Crackpot product with a very long name
COULD this be the longest name ever for a crackpot product? Ian Fletcher draws our attention to the Orgone Protector Tachyon Pyramid Quartz Tesla Coil Orme, on sale on eBay for ÂŁ14.99 at . Has the Guinness Book of Records been informed?
You would expect a device with a name like that to do lots of stuff, and according to the inventor, called Suli, you wouldnât be disappointed. The OPTPQTCO is just one of Suliâs inventions that can be used to âenhance meditation, manifestation, food/water charging, eliminate toxins from food, eliminate chemtrails, align chakras, protection from radiation, achieve zen-like meditation, psychic enhancement, psychic attack protection, alien abduction protection, alien implant neutralizer, increase life force energy and many other thingsâ.
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It all sounds very impressive, especially the âalien implant neutralizerâ bit. We have to admit, though, to a twinge of disappointment that even more fruitloop words â such as âquantumâ and âmicroclustersâ and ânegative ionsâ â havenât been included in the deviceâs name. Sooner or later, no doubt, they will.
THE gesture of laying a finger on one side of the nose is intended to convey possession of inside knowledge and used to be quite common, reader Bob Millar noted (27 August). But why? We asked readers to supply an explanation.
The idea that charmed us most, even if it stretched our credulity, came from John Mulholland. In the game of charades, he claimed, there is a gesture intended to indicate that you have worked out the answer. Pointing at an eye and then at the nose gives you âeye-noseâ, which in turn suggests the words âI knowâ. Bob Millarâs nose-tapping gesture, says John, is just a âminor developmentâ of this bit of charadesâ sign language.
In addition to its charm, this explanation has the further advantage that readers who know a lot more about charades than we do will be able to confirm or deny Johnâs hypothesis. We expect to hear from them soon.
Road signs aiming to reduce noise in Victoria, Australia, read âAvoid using engine brakes when safeâ. So truck drivers can only use their engine brakes when itâs dangerous, Robert Crigan fears
Beer so acid it goes right through you
YOUR âinner biological terrainâ is at risk, according to â which asks us to âidentify various foodsâ pH-levelâ. Why would we want to do that? Presumably, so that we can combat the risk by buying the websiteâs âAlkaline recipesâ book for $4.95, or their dispenser of âalkaline water â ionized, energized, healthy!â â for $299. At least the latter is a lot cheaper than the one going for ÂŁ649 that we mentioned in our last report on alkaline water (20 August).
Perhaps, however, we should first join reader Will Kemp in observing a momentâs startled silence at the news on the site that healthy alfalfa grass has a pH of +29.3 and beer an astonishingly bad -28.6? As Will observes: âBlimey, no wonder it goes straight through you!â
Feedback asked around the New ĐÓ°ÉÔ´´ office to see whether we could work out where these numbers came from. The pH scale runs from an extreme of acidity at a value close to zero via neutral at pH 7 to extreme alkalinity at 14. Have they resurrected some obscure previous incarnation of pH to rival the modern scale? Not that we can discover, though we did en route stumble on the amusing beer-related Wikipedia factoid that the term âpHâ was âfirst introduced by Danish chemist Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen at the Carlsberg Laboratory in 1909â. Lager has a lot to answer for.
Or is making up the whole thing? âNew chemicals have,â the site assures us, âput even greater stresses on our systemâs ability to control the chemistry of our bodily fluids.â Could those be the âprecious bodily fluidsâ so fiercely preserved against Communist contamination by General Ripper in the film Dr Strangelove?
THE headline John Murrell read on the Universe Today web page at was pretty disturbing. âComet Elenin Could Be Disintegrating,â it said. John read on, taking in the distressing news that the comet has decreased in brightness since it was struck by a massive solar flare and it may not survive perihelion, its closest approach to the sun.
Then John perked up. Prominent among the content-related advertisements accompanying the article was âComet Repair Servicesâ, offering fixed price repairs for only ÂŁ125. Surely such a cost would be within the means of the worldâs space agencies, even when they are cash-strapped as so many are now. The only problem would be getting the repair people out to the comet.
AN ADVERTISEMENT for The Coin Depot in Coin World magazine offers sets of US coins in lots of 10. âEach group,â the ad announces proudly, âcontains at least 10 different dates.â
Scott Bryan wonders what the words âat leastâ are doing there.