RANDOM correlations continue their spread across the World Wide Web 鈥� particularly through helpful suggestions of 鈥渞elated items鈥�. Feedback has so far concentrated on the imaginative offerings to book-seekers on 鈥� most recently on 1 May. Now the blight is spreading across online forums.
Consider the plight of those seeking help on the construction of spreadsheets at all. In the 鈥淩elated articles鈥� on the page on creating a warning message in Excel (at ) readers are directed to seek further advice on how to 鈥淢ake Phyllo Sheets with a Pasta Machine鈥�.
The advice looks sound, but has little to do with spreadsheet programs: 鈥減hyllo sheets鈥� are a posh version of what the devotees of British pie shops would call 鈥渇laky pastry鈥�. In structure, however, they are much like a multidimensional spreadsheet, made of many layers of negligible thickness. Feedback fears that next time hunger impels us into Greggs the bakers for a cheese and onion pasty, we鈥檒l be mentally checking for contradictions between the layers of pastry.
Advertisement
鈥淣iall Litchfield notes that, according to , the camera orbiting the Red Planet on NASA鈥檚 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 鈥渃an reveal features as small as desks鈥�. It does not say what they are doing there鈥�
MEANWHILE, back to Amazon鈥檚 correlations. Karen Ashworth asks if we have noticed the market distortion New 杏吧原创 book reviews can cause at the online retailer.
When she searched for The Battery: How portable power sparked a technological revolution, by Henry Schlesinger, which was reviewed in New 杏吧原创 on 20 March, p 47, Amazon suggested that, based on what other people are buying with it, she might very well be interested in The Natural Navigator, by Tristan Gooley. This was also reviewed in New 杏吧原创 on 20 March, p 47. Coincidence?
LET us not forget that Amazon offers more than mere suggestions. Check out this bargain. Shopping online for rechargeable batteries, Andy Green came across a , including four batteries, retailing at 拢16.27.
This price, Amazon announced, represents a saving of no less than 拢3,560,000.00 on the recommended retail price, described by Amazon as a saving of 鈥�100 per cent鈥�.
THE Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, seems fated to suffer misnomers. We reported on 13 February that it got called the Large Hadron Colander in a London pub quiz.
Now Richard Walder tells us that there is an exhibition of artworks at the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea on the English south coast, with the theme 鈥淭he artist and the role of science in the search for the 鈥楪od particle'鈥�. It features photographs of colliders and particle smashers from around the world, one of which has this caption: 鈥淪hown here is the 27-kilometre underground tunnel on the French/Swiss border known to science as 鈥楾he Large Hardon鈥� collider鈥�. It was only a matter of time.
FROM the UK Met Office鈥檚 on 9 May: 鈥淭he Eyjafjallaj枚kull volcano in Iceland is presently erupting to a height of between 16-20,000 feet (5-6km), then heading off in a south-south-easterly direction.鈥�
Jack Harrison in Cambridgeshire, UK, is keeping a fearful watch on the north-north-westerly horizon, just in case.
Sleep report wakes up Feedback
FEEDBACK was feeling drowsy, but was woken up by a sentence in a press release from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Reporting on a study aimed at improving students鈥� sleeping habits, it said: 鈥淏y the end of the semester, students had increased their total nightly sleep time by an average of 15 minutes; and more than three-out-of-five students had started sleeping almost an hour longer.鈥�
Hang on a minute, we thought, suddenly alert. If 60 per cent of the students slept nearly an hour a night longer, why was the average for all students only 15 minutes? If nearly an hour means, say, 45 minutes, the only way the numbers work is if the 40 per cent of students who didn鈥檛 sleep nearly an hour longer actually slept an average of 30 minutes less, not more.
Something is wrong somewhere. Maybe the press officer who wrote this had had a late night.
The up-to disease strikes again
ANOTHER fine example of the 鈥渦p to鈥� obfuscation disease (24 April) is provided by Bryan Thomas. He points out that a recent copy of the New Zealand Consumer magazine noted that 鈥淯p to 500 New Zealanders fall ill with a food-borne illness every day 鈥� nearly 20,000 a year鈥�.
In fact, averaged over a year, 20,000 cases is about 55 per day. That 鈥渦p to鈥� phrase makes the sentence mathematically credible, Bryan observes 鈥� but even so it remains virtually meaningless.
FINALLY, emergency veterinarian Andy Maloney was stumped when he wanted to prescribe some Frudix diuretic tablets for a sick cat. The directions on the pack said: 鈥淒ogs and cats: One tablet per 10 kilograms once or twice a day at 8-hour intervals鈥�.
鈥淭ry as I might,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 figure out a dose that complied with the directions.鈥�