WORRIED that time spent in front of a computer screen is damaging your children鈥檚 health? You may want to think twice, then, before encouraging them to join the latest wheeze from the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute鈥檚 鈥淲e can!鈥� initiative.
It aims to promote 鈥渉ealthy eating, increased physical activity, and reduced screen time鈥�. And how does it aim to do that? Why, by encouraging children to visit a famous social networking site, and to vote for their favourite entry in the project鈥檚 first video contest ().
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Jane Kauer particularly likes the surely ironic injunction to watch all nine videos. Even better is the plea to 鈥渟hare the videos with your friends and family and encourage them to vote鈥� 鈥� 鈥渋nstead of, presumably, getting away from their screens,鈥� as Jane says, 鈥渁nd going for a walk鈥�.
鈥淭he UK鈥檚 Department of Energy and Climate Change a 鈥渄aft strategy鈥� for electricity microgeneration. 鈥淎 bit too close to the truth鈥�, says our anonymous tipster鈥�
Why is this physicist like a frog?
NO SUCH worries for Anthony Burton, who has been spending time at his computer enjoying a well-known word processor鈥檚 suggestions on spelling famous scientists鈥� names. Our version gives several accepted spellings of Dimitri Mendeleyev鈥檚 surname, but his suggests 鈥淢inelayer鈥� 鈥� oddly appropriate considering what his periodic table did to notions of matter. Quantum physicist Louis de Broglie comes up as a less fitting 鈥淔roglike鈥�.
Search function with a blind spot
WINDOWS 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, is generally agreed to be pretty good. But Feedback has fallen foul of a serious oddity. Its search function, which can rapidly find keywords buried inside thousands of documents stored on a hard disc, has a disagreeable foible: it ignores the content of some files. For example, if the part after the dot at the end of a file name 鈥� the 鈥渆xtension鈥� 鈥� is 鈥淒OC鈥� and the file was not created by Microsoft Word, the search skips it.
Website forums bristle with . So Feedback asked a senior manager, who looked worried and promised to investigate, but after two weeks clammed up and referred us to a press spokescreature, who referred us to the support team in India. There followed 6 hours over two days spent trapped on the phone while an engineer remotely tampered with the PC, asking questions like 鈥淲hat word processor do you use now?鈥�
Finally, after two weeks鈥� consultation with Microsoft in the US, the engineer phoned to agree that the problem does indeed exist. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not a fault,鈥� he insisted. So what is it 鈥� a feature?
Lacking actual help from Microsoft, by trial and error Feedback found a fix. Make copies of the old files, with 鈥�.TXT鈥� as their extension, and Windows 7 will happily search these. The quickest tool for this copying is probably the , typed at the blinking, scary, 1980s-flavoured command-line prompt.
TRAVELLING on a Eurostar Italia train (not to be confused with the branch-line service linking London to continental Europe), Marc Smith-Evans was delighted to see how far precision engineering has come: at the end of the carriage a display showed that the internal temperature was 22.000000 掳C. Clearly, his comfort is important to Italian railways 鈥� to the nearest microdegree.
Record-breaking nested acronyms
TOPPING our examples of very deep multiple nesting of acronyms and initialisms (10 July), Henry Bainbridge has come across a record-breaking five-deep example. The is, it turns out, a TDIF Expansion Board, in which TDIF is the Tascam Digital Interconnect Format, in which TASCAM is TASC America Corporation, and TASC is TEAC Audio Systems Corporation and TEAC is the Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company. 鈥淚t made my day,鈥� Henry says. 鈥淚t was very boring until then, as you can imagine.鈥�
ALARMINGLY, a large banner recently on display outside Ianthe Maclagan鈥檚 local Co-operative Society grocery store in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, UK, declared: 鈥淲e ensure the views of our members reflect the way we run our society鈥�. She wondered how they do that. Her son suggests it鈥檚 some stuff they put in the milk.
INSPIRED by our mention of the signposted assertion that 鈥渇alling rocks do not stop鈥� (12 June), Richard Sutcliffe reports that his favourite road sign, displayed widely in the mountains of Colorado, is 鈥淚cy conditions may exist鈥�. He suggests this should be followed by 鈥淣ext philosopher 500 miles鈥�.
This reminds Feedback of hours on the US freeway network spent pondering how the common sign 鈥淏ridge freezes before road鈥� could be translated into the pictographic form used of warning signs in the rest of the world.
FINALLY, another strange sign is recalled by Peter Toye, who saw it on a tradesman鈥檚 premises in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK: 鈥淧ractical Chimney Sweep鈥�. His father wondered what a theoretical chimney sweep did.
Feedback fears the implications may be more sinister. The term 鈥減ractical mason鈥� is, we are told, used by Freemasons to designate masons who actually shape stone. So is there a secret society of impractical sweeps? If there is, the secret has clearly been so well kept that the first question, before 鈥渁nd do they rule the world?鈥� would have to be 鈥渉ow could we tell?鈥�