杏吧原创

Goblin is bad for your elf

READER Lucy Pumphrey tells us that her mother says her new camera works much better 鈥渂ecause it has many more pixies than her old one鈥�. Meanwhile, Lucy鈥檚 daughter is apparently excited at the discovery that 鈥渢here are millions of haemogoblins capering round the circulatory system, delivering parcels of oxygen鈥�.

As for Lucy herself, she says she gets along fine in life so long as she鈥檚 got her elf (try saying that with a cockney accent). She wonders if other Feedback readers have noticed the presence of similar 鈥渄ifferently real鈥� companions in their lives.

鈥淭he instructions for the digital barbecue-thermometer Robert Cailliau has acquired state: 鈥淭he sensible section of the probe is about 2 centimetres from the tip鈥�

What could a 鈥渂oy thingy鈥� be?

DO YOU know what a 鈥渂oy thingy鈥� is? No, we didn鈥檛 either until Keith Walters told us about the net filter used by the .

Keith was looking for information about a digital camera sold by the Australian chain Dick Smith. Not much information was available, except that the same camera was apparently also sold by an outfit called 鈥淏oy Thingy Smith鈥�.

It took a while for the penny to drop. When it did, Keith was sufficiently annoyed to email us. 鈥淭hese forum filters are getting quite ri-boy-thingy-ulous,鈥� he says. 鈥淲ho are they to boy-thingy-tate what a company is called? Whoever would have pre-boy-thingy-ted such a thing?鈥�

Sweet-smelling amusement service

ANOTHER delightful product description from China. It is for a Diezhuang air freshener purchased by Cedric Lynch. 鈥淭his production can act on the foul smell particle in the air, rapidly,鈥� Cedric learns. 鈥淚t can remove the peculiar smell鈥� making the environment is fragrant, pleasant, and the health is comfortable. It is an indispensable good merchantable brand of family, office building, hotel, type, hospital and other amusement service place.鈥�

When we run translation stories like this, we are sometimes asked: 鈥淪o how much Chinese do you know?鈥� Fair enough 鈥� but for this very reason, if we were trying to sell something in China we would make sure we got someone who can write half-decent Chinese to translate our blurb for us 鈥� without, for example, describing a hospital as an amusement service place.

How big a can can the can crusher crush?

IF YOU are looking for a can crusher to, er, crush cans with, the obvious place to start, given the manly association of can crushing with cans of beer, is . And, yes, they do have them 鈥� but the FAQ section left a colleague in need of a can crusher bemused.

The question 鈥淲ill the crusher crush 500 ml beer cans?鈥� is answered with 鈥淵es, the can crusher will crush 500 ml cans鈥�. Next comes the question: 鈥淐an it crush 440 ml cans?鈥� This time the answer is: 鈥淣o, only up to 330 ml.鈥�

3040 years battery time remaining

PLAYING on his Apple iPod Touch, Xander Wijninckx was unsettled by a battery warning that popped up on the screen. It read: 鈥�74,024,608 per cent battery remaining.鈥�

Assuming that a full battery gives 36 hours of music, as Apple asserts, he reckoned this should mean he had around 26,648,858 hours of listening time still available, or about 3040 years.

Xander wants to know what Apple makes its batteries out of. The world鈥檚 energy crisis may have already been solved.

What killed the hard drive?

WHEN he was replacing a dead hard- drive in an ageing laptop, Timothy Morel discovered the importance of keeping such components well ventilated. On , he writes that he 鈥渘oticed that the original drive had a sticker warning not to cover the ventilation hole. It was covering the ventilation hole鈥�.

Your dear friend Princess Leia

IT IS commonly believed that no matter how preposterously unlikely the propositions in so-called Nigerian scams are, the scammers succeed in making money with them because, so long as they send out enough of them, there will always be at least one sucker out there who will fall for them.

Surely, though, can there be anyone on the planet who would fall for this one, received by a colleague in the US? It begins: 鈥淒ear friend, I am Princess Leia Organa, only survivor of the royal family of Alderan鈥� I was falsely imprisoned upon the imperial battle station 鈥楧eathstar鈥� when my planet was hideously destroyed and ended by the very bad Sith Lord Vader鈥︹��

And so on, down to the usual request for assistance in transferring funds. The suspicion that this is just a joke is tempered only by the knowledge that you could say the same about all the others.

Book about discounts discounted

FINALLY, Yonatan Silver notes that Amazon has been advertising a 34 per cent discount on a book that piqued his interest. Its published price is $25.95, but when he looked it was selling online at $17.13. The book in question? It鈥檚 , in which the author, Ellen Ruppel Shell, takes a critical look at the practice of offering discounts.