FEEDBACK

SEARCHING online for some new car tyres, Jon Chard came across the Kumho company. He was surprised to discover that choosing the correct fragrance of a tyre can be as important as issues like handling, ride, noise and economy. At least, that’s what he thinks the product description ( www.smellytyres.notlong.com) is telling him, though he isn’t entirely sure: “The Korean ultra-high performance tyre manufacturer Kumho presented with the scent tyres another sensational new development. The Kumho KH 31 is in the four fragrances orange blossom, rosemary, lavender and jasmine. The tyres are not well known to smell is one thing that is not only with a car and thicknesses much hp under the hood can specify, is the other thing. How about times with the opposite sex instead of roses, with beguiling smells of jasmine or orange on points. Let simply Kumho KH 31 and assemble a balance of fresh scent.”

One of the sessions of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on 25 March is entitled “Lessons from Brain Age on Password Memorability”. The speaker at the session will be Alain Forget

THE death of a newspaper is a sad

thing, particularly one like the Rocky

Mountain News. It was founded

when Denver, Colorado, qualified as

the Wild West, and survived nearly

150 years before falling victim to

the economy and the internet.

Eerily, the staff chronicled its

final staff meeting and last hours

on Twitter. This sparked a flurry of

correspondence on the US National

Association of Science Writers

mailing list until Jim Hathaway, a

science writer for the University of

North Carolina at Charlotte, observed,

within Twitter’s 140 characters limit:

“This is the way the world ends/This

is the way the world ends/This is the

way the world ends/Not with a bang

but a twitter.”

After this twist on T. S. Eliot’s

The Hollow Men there didn’t seem

anything further to say.

THERE is nothing like the word “free” to attract attention and shift unwanted objects – but the “free” magic isn’t working for the US navy.

The Sea Shadow was the navy’s first experiment in stealth ships, designed to elude enemy radars and sonars when it sneaked around at night. The $195 million experiment worked, and when the navy finally let it see the light of day in 1993, it made the cover of Popular Mechanics. The idea was used in the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.

The proof-of-principle prototype was never intended to become “mission capable” and has since become a huge white elephant, albeit a stealthy one. The problem is, at 49 metres long and 21 metres wide, it’s not something you can haul away on a boat trailer and park in your backyard to impress the neighbours. Worse, the navy insists that a collector will also have to haul away the massive barge which once protected Sea Shadow from spying eyes. Navy officials told The Wall Street

Journal that they have received only one serious enquiry since

posting it in the Federal Register three years ago, and that person never filed an application.

Maybe the navy would have better luck if it posted it on eBay for a nominal dollar with the caveat “as is, where is” – as US classifieds say about old cars.

THANKS to two sharp-eyed readers,

Vicki Cleave and Paul Vann, who

independently told us about a leaflet

they received from Solar Plus UK

which asserts that: “The cost of a

barrel of oil could soar to $200 a

barrel in as little as six months.”

We pause here to note how useful

that word “could” can be for the

makers of claims like this, and then

continue with the leaflet, which goes

on to report that “99.98 per cent of

Solar Plus customers said they would

recommend Solar Plus to their family

and friends. Based on a survey of 60

customers carried out in 2007-2008”.

We wonder how this statistic was

compiled. Exactly what portion of

which of those 60 customers was

responsible for the 0.02 per cent

who did not endorse the

recommendation?

LOOKING up prices of international mail on the UK Royal Mail’s website , Owain and Carol Thompson were puzzled by this caution at the bottom of the airmail pricing page: “Please note: no items over 2 kilograms (including books and pamphlets) can be sent to Canada and only books over 2 kilograms can be sent to the Irish Republic.”

It took us a moment, as it took the Thompsons, to work out this doesn’t mean books sent to the Irish Republic have to be extremely heavy – just that they are the only items over 2 kilograms that are permitted. That settled, we still wonder why these two countries should differ from every one else in this way as well as differing from each other.

BROWSING the net, Mike Slattery

“got lucky”. A banner flashed up

saying “Guaranteed Winner –

Congratulations you WON!”

Regrettably, Mike wasn’t alone.

The message continued: “You are the

8,832,533,868th visitor to see this

lucky banner.” That being the case,

he didn’t see much point in clicking

on the box that said “Click here to

claim”. With the winnings being

divided up between everyone else

on Earth and then some, he figured

his share wouldn’t amount to much.

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64 | NewScientist | 28 March 2009

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