005, we reported on Laura Emery, whose internet browsing brought her up against the Lifetech DNA Activator CD (16 July 2005). This apparently had the power to 鈥渁ctivate 100 per cent of your 2-strand DNA, plus 10 additional strands!鈥�
Now Robert Cox calls our attention to , a website promoting 鈥渟essions鈥� that appear to have identical ambitions. 鈥淚magine if you woke up one morning and realised that you had dormant superhuman abilities that were waiting to be unleashed,鈥� the website says tantalisingly 鈥� and, following the Lifetech DNA Activator down to the last exclamation mark, it goes on:鈥滻magine activating 100 per cent of your 2-strand DNA, PLUS 10 additional strands!鈥� You will go from using 10 per cent of your brain to becoming a multidimensional being with psychic, telepathic and manifestation abilities beyond anything you鈥檝e ever dreamed of. Plus, you will stop the ageing process and actually start to rejuvenate to look and feel YOUNGER鈥︹��
Advertisement
Imagine going on to read hundreds more similarly idiotic propositions on this unbelievably verbose website! Imagine believing a single one of them! Imagine parting with good money for a 鈥淒NA activation鈥� session!
We鈥檝e tried, but we simply can鈥檛.
鈥淪een by Jack Harrison on the M25 London orbital motorway: a sign announcing a junction 8 miles ahead, adding 鈥淭ravel time 8 minutes鈥�. Accompanying it was a sign specifying a speed limit of 40 miles per hour鈥�
THE UK, already under surveillance by an estimated 4 million closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, has shifted into an even higher Big Brother gear. Just over a month ago, all local authorities in England and Wales were granted the right to use CCTV to nab motorists committing parking and other traffic offences. Worryingly, Feedback has discovered this could involve breaches of privacy.
To prove someone has committed an offence, councils place a sequence of CCTV stills of the act 鈥� and video if they have it 鈥� on a council-run website. They then mail a penalty notice to the offender with a password to the website.
For child-protection purposes, CCTV pictures taken outside schools must obscure the faces of any children in shot. That鈥檚 because the documentation accompanying the pictures online may contain enough information to identify them. The London Borough of Lambeth, for instance, recently wrote to schools pledging to obscure the faces of any children caught on camera by its new fleet of CCTV vehicles, which zip about the borough targeting illegally parked cars.
Imagine the reaction of one of Feedback鈥檚 colleagues when he received in the mail a parking fine from Lambeth, which included a clear photo of his child outside his school. The picture was repeated on Lambeth鈥檚 website.
鈥淭hat shouldn鈥檛 have happened,鈥� a Lambeth official said. 鈥淚t is our policy to obscure faces. Further checks will be done on CCTV enforcement at schools to prevent this occurring in the future.鈥�
Lambeth insists the breach was a one-off. Maybe so, but it does not augur well for privacy under the new CCTV laws.
ANOTHER absurd Amazon pairing? Neil Fairweather received an email from the online retailer saying: 鈥淲e鈥檝e noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Dark Medicine: Rationalizing unethical medical research (Bioethics and the Humanities) by William R. LaFleur have also purchased Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by L. Yang. For this reason, you might like to know that Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring will be released on 28 February 2008.鈥�
Generally, Fairweather notes, 鈥渟uch emails refer to correlations that presumably have occurred in practice, but which no intelligent analyst would consider to be in any way significant or reproducible. However, in this case, they are right: I ama corrosion scientist.鈥�
Fairweather is now left wondering 鈥渨hether Amazon鈥檚 algorithm has picked up some deep yet bizarre phenomenon, or whether there simply happen to be a lot of people with interests as diverse and odd as me out there鈥�.
FIRST it was the moon, then Mars 鈥� now someone is trying to sell pieces of the sun. Mark Langford points us to eBay via , where item number 180206145233 offers 鈥�1 cubic mile of the sun鈥�, with a very reasonable starting bid of 拢0.99.
Or rather, it did. When we went to the site, hoping to buy a bit of cheap solar real estate, we found that bidding on the item had closed. This, presumably, is connected with the melancholy fact that the auction鈥檚 history revealed 鈥�0 bids鈥�. Could this be another knock-on effect of the sub-prime mortgage crisis?
FINALLY, IKEA鈥檚 curved chandelier light bulbs look perfectly ready to be plugged in and used, judging by of them in its catalogue. But look a little further down the page, Keith Huggett advises, and you will see IKEA鈥檚 dreaded Allen key symbol and the instruction: 鈥淭his product requires assembly鈥�.
Huggett says he looked in vain for a flat-pack vacuum pump.