(Image: Paul McDevitt)
Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
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Burger bomber
LAST week Feedback asked readers for THISPs 鈥� Truly Horrible Ideas for Saving the Planet. Little did we know how soon our request would be fulfilled. Enter the 鈥淲hopper Dropper鈥�, the latest effort by the technological wunderkinds of Silicon Valley to address the stark inequality that plagues San Francisco.
On this occasion, the film-makers felt they could make a heart-warming viral video by delivering burgers to destitute city dwellers using a 拢1000 drone ().
Unsurprisingly, many viewers were left incensed rather than heart-warmed by long-distance footage of cheap burgers being cast at the feet of impoverished citizens by a flying robot, a delivery mechanism suggestive of a fear that poverty might be contagious. Please readers, keep your THISPs theoretical!
At Queenscliff Caravan Park, Shane Dwyer is told: 鈥淭he hot water is provided by an instantaneous hot water service. Please note the hot water may take up to 5 minutes to come through.鈥�
Fire in fairy-tale town
IN OTHER Californian drone news, Feedback鈥檚 attention is captured by from The Stanford Daily: 鈥淔ire in Lake Lagunita causes evacuations in Narnia, Enchanted Broccoli Forest鈥�. Further reading reveals that a model aircraft flown by Stanford University students crashed by the dry lakebed, igniting a brief grass fire. There were no reports from the Palo Alto Fire Department of any injuries to humans or fairy-tale creatures: the evacuations were from two whimsically titled university dormitories.
Damning praise
FEEDBACK is excited to get hold of a copy of Mind Change, the latest clarion call in Susan Greenfield鈥檚 ongoing campaign against the perils of digital technology. Sadly, however, we have been too distracted by said technology to read it.
One should, of course, never judge a book by its cover. But we cannot resist drawing your attention to the endorsement written thereon: 鈥淏ritain鈥檚 best known neuroscientist鈥�, referencing The Guardian as source.
We cannot find this quote anywhere on The Guardian鈥榮 website, but the top search result credits it to rival The Telegraph, underneath the unflattering headline: 鈥溾��. The article discusses Greenfield鈥檚 precipitous stint at the helm of the Royal Institution 鈥� a posting that is strangely absent from the epigraph printed inside the cover of Mind Change. Feedback promises to delve deeper into the book, just as soon as we clear our inbox鈥�
Formula for success
M&C Saatchi recently announced the discovery of the 鈥渉oly grail鈥� of marketing 鈥� a jumble of unexplained algebra that the advertising giant claimed was Newtonian in its gravity (11 July). However, Graham Hodgson writes to explain that the formula is an open book.
He says Saatchi鈥檚 Newtonian equation, y = ae办(位鈦勎�), uses the lower-case Greek letters lambda and xi to separate arts from science. Because lambda is sometimes used in graphic design to represent a stylised A, it is not too far-fetched to presume that Saatchi intends this to stand for arts, whereas xi (pronounced ksi) obviously stands for science. Art is the ability to create facts, not all of them true, and science the ability to explain facts while disproving the false ones.
Thus, Graham concludes, the equation represents marketing鈥檚 business model: as long as facts can be created faster than science can disprove them, marketing鈥檚 profitability grows exponentially. Hallelujah!
Polar power point
MARK Pajak is in the dark over how to comply with the instructions supplied with his pack of solar-powered lights. When charging the batteries for the first time, he is advised to 鈥減lace the solar panel in direct sunlight for 24 hours鈥�. Leaving aside the logistical challenges presented by that request, Feedback wonders why anyone with 24 hours of sunlight would need additional lights.
Juice booster
ALSO caught in a power struggle is Londoner Robin Lee, who was for 鈥渁bstracting electricity鈥� after charging his phone on a London Overground train by plugging it into a socket marked for the exclusive use of train cleaners.
Feedback is shocked to learn that the offence carries a maximum sentence of five years in the UK, and wonders whether we ought to ground ourselves before leaving commercial premises to avoid inadvertently abstracting a cloud of static electricity. Robin, meanwhile, has been sent home while the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether he should be, er, charged.
Evolutionary loop
MUPHRY鈥橲 Law strikes again: gripping tightly to the tail of popular trend, The Huffington Post that 鈥淛urassic World Dinosaur Inaccuracies Are Making Paleontologists Mad鈥�. The article takes delight in spelling out some of the summer blockbuster鈥檚 more egregious flights of fancy, only to add a few of its own for good measure.
In a surprising turn of events, the HuffPo declares that 鈥渞ecent research indicates dinosaurs are the descendants of birds and that the majority boasted a plumage of sorts鈥�, before going on to describe the time-travelling creatures as mammals.