Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Animating Shakespeare
MICROSOFT co-founder Bill Gates, his former chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold and eight of their cohorts on a way to automatically generate video from text. They say that by bringing the text to life in this way, their idea could keep students interested in what they are made to read. 鈥淪chool textbooks,鈥� they complain, 鈥渁re notorious for their dry presentation of material.鈥�
The American colleague who alerted us to this says it sounds like an animated version of the series that, in his youth, saved him and his classmates from the drudgery of reading 鈥渂oring鈥� original tomes in English class. Hollywood has, of course, also brought the classics to life from time to time 鈥� with decidedly mixed results.
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Now Gates, Myhrvold and collaborators want to turn the task over to computers. Just select the text on screen, they say, and the machine will interpret and animate the scene without anyone having to argue about what the characters should look like.
Whether this really could be a useful study aid is open to question, but in any case we suspect that study is not what the invention will be primarily used for. As the tech news website notes, a student reading Shakespeare could scan a section of text to create a video depicting that scene. This, Gates and colleagues say, could 鈥渕ake the assignment more interesting鈥�, but then they add that the system could be set to 鈥渋nsert family members into the video clip instead of the typical characters鈥�.
Suddenly it all makes sense. This innovation isn鈥檛 about study at all, but about having fun at the expense of family and friends.
Attached to David Waltner-Toews鈥檚 email, headed 鈥淓xtreme Weight Loss鈥�, is a photo of a sign spotted near Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. It reads: 鈥淟ose all your weight for $5
Disappearing women
STARTLING news reaches us through an advert in the June issue of Scientific American: 鈥淗eart disease is still the No 1 killer of women, taking the life of 1 in 3 women each year.鈥�
Feedback reader Charles Wright concludes that we will 鈥渉ave to prepare for the extinction of the human species within a very few decades.鈥� Ernie Dewing wonders how long this has been going on, and asks, 鈥淗ow come there seem to be so many left?鈥�
Infinity in a computer
READER Carl Samuelson is excited by the thought that he may have discovered infinity. He was writing computer code in Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 when he encountered this warning: 鈥淲hen casting from a number, the value must be less than infinity.鈥�
His first thought was that this must be the world鈥檚 least helpful error message, as surely any value he came up with would be less than infinity. On reflection, he concluded that the software is 鈥渜uite particular and serious, and would only make that suggestion if it thought I had actually discovered that really big number that is infinity.鈥�
Carl says he is proud of his computer鈥檚 16 gigabytes of memory, but never dreamed that infinity could fit into it. Now he can鈥檛 help but wonder what happens if he adds 1 to it.
An equally curious Feedback asked around. We learned that the result would be 鈥渋nfinity鈥� 鈥� but the reason, although not infinitely long, will not fit into this space.
One-sided agreement
RICHARD NORMAN, director of savings and investments at reader Rob Waldron鈥檚 bank, wrote to tell him: 鈥淚t has come to our attention that we did not inform you of some important changes to your Premier Cash ISA Agreement. The Key Features and Terms and Conditions that you received when you applied for your ISA鈥� form the Agreement between you and us. The enclosed leaflet provides a summary of all the changes鈥︹��
鈥淚t seems strange to me,鈥� says Rob, 鈥渢hat this company has announced that it has unilaterally changed my Agreement 鈥� and, having changed it, has simply assumed that I will accept the changes.鈥�
We think it is strange too. But that鈥檚 because we think of the word 鈥渁greement鈥� as involving two or more parties concurring on something, rather than one party imposing its will on the others.
Linguistic choice
INSTALLING a toilet flush system at home in Binbrook, Ontario, Canada, Rob Roy was intrigued to observe an example of the effects of different languages on content.
The English-language instructions suggested, in pictures, that the 鈥渢ools needed鈥� were a bucket, a sponge, scissors and a wrench. The French speakers, on the other hand, were told that the 鈥�outils nec茅ssaires鈥� were a bucket, a sponge, scissors and a hammer.
Danger of boiled water
FINALLY, while waiting for the kettle to boil, Paul Ockenden found himself studying the instructions on a packet of Marks and Spencer tea bags. Among them was this warning: 鈥淯se only freshly boiled water as reboiled water has lost its oxygen.鈥�
鈥淚sn鈥檛 a kettle full of hydrogen somewhat dangerous?鈥� he asks.