QUACKS selling 鈥渃urative鈥 water tend to claim it has any or all of three amazing qualities 鈥 and the alkaline water that Mark Dodds and Eddy van Zimmer found promoted by Life Ionizers at advances all three (30 July) in spoonfuls.
The first is that it can apparently 鈥渘eutralize the acidity of the body caused by stress, modern diet, air pollution, and many bottled waters鈥. Secondly, because it is 鈥渘egatively charged鈥 it 鈥渋mproves body function by cleaning your cells from the inside out鈥. And lastly its 鈥渋onization鈥, we are told, 鈥渂reaks clusters of water molecules into smaller micro-clusters鈥 Smaller clusters pass through cell walls more easily and hydrate the cells more quickly.鈥
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Handily, Life Ionizers sell water ionisers and water filters 鈥 a mere 拢649 for the least expensive counter-top model. Or you could turn on the tap.
It鈥檚 time to add 鈥減H balance鈥, 鈥渘eutralising acidity鈥, 鈥渘egative ions鈥 and the like, along with 鈥渕icroclusters鈥 and 鈥渃ellular hydration鈥, to our lexicon of fruitloopery indicators. Like 鈥渜uantum鈥, 鈥渇ar infrared鈥 and 鈥渧ibrational鈥, these may have meaning in science but are content-free in product pitches.
鈥淧ackets for Weetabix Mini breakfast cereal sold in joined-up Europe claim to contain 鈥渁t least 100% recycled fibres鈥. John Rogers is as impressed by this as the 鈥淣ew recipe 鈥 Original鈥 formulation鈥
A new dimension in theme-park horror
A BILLBOARD beside London Bridge railway station advertising the latest attraction in the London Dungeon, a spooky theme park in the arches beneath, reads: 鈥淭he Ride of Your Afterlife: UK鈥檚 First 5D Laser Ride.鈥
Malcolm Bacchus wonders whether the proprietors 鈥渉ave managed to uncurl one of the hidden dimensions required by M-Brane theory鈥. Or, slightly more simply, the fifth dimension posited in 1921 by Theodor Kaluza (Instant Expert: The theory of everything, 4 June). Either way, 鈥渢he ride might be quite thrilling, but a rather terminal introduction to one鈥檚 afterlife,鈥 Malcolm suggests.
It鈥檚 not the humidity, it鈥檚 the heat
TEMPERATURES in the north-eastern US were high recently 鈥 but surely not as high as reported in the 22 July that Olivier Dessibourg sent us. 鈥淭he extreme heat,鈥 it reports, 鈥渋s only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point鈥 Boston鈥檚 99 degrees on Friday could feel like 105 degrees; Philadelphia鈥檚 102 degrees like 114.鈥
Is the NASA engineer who mixed up imperial and metric units embarking on a new career in journalism? Fellow reader Kevin Ives asks: 鈥淲hat boils at 100 掳F?鈥 A quick search gives us (37 掳C, say most). 鈥淎nd why,鈥 he adds, 鈥渨ould that be relevant information in a weather bulletin?鈥 Pass.
HAVING spent 15 years working as a futures broker, Brendan Hillary is in a reasonable position to comment on the 鈥渃andlestick patterns鈥, used by colleagues to predict price movements, which so puzzled us (14 May) 鈥 even after we had the explanation that they plot the high and low prices of a stock or currency, overlaid by a rectangle depicting the opening and closing prices (23 July).
The patterns are attributed, Hillary reports, to a wealthy 18th-century Japanese rice trader called Munehisa Homma, also known as Sokyu Honma. 鈥淲hile his success in trading is perhaps a function of these charts,鈥 Hillary observes drily, 鈥渋t probably had more to do with the fact he paid for a chain of men to stand on rooftops and use flag signals to send information in code about growing conditions, weather, local prices and other inside information real-time from the growing fields many hundreds of miles away.鈥 Outsider trading, as it were.
An American trader, Steve Nison, popularised the candlestick trading method in the 1990s. 鈥淣eed I say more?鈥 asks Hillary. We pondered that, and discovered Nison selling a 鈥淢egaPackage鈥 of 15 or more DVDs at , reduced from $3865 to $1490, with testimonials in the excitable typography of which Feedback has become a reluctant connoisseur. Unfortunately no semaphore flags are included, that we can see.
MEANWHILE Simon Raggett has another bibliographic plea, following that which elucidated chimps鈥 trading performance (25 June). He fondly recalls the days before traders stared at charts in darkened rooms: 鈥淪erious investors perused accounts and economic trends, and lunched with company officials.鈥
The 鈥渃hartists鈥 were 鈥渋nvariably derided by most professional investors,鈥 he says, 鈥渂eing compared to astrology鈥.
He adds that 鈥渁 study of investment performance showed that investment recommendations by astrologers outperformed those of the serious and seriously remunerated investors.鈥
Feedback has made a fairly serious attempt to track down this study, and failed. Can readers help? Finding it may not, however, assist with the current interesting state of the markets, especially if, as Raggett recalls, chimpanzees, real or simulated, 鈥渟till outperformed the astrologers鈥.
FINALLY, Jupiter is an impressive planet, but is it as unusual as ? When covering the Juno mission to the gas giant, on 28 July, it wrote: 鈥淲ith its fiery red eye and a mass greater than all the objects in the universe combined鈥︹