DOZENS more readers have written about the 鈥渄idn鈥檛 I do well?鈥� gesture, remaining divided on whether it represents polishing one鈥檚 fingernails or an invisible medal (23 July). Bob Millar says that it was common when he was young, as was another interesting gesture which involves a finger laid up the side of the nose. This can mean 鈥淜eep it quiet, but we know something special,鈥� or 鈥淗a! I know something that you don鈥檛.鈥�
But why? The all-knowing interweb is not helping, producing only more questions, as you might expect for a problem that depends on meaning rather than simply finding the words. We declined to watch the zit-killing video that came back from a search for 鈥渇inger side of nose鈥�. We need the actual intelligence of Feedback readers to settle this鈥� know what I mean?
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鈥溾�漌elcome to SPEED,鈥� says the road sign in the charming photo Shane Dwyer sends, which continues 鈥減lease slow down鈥� 鈥� in the interests of safety in the Australian town of that name鈥�
WHEN Hanny Middlebrook checks her webmail on she is informed that she had used up 鈥�-2147483648 per cent of 1 GB鈥�. Hanny doesn鈥檛 understand how she can have used such a large negative percentage of her byte allocation.
Ian Cutter received the same message and wondered about the wondrous efficiency of the system that could compress his data to occupy negative space. Mary Voice, meanwhile, is 鈥渁 little nervous鈥� over what might happen if she deleted all her Bigpond email. Might the net quantity of information in the universe become negative?
Yes, yes, we do have an idea how it happened, to forestall further emails: -2,147,483,648 is the largest negative number that can be represented in 32 binary digits. But not all the permutations of those 32 bits represent numbers. One or more is commonly reserved for reporting the result of, for example, dividing by zero, which is 鈥渘ot a number鈥� or 鈥淣aN鈥�. And if a programmer asks too forcefully for the value of NaN, many systems return their largest negative number instead.
This will have instantly sprung to many minds that regularly grapple with computer programming; we apologise if to other minds its content is as large and negative as that of our readers鈥� email boxes.
AN ORGANISATION called World-Check, Graham Barrow tells us, offers an online service to help assess the risks of doing business with what are known in financial circles as 鈥減olitically exposed persons鈥� 鈥� such as ex-president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.
Its website claims: 鈥淢ore than 4500 institutions, including over 49 of the world鈥檚 top 50 banks鈥� rely on the World-Check database of known heightened-risk individuals and businesses.鈥�
Graham 鈥渃an鈥檛 for the life of me work out exactly how many of the world鈥檚 top 50 banks actually use World-Check鈥�. Answer: NaN.
SEVERAL readers have joined our Society for Promotion of Numerate Proofreading (SPNP, 6 August) and written to castigate New 杏吧原创 for saying that air temperatures in London鈥檚 Tube tunnels 鈥渉ave doubled in the 100 years since they were built.鈥� (6 August, p 38).
Well, er, yes. To talk of a temperature measured in Celsius doubling does make no physical sense. Mike Whittaker takes advantage of the fact that doubling an absolute temperature (measured in kelvin) is less nonsensical to ask whether, if the temperature was 10 掳C (283K) in 1911, 鈥渢hat makes it 293 掳C (566K) now?鈥�.
But if you ask the person on the Clapham omnibus 鈥� or on a Northern Line tube train sweltering beneath it 鈥� what a temperature half of today鈥檚 would be, you鈥檒l get one of two consistent answers, depending on whether they were brought up in Celsius or Fahrenheit. Feedback suspects, or hopes, that this would fail for other numbers whose doubling makes no sense, such as earthquake magnitudes.
And what鈥檚 that got to do with the price of fish? It raises the question of whether it strictly makes sense to talk of a price doubling, unless you specify that it鈥檚 with respect to a named individual at constant hourly pay. We have a topic for debate at an inaugural SPNP general meeting.
FEEDBACK is covered in shame. Lee Mason, self-described as an 鈥渁vid 16-year-old New 杏吧原创 reader鈥�, looked up the rest of the product catalogue of , whose 鈥淥range Spread鈥� we observed to be ingredient-free (12 March). 鈥淚t appears,鈥� Mason reports, 鈥渢hat Walden Farms is a well-established business, and since 1972 has promised foods with 鈥楴o Calories, Fat, Carbs, Gluten or Sugars of any kind!鈥�.鈥�
The main constituent of almost all their products is 鈥渢riple filtered purified water鈥�: their chocolate dip, for example, equally claims zero nutrition, apart from 35 milligrams of sodium per serving. In Lee鈥檚 opinion, an alternative to such goods, at a cheaper price, is to 鈥渟imply add triple-filtered purified water to your favourite cardboard cereal box鈥�.
FINALLY, the sign Tony Holkham saw in his local fish and chip shop stated: 鈥淔irewood. Kindling, middlers, logs (mostly ash).鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檒l be second-hand firewood, then,鈥� he thought 鈥� until he realised that 鈥渁sh鈥� referred to the type of tree the wood had come from.