Incandescent condom lights things up
LOOKING for a patent on using laser pulses to extract fossils from rock, a colleague of Feedback鈥檚 was instead presented with the invention of a condom programmed to release nitric oxide, for which (US application 20090107512). This has instantly gone to the top of Feedback鈥檚 list of 鈥渕ost off-topic search results of 2009鈥�.
From what we can make out in the dense thicket of patentese, this would be a somewhat cumbersome device, attached to a control and lighting box by optical fibres, the nitric oxide being released by light interacting with a coating. The patent mentions treatment of impotence as a possible application.
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Nitric oxide is indeed an essential component of the pathway that leads to an erection, but everything we can find relates to internal processes that release minuscule quantities of the gas into the bloodstream. A condom that is lit brightly enough to release nitric oxide from a precursor that is then absorbed through the skin 鈥� how much of a turn-on would that be? Feedback can鈥檛 help wondering. Might there not be a risk that it exacerbates the problem it is supposed to cure?
鈥淚ncomprehensible error message of the week comes from Clay Simmons, whose computer told him: 鈥淓xception has been thrown by the target of an invocation鈥�
Inhabitants of Zero Zero island
EARLIER this year we ran a couple of stories speculating on the precise whereabouts of Dublin Ferry Port, which the UK National Rail website had given as O 掳N by O 掳W, a location in the Atlantic ocean roughly 1000 kilometres south of Ghana (22 August and 12 September). Readers in the UK have kindly told us about other virtual occupants of the same spot, including several houses up for sale, and Corby and East Midlands Parkway railway stations.
We are grateful to Dick Magerl, who supplies important additional information: 鈥淓veryone who grew up in the US during the 1950s knows that and his trusty sidekick Scratch the caveman live on Zero Zero island, where the prime meridian and the equator intersect.鈥�
Are there any more inhabitants of this interesting location? Let us know if you find any.
21st century pre-war residences
WHEN a property in New York is advertised with the description 鈥減re-war鈥�, this is generally taken to mean that it was built before the US joined the second world war in 1941, with the implication that it is spacious and solidly constructed. So Jay Pasachoff is troubled to see 鈥�21st Century Pre-war Residences鈥� advertised, for many millions of dollars, at the corner of 86th Street and West End Avenue in New York鈥檚 Upper West Side.
Do the advertisers simply mean that they were built in the couple of years this century before troops were sent to Afghanistan and Iraq? Or are they referring to a new war we don鈥檛 know about? Or do they actually mean 鈥減re-Depression residences鈥�?
THE dough moulding set that Chris Goddard bought for his 3-year-old daughter from a Sainsbury鈥檚 supermarket came with instructions that included the following: 鈥淩emove and dispose of all packaging before giving this item to a child鈥� Keep these instructions in a safe place for future reference.鈥�
Since the instructions were printed on the packaging, Chris had to conclude that the only way he could obey both was to put the present aside, and not give it to his daughter until her 18th birthday.
DOES the Thinktank science museum in Birmingham, UK, know something about genetics and cloning the rest of us don鈥檛? Joanne Clay is worried that it might. She says the museum covers four floors, with the top floor titled: 鈥淭he future鈥�. This summer there has been an exhibit on this floor called 鈥淲alking with Dinosaurs鈥�.
THE wording of () from West Sussex County Council in the south of England promoting its registration service seems a little unfortunate, Peter Douglas thinks. 鈥淏ook births, deaths or marriages on the web鈥�, it exhorts us, pointing to the site on which it says this can be done. Peter is particularly concerned about the booking deaths bit.
HERE is another of those warnings that imply people have some very odd ideas about what their microwave ovens are for. 鈥淪ecurity protected,鈥� warns a label on a DVD that Richard Brice bought from his local Sainsbury鈥檚 store. 鈥淧lease remove prior to putting in microwave.鈥�
Richard wonders what Sainsbury鈥檚 legal position would be should someone take the warning at its word and microwave the DVD 鈥� after removing the label first, of course.
FINALLY, when Mark Hanratty sends an email at work via Lotus Notes 7 to the firm鈥檚 IT helpdesk, he always gets a little chuckle when the spellchecker suggests 鈥渉elpless鈥� as the correct spelling for the recipient.