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Feedback – BROWSING Tesco supermarket’s online store, Diane Brown did a search for baking powder. She found it under a submenu entitled “Tradnl Hmbking Ingrdints”, which she assumed meant “Traditional Home-baking Ingredients”. This alerted her to the knotty problem of classification faced by large supermarkets. Moving on to the Tesco world of “Bakery and Cakes”, she discovered a submenu enticingly entitled “World and Speciality Bread” – but when she got down to the sub-submenu, all it showed was a choice of “Irish or Speciality”. What, she wondered, sets Irish bread apart from the other breads of the world, such as naan, pitta or ciabatta? The answer, it turned out, is that pitta and naan are “Rolls, Bagels and Wraps”, while ciabatta is a “Speciality”, not a “Bread of the World”. As for French baguettes, she failed to find any except the garlicked variety. Questions kept occurring to her. Since Tesco was so picky about where bread-related products originate from, why was there a submenu dedicated to “Croissants and Crumpets” – two breakfast items from distinctly opposite sides of the English Channel? Interestingly, “Croissants and Crumpets” could be further subdivided into “Continental, Croissant” and “Crumpets, Pancakes and Muffins”. This, she thought, was counter-intuitive. Who would expect to find pancakes under “Croissants and Crumpets”? To round off the confusion, she next found “Wholemeal Baps” under “White Rolls”, and “White Sub Rolls” under “Brown Rolls”. “I’m sure other areas of grocery are just as convoluted in their classification system,” Brown says, “but I’m rather losing the will to live at this point. Thank goodness I have my own bread- maker, and only have to worry about flour and yeast. Now, what, I wonder, is yeast? Is it a tradnl hmbking ingrdint?” STATE primary elections are a wonderful American tradition. Anyone – no matter how eccentric – who can collect enough signatures can get their name on the ballot for offices ranging from governor to “chosen freeholder” (a county councillor in New Jersey). Reader Toshi Knell directs us to Javier Lopez as an example. This retired artist and inventor is running for governor of Washington state as a Republican. His candidate statement is merely a variation on the old “throw the rascals out” theme, promising to restore the honesty and integrity that have been missing from government for too long. As an inventor, however, he has something special to offer: “…an invention that will solve all of the world’s problems”. This turns out to be an engine fuelled by air that could power an automobile. Adopting this technology, Lopez writes, would end “reliance on fossil fuels, stopping carbon-monoxide emissions, pollution and global warming”. It’s not clear what he thinks the link between carbon monoxide and global warming is. Nor is it at all clear how his engine runs. But if an actor (Arnold Schwarzenegger, California) and a professional wrestler (Jesse Ventura, Minnesota) can be elected governors of other states, why not an off-the-wall inventor in Washington? SCROLLING through images of E. coli courtesy of a famous search engine, John Wakeling came across a note that said: “Click here for full size image.” He couldn’t imagine how that could be an improvement over the thumbnail that he was looking at. IS THIS Gaia gone mad? Esther Gooch noticed that the website of the Elysia Biodynamic Garden states that: “Fundamental to biodynamic gardening is the recognition that all life is interconnected. Each plant, each insect, the rocks below, the moving clouds and the stars above, all form part of the living organism of our planet.” The stars? Part of our planet? Can anyone explain? CONTINUING our exploration of laundry balls, Stephen Driver thinks we may have been looking on the dark side when we suggested that laundry balls which claim to shrink water molecules could lead to thermonuclear unpleasantness (7 June). Echoing the reaction of many to the destruction of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, Driver wants to know how this awesome power can be tamed for the good of humanity? Specifically, he proposes: “If sufficient of these laundry balls are put in the oceans, the molecule shrinkage of the seawater should counteract rising sea levels.” FINALLY, two weeks ago Peter Buck suggested that if there is a conference of “polinymous” scientists – those with names of towns like Ann Arbor and Milton Keynes – then the obvious place to hold it would be Alice Springs (9 August). Clive Teale suggests that a town in the middle of the Australian outback is too remote. He proposes holding the conference in Mavis Enderby in Lincolnshire, or perhaps Edith Weston, Leicestershire, both in the UK. Jeremy Potter, with evident sybaritic tendencies, disagrees. “Surely,” he says, “the location for the conference must be the Paris Hilton.” You can send stories to Feedback by email at [email protected]. Please include your home address. This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website. Robert Watson found a job advertisement on www.seek.com.au headlined “Senior Mine Geologist – Underground – Residential”. Watson thinks this is taking job commitment to the extreme PAUL MCDEVITT 72 | NewScientist | 23 August 2008 www.newscientist.com
Transcript of Feedback
Feedback–
BROWSING Tesco supermarket’s online store, Diane Brown did a search for baking powder. She found it under a submenu entitled “Tradnl Hmbking Ingrdints”, which she assumed meant “Traditional Home-baking Ingredients”. This alerted her to the knotty problem of classification faced by large supermarkets.
Moving on to the Tesco world of “Bakery and Cakes”, she discovered a submenu enticingly entitled “World and Speciality Bread” – but when she got down to the sub-submenu, all it showed was a choice of “Irish or Speciality”. What, she wondered, sets Irish bread apart from the other breads of the world, such as naan, pitta or ciabatta? The answer, it turned out, is that pitta and naan are “Rolls, Bagels and Wraps”, while ciabatta is a “Speciality”, not a “Bread of the World”. As for French baguettes, she failed to find any except the garlicked variety.
Questions kept occurring to her. Since Tesco was so picky about where bread-related products originate from, why was there a submenu dedicated to “Croissants and Crumpets” – two breakfast items from distinctly opposite sides of the English Channel? Interestingly, “Croissants and Crumpets” could be further subdivided into “Continental, Croissant” and “Crumpets, Pancakes and Muffins”. This, she thought, was counter-intuitive. Who would expect to find pancakes under “Croissants and Crumpets”?
To round off the confusion, she next found “Wholemeal Baps” under “White Rolls”, and “White Sub Rolls” under “Brown Rolls”.
“I’m sure other areas of grocery are just as convoluted in their classification system,” Brown says, “but I’m rather losing the will to live at this point. Thank goodness I have my own bread-maker, and only have to worry about flour and yeast. Now, what, I wonder, is yeast? Is it a tradnl hmbking ingrdint?”
STATE primary elections are a wonderful American tradition. Anyone – no matter how eccentric – who can collect enough signatures can get their name on the ballot for offices ranging from governor to “ chosen freeholder ” (a county councillor in New Jersey).
Reader Toshi Knell directs us to Javier Lopez as an example. This retired artist and inventor is running for governor of Washington state as a Republican. His candidate statement is merely a variation on the old “throw the rascals out” theme, promising to restore the honesty and integrity that have been missing from government for too long. As an inventor, however, he has something special to offer: “…an invention that will solve all of the world’s problems”. This turns out to be an engine fuelled by air that could power an automobile. Adopting this technology, Lopez writes, would end “reliance on fossil fuels, stopping carbon-monoxide emissions, pollution and global warming”.
It’s not clear what he thinks the link between carbon monoxide and global warming is. Nor is it at all clear how his engine runs. But if an actor (Arnold Schwarzenegger, California) and a professional wrestler (Jesse Ventura, Minnesota) can be elected governors of other states, why not an off-the-wall inventor in Washington?
SCROLLING through images of E. coli
courtesy of a famous search engine, John Wakeling came across a note that said: “Click here for full size image.” He couldn’t imagine how that could be an improvement over the thumbnail that he was looking at.
IS THIS Gaia gone mad? Esther Gooch noticed that the website of the Elysia Biodynamic Garden states that: “Fundamental to biodynamic gardening is the recognition that all life is interconnected. Each plant, each insect,
the rocks below, the moving clouds and the stars above, all form part of the living organism of our planet.”
The stars? Part of our planet? Can anyone explain?
CONTINUING our exploration of laundry balls, Stephen Driver thinks we may have been looking on the dark side when we suggested that laundry balls which claim to shrink water molecules could lead to thermonuclear unpleasantness ( 7 June ).
Echoing the reaction of many to the destruction of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, Driver wants to know how this
awesome power can be tamed for the good of humanity? Specifically, he proposes: “If sufficient of these laundry balls are put in the oceans, the molecule shrinkage of the seawater should counteract rising sea levels.”
FINALLY, two weeks ago Peter Buck suggested that if there is a conference of “polinymous” scientists – those with names of towns like Ann Arbor and Milton Keynes – then the obvious place to hold it would be Alice Springs ( 9 August ).
Clive Teale suggests that a town in the middle of the Australian outback is too remote. He proposes holding the conference in Mavis Enderby in Lincolnshire, or perhaps Edith Weston, Leicestershire, both in the UK.
Jeremy Potter, with evident sybaritic tendencies, disagrees. “Surely,” he says, “the location for the conference must be the Paris Hilton.”
You can send stories to Feedback by email
at [email protected]. Please
include your home address. This week’s and
past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
Robert Watson found a job advertisement on www.seek.com.au headlined “Senior Mine Geologist – Underground – Residential”. Watson thinks this is taking job commitment to the extreme
PAUL
MCD
EVIT
T
72 | NewScientist | 23 August 2008 www.newscientist.com
