IT’S NOT OFTEN that Feedback gets the chance to nail down exactly when and
where an urban myth is born. But shortly before Christmas it actually
happened.
TV show The Big Breakfast featured a local trading standards officer
warning Britain’s shoppers against buying pirate DVDs. “Although the quality is
good when you get them home,” he explained, “the film is encrypted and the
pictures start to fade after a few days.”
The Big Breakfast then showed a clip from the new Disney movie
Monsters Inc., with a split screen in which one half of the picture looked
fine while the other half magically faded to black and white.
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The technical types at the anti-piracy organisation FACT (the Federation
Against Copyright Theft) knew nothing of any system which could produce such an
unlikely effect. And when Feedback tracked down the trading standards officer
who made the claim, he reluctantly admitted that he had never actually seen the
effect, and that the TV programme had cooked up the demonstration to show what
it might look like.
When Feedback probed further, the closest we got to hard information was:
“I’ve heard about new developments coming within the industry, although I don’t
know what those developments are.” FACT is now getting phone calls from folk in
the video and film industry who are keen to learn more about this wonderful new
weapon in the fight against piracy. Just this once, FACT is welcome to refer
callers to Feedback.
WHAT A literary lot Feedback’s readers are. Many of them, we have discovered,
subscribe to the Wordsmith mailing list (details at www.wordsmith.org). How do
we know? Because on 12 December Wordsmith’s word of the day was
“aptronym”—and immediately, Feedback’s inbox started filling up with
e-mails from readers telling us this and pointing out that aptronym is the
“proper” name for what this column has always called nominative determinism.
Here’s what Wordsmith had to say about it: “Aptronym (AP-troh-NIM) noun. A
name that is especially suited to the profession of its owner. Examples: Dan
Druff for a barber, Felicity Foote for a dance teacher, and James Bugg for an
exterminator—all real monikers. More famously, we have William Wordsworth,
the poet; Margaret Court, the tennis champion; Sally Ride, the astronaut; Larry
Speakes, the White House spokesperson, Jim Kiick, the football star; and Lorena
Bobbitt, the you-know-what-er.”
But no, this doesn’t mean we’re going to start running examples of nominative
determinism all over again.
SECURITY at the BBC has been tight since a car bomb attack on its Television
Centre in west London a few months ago. A few miles away at the BBC’s
Broadcasting House, everyone’s bag is now searched on entry. Fair enough.
Feedback is all in favour of effective security.
But there is also a strange new rule. BBC security staff are not allowed to
open the bags. Neither can they touch inside them. They can only peer into
whatever visitors hold open.
We are still puzzling over the explanation given by the security guard who
recently gazed into our bag: “It’s to stop us putting anything inside.”
WHO ARE Blobby and Biscuit, and what exactly is their role within Britain’s
Inland Revenue service?
Reader Charlie Orton tried to e-mail the revenue’s help desk about a secure
mailbox it had provided him with. His message was returned undelivered with an
extremely lengthy header that included the following: “Return-Path:…Received:
by gsi.gov.uk (8.9.3/BISCUIT) with SMTP id DAA17844 for <>helpdesk<>
ir-efile.gov.uk<>…19:31:39 GMT Received: from gateway.gsi.gov.uk
(gateway.gsi.net [194.6.85.213]) by mail3.gsi.gov.uk (BLOBBY/BLOBBY) with SMTP
id fB8JRvI22408 for <>helpdesk<> ir-efile.gov.uk<>…”
RESULTS are now in from the survey of belly button lint (or fluff) conducted
by Australia’s popular science broadcaster Dr Karl, with support from Feedback
(14 October 2000).
Data from 4799 people revealed that 66 per cent of them have belly-button
lint (BBL). You’re more likely to have BBL if you’re male, older, hairy and have
an “innie” (a concave belly button as opposed to a convex “outie”). For a
detailed breakdown of the results, together with a tentative theory to explain
BBL and quotes from participants in the survey, check out
.
WE WERE unaware of the profound significance of spectrometers—until
reader Derek Pratt drew our attention to the mission statement of Hamamatsu
Photonics, which makes them. Here it is:
“What mankind knows is still very little in the overall realm of knowledge,
and there are endless subjects and possibilities that are not yet known or
explored. We at Hamamatsu Photonics are committed, through the ongoing pursuit
of truths which have not yet been clarified or defined, to achieving health and
peace for all mankind.”
READER Martin de Selincourt tells us he recently bought a propane blowtorch
telling him: “Contains products known to the State of California to cause risk
of cancer and birth defects…Keep away from flames, sparks, heat and sources of
ignition…Use in a tent may be dangerous…Never use while sleeping.”
Wise advice.
