Letters : . . . . .
moulsley@prl.research.philips. com
Thousands of people subscribe to New 杏吧原创 and therefore get
their copy of the magazine by post. So considering the number of people and
premium bonds involved, the probability of these events coinciding is high.
Letters : Sax in the sky
Colchester, Essex
Luis Miguel Ariza raises the interesting prospect of a new generation of home
keyboards which, in addition to sounding like pianos, trumpets, zithers, or
saxophones, will have a new set of keys marked Eddie Calvert, Mantovani, Jimi
Hendrix, or, yes, Charlie Parker
(This Week, 14 February, p 13).
With these, our own modest contribution to the musical firmament will sound
just like our heroes did. But would this not be in breach of the aforesaid
heroes’ intellectual property rights? Who actually owns Bird’s unique sound?
Meanwhile, lodged in that great sax section in the sky, and appraised of the
latest contents of your august organ, Bird himself will be spinning a great deal
faster than those scratchy old 78s on which his masterpieces were recorded and
which will always render the discerning listener more subtlety than any
smart-arsed algorithm.
Letters : Fund thyself
J.R.Gribbin@sussex.ac.uk
Stephen Westwood has displayed just the kind of sloppy approach to research
that I commented on in my review of Tricks of the Trade
(Letters, 31 January, p 50).
I do not, alas, have “a place at the funding trough”. I am one
of the increasing number of self-supporting researchers, and actually do my
research during the “tea breaks” from my paid work.
Letters : Digital ownership
Chichester, West Sussex
Mark Ward’s item about the removal of digital watermarks from images raises
an interesting point
(This Week, 31 January, p 8).
No scheme for watermarking any type of material can be guaranteed proof
against a concerted attempt to remove it. However, since the World Intellectual
Property Organisation’s diplomatic conference in Geneva in December 1996, the
removal of any electronic rights management information (including watermarks)
from a digital file has been illegal. It is, in effect, an infringement of the
owner’s copyright to the combined item: the file and the included watermark.
Incorporation of a watermark will probably become one element in the fight
against piracy. When used in conjunction with other devices, such as the
“embossing” already imprinted on sample digital images by certain picture
agencies, it may eventually ensure that the costs (in time, energy and money) of
removing copyright protection become greater than a reproduction fee.
We might even reach the stage where any image without a watermark would be
regarded as a potential violation of copyright.
Letters : Breaking the spiral
95 or even 98 cheers for Barry Fox. It is most encouraging that he should
deal the “emperor has no clothes” card on the crazy hardware/software inflation
spiral
(Forum, 31 January, p 46).
There is increasing evidence of a recognition from Microsoft that millions of
people will continue to use so-called legacy systems. For example, recently they
have released code to make File Manager in Windows 3.1 year 2000 compliant. They
have succumbed to pressure and now provide filters to convert between the later
and earlier revisions of their Office suite. And their NT5 system will be able
to act as a Windows timesharing engine, serving Windows screens to the most
humble hardware across corporate networks, and maybe in the future into people’s
homes via cable modems or asynchronous digital subscriber loop telephone
technology.
When software in the domestic environment is bought on a monthly basis,
rather than purchased outright or pirated, then the vicious upgrade circle can
be broken or at least tempered.
Letters : Real danger
srcott@keys.4ez.com
The warning about women using Finasteride needs to be taken seriously
(Feedback, 31 January).
A side effect of Finasteride is that it causes hair
growth more effectively than anything else available. Women might be tempted to
use it for that purpose.
The information leaflet provided with Proscar, the commercial name for
Finasteride, warns women not even to handle broken tablets as catastrophic birth
defects may result from any contact with the drug.
Letters : Down the tube
Wellington, New Zealand
I noted with interest the report about future explorers of Mars using
inflatable tube shelters
(This Week, 24 January, p 16).
It occurred to me that the four vast shield volcanoes on the Tharsis Plateau
could provide accommodation. All the mountains are made of basalt, and they
should be well endowed with lava tubes. Given the enormous scale of the shields
(each is hundreds of kilometres across) the tubes should run for scores of
kilometres before petering out.
Also, given the lesser gravity of Mars, there may be several superimposed
layers of lava tubes, all held up by the strength of the basaltic rock.
Entering these lava-tube caves should present no more problem than it does on
Earth. All that would be required for successful habitation would be an airlock
to the outside and bulkheads every 50 to 100 metres. In the event of an
accident, the affected section could be sealed off and repaired.
The use of lava caves for accommodation would have the advantage of providing
a city’s worth of interior space and almost limitless scope for future
expansion. It would take years to fully utilise all the available space in the
flanks of even one Tharsis massif.
Letters : . . . . .
simonb@se-ltd.demon.co.uk
Given that Ian Stewart, Lafferty and myself have each calculated a different
probability of a perfect deal (I reckon 3.38 billion to 1), what is the
probability of someone calculating the probability of any event correctly?
Letters : Riffle shuffle
Oxford
George Lafferty raises the question of chicanery or other explanations for
perfect deals at bridge
(Letters, 7 February, p 52).
Coincidentally, a few weeks ago the British media carried credulous stories
about four whist players who had been dealt a suit each at a club in Suffolk.
The stories came complete with photos and gee-whizz lists of the odds against
this and other unlikely events.
Ironically, the stories themselves gave clues as to how it probably happened.
They stated that the pack used was new, and that it was shuffled twice and cut
once.
New packs often come with the cards in suit order, for example
SS…SHH…H鈥擠D…DCC…C. If this pack is split exactly in the middle,
indicated by the dash, and the two halves are interleaved in a perfect riffle
shuffle, we get SDSD…SD鈥擧CHC…HC. Do this again, and we have
SHDC….SHDC. When dealt, the players have one suit each. The final cut simply
determines who has trumps.
It is not easy to perform a perfect riffle shuffle. Nevertheless, it is much
more likely that the deal happened this way than purely at random.
Letters : Rats and road rage
Farnham, Surrey
At a certain critical density and rate of flow, turbulence sets in. I
remember reading that if some animals (I think it was rats) are confined ever
more closely in a cage, they change their behaviour totally and become violent
at a “critical density”. Are these facts related, in that the rats are
exhibiting a “phase change”?
Is it possible that road rage is a manifestation of the same thing?
Certainly, at a certain critical density of traffic, there is a sudden onset of
turbulence in the flow: which is why a speed limit, by smoothing out the flow,
can actually increase the number of vehicles that the road can carry. But could
it be that there is a point when drivers tend to change their behaviour, and
that this is connected with the density of the traffic?
What interests me is that sometimes people who are normally fairly calm and
controlled suddenly seem to go berserk. Are there any figures available which
would enable one to analyse the incidence of road rage against traffic
density?
Of course, if there is such a connection, then the way to delay the onset of
road rage would be to encourage drivers to behave as though there were no other
traffic on the road鈥攂ut perhaps many of them have anticipated my
conclusion.
Letters : Irish initiative
We are writing to offer an alternative view on the so-called Irish initiative
which, according to Kieran Mulvaney, should be embraced by environmentalists
(Forum, 24 January, p 47).
Mulvaney glosses over some of the very real implications such an initiative
might have for whale populations worldwide. For example, there is no indication
at the moment that whaling in coastal waters would be restricted to Norway and
Japan. And what is the definition of coastal whaling? The International Whaling
Commission (IWC) has interpreted this as 200 kilometres from a country’s
coastline, an area which potentially covers some 40 per cent of the world’s
oceans if all countries start whaling. Opening up such an area, which
encompasses critical breeding and calving areas for whales, to whaling does not
seem a very precautionary option for conserving stocks.
Similarly, what is meant by the term “local consumption”? If Norway were to
join the European Union, would “local” apply to all EU member countries, given
the union’s lack of trade barriers?
How can an international treaty legally limit whaling to two of the richest
IWC member countries (Norway and Japan), when other economically less privileged
countries would doubtless welcome the opportunity to lethally exploit whale
populations?
What Mulvaney also fails to mention are the original reasons why the IWC
adopted the present moratorium on commercial whaling. These were failure of
management, depletion of whale stocks and the cruelty of killing whales. The
situation has changed little in the intervening 15 years.
First, the revised management scheme to which Mulvaney refers has, to date,
offered little more than the whaling nations policing themselves. Given the past
history of smuggling this seems more than a little unacceptable. Second, the
comprehensive assessment of the effects of the moratorium, which was agreed by
the IWC, has yet to occur.
And third, whaling remains undeniably cruel, with only 30 per cent of animals
dying instantly in Japanese whaling operations and 60 per cent in Norwegian
operations.
The Irish initiative supposedly offers the prospect of an end to
international trade and scientific whaling. Both of these objectives are shared
by environmental organisations. However, the Irish initiative fails to indicate
how these objectives might be achieved legally by the IWC and it will ultimately
deliver a return to legitimised whaling.
At a time when we are only now realising the adverse impact of many human
activities on the marine environment, we believe that the conservation and
protection of marine species is best served by a precautionary approach,
something which the Irish initiative is not.
Letters : Safety second
Leeds
When considering the ethics of what treatments should be offered at fertility
clinics, safety and efficacy should not be the primary concerns
(Editorial, 31 January, p 3).
The range of activities permissible should be prescribed by legislation
before we find out what can be done, especially given the limited nature of
public funds. Safety and efficacy are necessary but not sufficient criteria on
which to judge the relative merits of any proposed research: gas chambers were
without doubt efficient, and were safe for their operatives, but research to
improve these factors would not be countenanced by the sane.
The argument that research will go underground if it is outlawed will not
wash because if something is wrong then it cannot be allowed to occur
legally鈥攗nderground operations are matters that should be dealt with in
the enforcement of the law, not in its drafting.
The tone of the editorial seems to suggest that if there are no biological
risks to those involved in the fertility treatment then the ends will justify
the means and a couple’s “right to procreate” will win over the public when the
“yuck” factor has been overcome.
Regarding the scientific issues at stake, the pure research of evolutionary
biologists could have informed the IVF clinics all along that ICSI
(intracytoplasmic sperm injection, in which solitary immobile sperm are injected
into an egg) would probably lead to deformities. This is because the female
reproductive tract acts like a filter of the ejaculate and if a sperm cannot
make this journey, then almost by definition it is likely to be a bad sperm.
Letters : Chimp criterion
Kooyong, Victoria, Australia
If the criterion for distinguishing humans from chimpanzees is the ability to
understand Bessel functions
(Editorial, 7 February, p 3), class me as a
chimpanzee.
Letters : . . . . .
by e-mail
We also received two premium bonds wins together with New 杏吧原创
on Thursday 15 January.
Letters : . . . . .
p155@dial.pipex.com
I work in a company library where we receive 14 copies of your magazine to
distribute among the staff, and I would have been very pleased to have got 28
cheques from Ernie. Coincidences can be stretched too far, however, and I didn’t
even see one.
Letters : What a coincidence!
Eaton, Cheshire
I was struck by the amazing coincidence described by two readers of two
premium bond wins arriving in the post at the same time as an issue of New
杏吧原创 that contained an article on amazing coincidences
(Feedback, 7 February).
As further evidence, I purchase my copy of New 杏吧原创 from the
newsagent down the road rather than by subscription and have yet to receive a
letter informing me of a premium bond win.
I have therefore sent my subscription request to you by first-class mail and
ask that you inform Ernie upon receipt of the altered probability of my winning.
Letters : Hyphen hopping
Pjones@t-online.de
As a professional crystallographer and amateur bird-watcher, I was
entertained by your report of crystals that were “red-kite shaped”
(Feedback, 31 January).
I must confess that I have not read the article in Chemical
Communications, but presume it comes from Germany and is an example of the
kind of problem that foreigners have with English.
If we move the typographically labile hyphen to a more probable position, we
get “red, kite-shaped”. The “kite-shape” in German is raute, a word
that cannot easily be translated鈥攊t is the “diamond” on a playing card. Of
course, “diamond” has another more specific meaning in crystallography.
Letters : Mind of its own
murkydom@chestcott.demon.co.uk
After struggling with problems when trying to send faxes from Windows 95
using Microsoft’s built-in fax software, things have finally reached a head.
Today I wanted to send a personal fax to Ireland. The computer actually sent two
different cover sheets but no fax, simultaneously sending 7 copies of my
resignation letter to the college where I work, plus a copy of my CV to the
BBC.
Maybe it is more intelligent than I first realised.
Letters : Time to convert?
Gregorie@logica.com
A point nobody seems to have made about the forthcoming millennium is that
the “year 2000 bug” only affects Christian countries鈥攖hose using the
Gregorian Calendar.
A consequence is that it is possible for an organisation to either avoid the
problem entirely or to at least delay its onset as long as required simply by
changing their business to use another calendar. A change to the Islamic
calendar should postpone the problem for almost 400 years.
Letters : . . . . .
London
Your piece reminded me of the perplexed engineer reading a
computer-translated Russian technical journal which made frequent mention of
“water goats”. After a lot of head scratching, the solution dawned. They were in
fact “hydraulic rams”.
Letters : . . . . .
Fife
Surely one of the oldest translation/re-translation stories鈥攂ut into
and out of Russian, not German鈥攚as one of my father’s favourite jokes 25
years ago. “Out of sight, out of mind” re-emerges as “invisible idiot”.
Letters : . . . . .
alan-s@dircon.co.uk
The radio station Voice of America used to transmit Western propaganda and
news to the Soviet bloc. They would then monitor the retransmission of their
news. When a former tennis champion was reported to have died at her home in
Tooting, London, the Bulgarians broadcast that she “died at her home in London,
playing her trumpet”.
Letters : Only translate
sg5@soton.ac.uk
I was recently reading an article in French about the American Academy of
Orthopedic Surgeons. My French being very rusty I decided to try out the
“translate” facility which AltaVista kindly supply on its search page
(Feedback, 31 January).
Unfortunately, the program tried to translate the already English
name of the academy into English. The result: “American Academy of Orthopaedic
Suckers”.
Letters : Correction:
In the article headed “Grim surprise”
(This Week, 7 February, p 13),
the graph showing rising levels of the gas HFC-23 in the atmosphere
contained an error. The y axis should have been labelled parts per trillion
rather than parts per million.
Letters : . . . . .
m.owen@ELSEVIER.CO.UK
My two 拢50 premium bond wins came with a copy of Nature.