FEEDBACK is keeping Saturday 27 October free. That’s when American artist
James Downey intends to paint the Moon red. His idea—he describes it as “a
collaborative work of celestial art”—is to ask millions of people to aim
their laser pointers at the Moon at the same time (11 pm if you live on the East
Coast of the US).
“For five minutes we can all touch the Moon, if only with our laser
pointers,” he says on www.paintthemoon.org.
But one thing stands in Downey’s way. The online magazine Space.com asked
Donald Umstadter, a laser expert at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to
calculate how many people with pointers would be needed. “The number required is
not millions of people, but millions of millions of millions of people,” says
Umstadter.
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Downey is unfazed, however, and is even planning a second attempt on 24
November in case of cloud cover first time round. Feedback admires his resolve.
Never let the laws of physics get in the way of a good idea, we say.
NO THANKS to Kate Winslet for her contribution to the public image of science
and its practitioners. Commenting on her role as a code-breaker in the film
Enigma, she told the BBC Ceefax Entertainment/Showbiz pages last week how
her pregnancy helped her look authentic.
“I did look quite podgy, which kind of worked with a boffin,” she said. She
went on to call her character “completely unglamorous” and “quite boring”.
That’s scientists—apparently.
TIRED CAT owners will be thrilled to know they can now buy a device that will
keep their pets from endlessly pestering them to play. It’s a kitty video game
“lovingly crafted by game software experts” who claim that the computer can
entertain a cat far longer than a silly human dangling a string can.
The designers say that in creating this “super-cute product” they have drawn
on years of animal behaviour research to create movement patterns, sounds,
shapes and colours that “attract kitties and humans alike”. So if you’re fed up
with chasing your own tail, go to www.cyberpounce.com to find out more.
READER Graham Salman recently purchased a rotary washing line from a Homebase
store and planned to concrete the base spike into his lawn. But he was floored
when he read in the instructions that he would need “a minimum of 0.017 cubic
metres of concrete”.
His local builders’ merchant wasn’t much help either. The man’s response to
Salman’s request for 0.017 cubic metres of concrete mix unfortunately can’t be
printed in a family magazine like this one.
COMPUTER VIRUS experts believe that on 16 October, the Sircam virus signs off
with a bang, deleting files from the hard disc of every twentieth computer it
has been infecting over recent weeks.
Sircam arrives as an e-mail attachment, with a reasonable-seeming name, from
someone you know—often with the words “I send you this file in order to
have your advice” in the covering note. The attachment turns out to be a big
bundle of document or data files which Sircam has picked at random from someone
else’s computer, along with any e-mail addresses it can find. Opening the
attachment infects your computer and triggers more mailings.
Antivirus software traps Sircam, but only if the software has been updated
over the past weeks or so. If you are worried, there is a simple test. Use the
Windows Find or Search command under Start, to hunt for any file beginning that
matches “Sirc*.*”. On a normal PC there should be none. If the search finds
several, you are infected.
Most of the antivirus companies, such as Panda, Norton and Sophos, are making
Sircam-cure programs available on their websites sites for free download. To
find out more about Sircam and get a free fix, see
www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sircam.worm@mm.html.
For more general information on viruses, see
www.symantec.com/avcenter and http://vil.nai.com/vil
PAUL DERBY, the celebrity Feng Shui consultant, took part in a radio
discussion on the Lisa I’Ansonshow on BBC London Live recently. He described the
invisible energy behind the ancient Chinese practice thus: “I like to think of
it as nature’s electricity”.
Excuse us, but isn’t electricity nature’s electricity?
SCIENTISTS WHO devote their careers to developing an “elixir of life” are
often regarded with suspicion by their more mainstream colleagues. In this
sceptical climate, you’d think gerontologists would do everything possible to
bolster their scientific credentials.
So the choice of title of one of the journals that publishes anti-ageing
research is surprising. It’s called Mechanisms of Ageing and
Development—or MAD for short.
THE FRONT of a packet of a Safeway Vegetarian Indian Takeaway Meal for One
describes it as “a medium hot bengali vegetable curry, aromatic pilau rice,
bombay potato and naan bread”. Puzzlingly, on the back of the packet, purchasers
are warned: “Although every care has been taken to remove bones, some may
.”
THE NUTRITION information on the apple pie yoghurt sold in Publix
supermarkets in the South-Eastern US states: “Fat content: 0 grams. Percentage
of daily requirement: 1 per cent”
THE instructions for the Panasonic bread maker thoughtfully include a section
on how to cut the bread once you have made it. Here is what they have to say:
“Homemade bread can be cut with a bread knife. Place the loaf on its side and
cut with a sawing motion.”
So now you know.
FINALLY, Dixons, the electrical-goods store, is currently advertising a Nikon
camera it describes as a “twin lens SLR”.
SLR stands for “single-lens reflex”.
