Aromatic car tyres for times with the opposite sex
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 () 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.”
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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 there didn’t seem anything further to say.
Good home for stealth ship needed
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.
“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 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 , 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.