READER Jeff Moore couldn鈥檛 help but wonder at the packaging of the Lundberg Honey Nut Rice Cakes he bought at his local grocery store. It assured him that the food 鈥淒oes not contain nuts鈥�. Dare Jeff presume that the honey, at least, is present?
We, too, are busy wondering, along with Martin Gregory of the online Really Magazine, why the product describing itself as 鈥渃rispy seaweed鈥�, which is on sale in UK supermarkets such as Sainsbury and , contains nary a hint of seaweed, but is instead made of cabbage, spring greens or pak choi.
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Like Martin, we were under the impression that there is a law against this sort of thing 鈥� that if you describe a product as 鈥渃hocolate cake鈥� it has to have chocolate in it, and if you say it is 鈥渙range juice鈥� then juice from oranges is what it must contain. What鈥檚 so special about nuts and seaweed?
鈥淔rom the department of the blindingly obvious: Jack Harrison bought some long-life light bulbs. The packets informed him that 鈥�2000 hours = 2 x 1000 hours鈥�
Up to infinite broadband speeds
THE 鈥渦p to鈥� disease is obviously infectious. As we reported on 6 February, the telecoms industry loves using these words to disguise erratic broadband speeds. Now Japanese electronics giant Sharp tells us its new, greener LCD TV 鈥渦ses up to 40 per cent less electricity鈥� than traditional LCD TVs鈥�.
What鈥檚 more, in an effort to get journalists to use Sharp鈥檚 electronics at home, those who attended the greener TV launch were given a card promising 鈥渦p to 40 per cent discount on all Sharp products鈥�. That鈥檚 1 penny off a 拢100 purchase, perhaps?
Meanwhile, readers Jon Chard and John Winters have both spotted a new variation on the 鈥渦p to鈥� theme. Recent adverts from Richard Branson鈥檚 cable and broadband company Virgin Media claim in one breath 鈥渦p to 50 megabit broadband speeds鈥� and in the next that this is 鈥渋nfinitely quick鈥�.
Is this thanks to a magical compression system that squeezes infinite speeds from an 鈥渦p to鈥� 50 megabit connection, our readers wonder. If so, should someone with an existing 鈥渦p to鈥� 10 megabits connection now be able to expect speeds of one-fifth infinity? But as that will still be infinity, why pay the extra for 50 megabits鈥� worth of infinity? Especially as 鈥渦p to infinity鈥� presumably still includes no speed at all.
The case of the crazy countdown timer
On 20 February we reported that the Vancouver Community Network still hosts a remarkably uninformative web page about that was first noticed by a Feedback reader 14 years ago. Robin Edwards went for a look, and found, in the same section of the VCN鈥檚 website that explains how to write a web page, a demonstration of a countdown timer (see ). This purports to tell us exactly how far away we are from the start of 2 January 2000.
Evidently the counter originally looked forward to this date, but since it has now passed, things have become a little confused. When we looked at it on 16 April 2010, it told us that we were minus 9 years, 8 months, 15 days, 21 hours, 11 minutes and 32 seconds away from the moment in question. Five minutes later, the minutes count had decreased by 5.
Quite what it is now counting down to, we haven鈥檛 yet worked out 鈥� and we can only speculate on what other oddities the VCN has up its cyber-sleeve.
Plus or minus 20th anniversary
OUR gratitude goes to the BBC for opening up new possibilities in the field of anniversaries. Time was, reader Ken Hawkins points out, when celebrations of notable anniversaries were usually reserved for 100 or possibly 50 years after the event. Then we crept down to 40, 25 or even, as with November 2009鈥檚 media commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 20 years.
Now the BBC publication Radio Times has proposed a further breakthrough. Its report on the BBC鈥檚 Who Needs Fathers? TV programmes describes them as: 鈥淭his major series, to mark the 20-odd years since the passing of the Children Act鈥�.
鈥淥n this basis,鈥� says Ken, who told us about this, 鈥渨e are fortunate in not even needing to remember just when the event we are marking occurred.鈥� However, he goes on to explain that the UK Children Act was actually passed 21 years ago, in 1989, and implemented 19 years ago, in 1991.
THE last item in the list of facilities at Hotel Lenno, Lake Como, Italy, on the website of holiday specialist might, Richard Walker thinks, be a reflection of the worldwide obesity epidemic. Items such as 鈥渞estaurant鈥�, 鈥渂ar/lounge鈥� and 鈥渟un terrace鈥� are followed by: 鈥淐omplimentary minibus to nearby Spa (approx 3 metres)鈥�.
FINALLY, a caption on the National Geographic鈥榮 online NatGeo News Watch informs us that 鈥淭he asteroid that ended the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs was about 10,000 times more massive than the total mass of the human world population, according to the University of Texas at Austin.鈥�
鈥淒arn it,鈥� says Jeff Gottfred, who noticed this. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that in elephants?鈥�