RESIDENTS of Winnipeg in Canada (and doubtless elsewhere) have recently been bombarded with a for Infiniti, apparently a brand of luxury personal transport, that opens with the suggestion that: 鈥淚f no one ever challenged the status quo, the Earth would still be flat.鈥
James Daun, clearly a believer in an objective reality that exists independently of our beliefs, says he 鈥渨ould hesitate to deal with a company that believed that the Earth ever was flat鈥.
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鈥淲e know the wind in Edinburgh can be chilly 鈥 but the 24 August forecast for the Scottish capital that Chlo毛 Dear sent says 鈥淔eels: -223 掳C鈥. Oxygen sleet and nitrogen hail, then?鈥
A welcome for our dyskeuomorph overlords
WHAT, we asked, would be the properly sciency term for computer features that represent technology which is not only obsolete but broken 鈥 for example, juddering second hands and clanky camera 鈥渟hutters鈥 (13 August)? We have received a small host of suggestions. Peter Howells, noting that 鈥渢he obsolete images are iconic themselves鈥, proposes 鈥渋conicon鈥. Andy Johnson-Laird prefers 鈥渋gons鈥, the study of which would be 鈥渋gonography鈥. The word that popped into Tony Neilson鈥檚 head was 鈥渁nachricons鈥 鈥 and he thinks 鈥渢he best example is the Windows hourglass cursor鈥. It might be, if it were cracked and leaking sand鈥
While a famous web search engine turned up the first two, 鈥渁nachricon鈥 is found just once, on a page of misspellings. Before this appeared, Ian Burgess鈥檚 鈥渁tavistiglitch鈥, like Glynis Langley鈥檚 鈥渞etroplexity鈥, got no hits: so now with one they too are 鈥済ooglewhackblatts鈥 (3 April 2010).
Mary Clare Craigen proposes 鈥渁nachrospasm鈥, properly made from the Greek 鈥渁nachronismos鈥 and 鈥渟pasmenos鈥, meaning 鈥渂roken鈥. Sam Warburton literally translates our description,鈥漡ratuitously broken鈥, as 鈥渁misthyaxthesanites鈥. Predicting, as do we, that this won鈥檛 catch on, Sam also offers a crossword clue: 鈥淥incs? (6,5)鈥 鈥 answer, 鈥渂roken icons鈥.
John Dobson was the first of several to remind us of the word 鈥渟keuomorph鈥, meaning 鈥渁n object or feature copying the design of a similar artefact in another material鈥 (28 May). 鈥淲hat about broken skeuomorphs?鈥 we asked him: so 鈥渄yskeuomorphs鈥 these things are.
A SHARP-EYED proofreader pointed out that the claim by that there 鈥渁re just under 1.6 1000000000000 electricity meters installed in the universe鈥 (6 August) was made on 1 April. So we examined the site to see whether it had a seasonal sense of humour 鈥 and were immediately exhorted to install 鈥淢agnetic power generators鈥. What are they, then? 鈥淎 zero point magnetic energy generator is a machine or power generator which is very less complicated than it actually sounds to be.鈥 And very less in accordance with known physics, the more we read.
We were puzzled: what is this random collection of words for? Then we realised our web browser had hidden the advertising there.
WHEN Chris Evans bought a new car tyre at a branch of a well-known chain he was given the option, for a mere 拢1 extra, of having it inflated with nitrogen rather than air. Why? Because nitrogen 鈥渆xpands less when the tyre gets hot, so does not deform the tyre as much,鈥 they said.
Chris tells us that all 鈥渋deal鈥 gases have the same coefficient of expansion, and that the difference for actual nitrogen or oxygen 鈥渨ould be almost unnoticeable鈥. But it turns out to be a bit more complicated. We found an extensive and non-converging discussion on the urban legends website 鈥 and were slightly persuaded by one suggestion that nitrogen can drive out (some of) the water vapour in air, which can cause pressure problems.
We are rather more convinced that nitrogen makes sense in racing-car and fighter-plane tyres, given the extreme thrashing they get. So is its use in common-or-commuting cars a sort of 鈥済o-faster stripe鈥, whose only virtue is its association with 鈥渟exy鈥 and dangerous machines?
Keeping lawyers off the streets
FINALLY: another day, another computer security warning. Our correspondent Jeff Hecht downloaded the latest urgent update to Adobe鈥檚 Flash Player software. Not so urgent, though, that he could avoid clicking a box to certify that he had read and agreed to a user licence.
Sighing, he downloaded a 266-page PDF file, which opened to page 66. After eight pages of vintage legalese it turned even less comprehensible (to us), now being in Estonian. It contains texts in some 20 languages, from Arabic to Ukrainian. Presumably all have been vetted by lawyers fluent in the appropriate languages and laws.
We have to take that on trust, however, because our attempt to look at the Ukrainian version yielded only a message from Adobe鈥檚 Acrobat PDF reader: 鈥淎n error exists on this page 鈥 please contact the person who created this document.鈥 Er, that鈥檇 be you, Mr or Ms Adobe.
What function can this document serve, beyond keeping lawyers off the streets? Should it outlast our civilisation, it could provide the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone to help future linguists decipher lost languages. What future historians would conclude about us from it, we would rather not contemplate.