Terror of the targeted army bands
THE field manual for the US army鈥檚 music bands has been leaked to , the blog by Steven Aftergood published by the Federation of American 杏吧原创s as part of its Project on Government Secrecy.
Army bands, which Aftergood says are known to some as 鈥渕usic performance teams鈥�, are the subject of a newly updated field manual dated 7 July 2010. This states: 鈥淏ands provide music for ceremonial and morale support within full spectrum operations to sustain warriors and to inspire leaders鈥� Army bands of the 21st century are organized, trained, and equipped to conduct concurrent operations in supporting multiple objectives with targeted musical styles.鈥�
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Sadly, we are not told any more about these musical styles or who they are targeted at, so we will never know if, for example, a medley of tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan operas is the US army鈥檚 chosen musical style to strike fear into the hearts of certain types of enemy. But then again, perhaps that particular choice would contravene the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.
鈥淟ast month, the online astronomy magazine Universe Today ran two images of the planet Jupiter captioned with the instruction 鈥淐lick for full size鈥�. 鈥淒o I dare?鈥� asks Jenny Narraway鈥�
This product does not contain camel dung
LYLE鈥橲 Golden Syrup may need some explanation for readers outside the UK. It is made entirely from cane sugar 鈥� 鈥減artially inverted鈥� to convert some of the sucrose to fructose and glucose 鈥� so its makers are not required to list ingredients. Despite attempts to sell it in modern plastic bottles, many consumers still insist on buying the traditional tinplate can with a rather wonderful . Some English people put it, sacrilegiously, on porridge, which any Scot will tell you should only be seasoned with salt.
Recently, the classic design has been tweaked to add the information that the contents are 鈥渟uitable for vegetarians鈥� and 鈥済luten-free鈥�. Feedback can foresee a rich seam of food marketing claims stemming from this. This particular product is also free 鈥� just to make a start on the list 鈥� of salt, cholesterol, lactose, nuts, deadly nightshade and camel droppings 鈥� except, perhaps, in homeopathic doses.
FEEDBACK has proposed the hypothesis that out-of-context use of the word 鈥渜uantum鈥� is a guaranteed indicator of fruitloopery (see 10 June 2006 issue, and many more). But in the light of new evidence, we find ourselves mired in uncertainty.
William Bains, formerly a member of the editorial board of Medical Hypotheses (owned by New 杏吧原创鈥榮 parent company Reed Elsevier), and now editor of Hypotheses in the Life Sciences, writes to alert us to the existence at of a fully peer-reviewed quarterly, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Neuroscience and Quantum Physics. The current issue, when we looked, opens with an editorial entitled 鈥淲hat neuroquantology is up against: deconstruction of a negative editorial鈥�, and includes such learned contributions as 鈥淣ear death experiences: a new algorithmic approach to verifying consciousness outside the brain鈥� and 鈥淣on local effects in the process of dying: can quantum mechanics help?鈥�
Not being among the peers of the contributing researchers, we borrow the words of philosopher : 鈥淲hereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.鈥�
Let鈥檚 have that in gigadollars
UNUSUAL units are all very well as fodder for Feedback, but what of the units that should be more usual than they are?
Journalists grasping for a way to convey a sense of a 750-tonne pile of plastic wrapping may be forgiven for translating it into blue whales (17 July). But politicians and their officials routinely expect the public to comprehend currency in hundreds of thousands of millions of units.
Peter Banks, while watching yet another TV news report based on the massive numbers involved in big banking, asked himself 鈥� and us 鈥� 鈥淲hy do they not use Syst猫me Internationale (SI) prefixes?鈥� Feedback, too, likes the idea of economics reporters announcing the UK budget deficit in gigapounds, global trade in teraeuros, and so on. 鈥淪urely,鈥� he concludes, 鈥渢his would be a more economic way to talk: time is money, as you know.鈥�
KEEN to share the footage shot with his new Canon Vixia HF200 camcorder, Steve Wood plugged it into his computer. Click, whirr鈥� and a message appeared in the viewfinder: 鈥淒o not disconnect the USB cable or the power source while the camcorder is connected to a computer.鈥� Which would be now 鈥� and, logically, forever. Steve鈥檚 friends can now expect to receive lots of exciting moving pictures of him, er, sitting at his computer.
FINALLY, the upgrade to Andy Best鈥檚 Norton home security software automatically sets up renewals that he can cancel online if he wants to. The suggested method of doing this is causing him problems, though. Norton told him: 鈥淵ou may cancel the automatic renewal feature of Norton Ongoing Protection at any time by singing into your Norton Account at .鈥� Andy is worried. His PC doesn鈥檛 have a microphone, and anyway, he can barely remember any tunes.