OUR colleague Jim Giles subscribes to Google Voice, the Google service which, among other things, transcribes incoming telephone messages and sends them to you as an email. Jim forwards on to Feedback a transcript of a call from the owners of the apartment he rents in London. The message was to enquire about some work being carried out there. It is, he suggests, evidence that computerised dictation has not reached maximum verisimilitude quite yet.
鈥淕ood Morning to you on Michael for French forces area so will you go out. Workman in your flight 046 44 life. Pace, Elco we must install a new phone working. I鈥檓 coming to tell the cats. I could please celebrate the contract. It鈥檚 not working. M A D late. Thank you. If you can leave me. Another [phone number]. Thank you.鈥�
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As you can imagine, Jim was particularly pleased that the cats were being kept in the loop.
鈥淭he sack of organic potatoes that Richard Jennings bought bears a stark message 鈥� 鈥淲arning: potatoes 鈥� handle with care鈥�. Do they, he wonders, know something we don鈥檛?鈥�
IN A report on packaging overkill, we noted recently that Derek Woodroffe received a tiny integrated circuit in a large padded envelope that gave a ratio of product volume to packaging volume of 1:11,947. 鈥淐an anyone beat that?鈥� we asked (16 January).
John Purser thinks he can, and by a factor of four. Mail-order firm Screwfix Direct sent him two screwdriver bits that they had omitted from a previous order. They were about 6 millimetres in diameter by 15 millimetres long. A nifty calculation involving pi gave John an estimated volume for the two of them of 0.85 cubic centimetres. They arrived in a cardboard box about 50 脳 50 脳 15 centimetres, giving a volume of 37,500 cubic centimetres and a ratio of goods volume to packaging volume of about 1:44,000.
So John beats Derek. But wait. Enter Maurice Childs. Dell sent him a single stick-on barcode label measuring about 10 脳 25 脳 0.05 millimetres, or 12.5 cubic millimetres. It was delivered in a box measuring about 350 脳 350 脳 25 millimetres, or 3,062,500 cubic millimetres. That鈥檚 a ratio of 1:245,000. Maurice鈥檚 figures are from memory, but if they鈥檙e close 鈥� and we believe Maurice when he says they are 鈥� then he clearly beats both John and Derek.
So that settles it. Or does it? Enter Geoff Robinson. The nicely wrapped box he received at Christmas was 鈥渘ot particularly large but unfortunately, and presumably accidentally, it was empty鈥�. That, Geoff reckons, yields a goods-to-packaging ratio of infinity.
鈥淒ifficult to beat,鈥� he points out, 鈥渦nless a larger empty box means a larger infinity.鈥�
Yes. Well. Perhaps it鈥檚 time to stop this thread.
HOW nice to be an adperson, dreaming up wonderful worlds where the boring constraints of scientific precision can be gleefully ignored.
Despite repeated raps over the knuckles, telecoms companies still advertise broadband speeds of 鈥渦p to鈥� however many megabits-per-second the person writing the advert cares to pluck from the sky. So the world has had to learn that 鈥渦p to 8 Mb/s鈥� means nothing more than 鈥渁nything above a couple of kilobits per second and guaranteed never to exceed 8 Mb/s鈥�.
Meanwhile, Korean company Samsung was recently by the UK鈥檚 Advertising Standards Authority for as LED (light emitting diode) TVs, when in fact they are LCD (liquid crystal display) TVs that are backlit by LEDs instead of the normal fluorescent lamps. But we are still seeing publicity for LED TVs and LED monitors. Says Samsung: 鈥淪amsung will continue to use the term LED as we believe it will continue to be a commonly used industry term.鈥�
So the world will now have to learn that LED TVs do not have screens made from LEDs.
As for the new generation of LED torches, these do indeed use white-light-emitting diodes instead of filament bulbs. But Duracell鈥檚 advertising people seem to have been taking lessons from the broadband folk. The latest LED torch from Duracell boasts 鈥淭rueBeam Optics鈥� and 鈥渃aptures up to 100 per cent of light鈥�. So could that mean anything above a mere couple of per cent efficiency? Perhaps Duracell could tell us.
FINALLY, one of the Christmas presents Patrick Fox-Roberts received was a Mensa calendar with a daily brain-teaser. Mensa, as readers will know, is an organisation for very brainy people 鈥� but is the Mensa brain-teaser compiled by people who are also very brainy?
Each morning since receiving the calendar Patrick has dutifully solved the day鈥檚 puzzle as his 鈥渄aily workout for the brain鈥� 鈥� until the Friday morning last month when he found himself utterly stumped by the question 鈥淩earrange the letters 鈥楻USTLED LIKE TARZAN鈥� to give three amphibians鈥�.
Flicking forward to the Sunday page, which gave the answer, he saw what the problem was. The answer given for the Friday question was 鈥淭urtle, lizard and snake鈥� 鈥� but most people, brainy or otherwise, know that these are reptiles, not amphibians.