PLACEBOS are now available to the general public “for the first time ever”. Simon Norburn forwards a press release from announcing the good news (see ).
“Never before has the ordinary person been able to go and get placebos for themselves or their family,” it says. “Although used in virtually every drug trial this is the first time that these powerful agents have been available on demand.”
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They can be purchased online from of Chelmsford, UK, a company set up “to promote the safe and effective use of placebos”.
Its website lists the products available, with prices starting at just £5 for the “revolutionary” SMS (text) placebo. A kit for the homeopathic placebo costs £14.99 and comes with instructions on how to dilute it.
There are also videos explaining how placebos work, along with links to numerous scientific papers dealing with the placebo effect. The site also tackles the question: “But I know it’s a placebo – will it still work?” The answer is an emphatic “YES!”, backed by links to yet more prestigious journals .
A box on Peter Hearty’s Windows 8 desktop flashes up messages alerting him to “housekeeping tasks”. Recently, it stumped him by telling him to “check for solutions to unreported problems”
“CAN anyone tell us what ‘Lifetrons’ are?” we asked on 16 February. This was in response to Elizabeth Romanaux’s puzzlement over a that have been “activated” to “attract and transmit Lifetrons”. We didn’t really expect a reply to our question, but received one nevertheless.
“I can tell you,” said reader Laurence Smaje. He described a booklet he once received seeking his comments as a professor of physiology. It was called The Function of a Lifetron and explained that “Lifetron is nothing but ‘energy quantum’. It has mass, as we cannot imagine any radiant energy without mass. It has three fold frequencies (‘Satwa’, ‘Raja’ & ‘Tama’) which varies [sic] with the nature of emitted body frequency of radiation.”
Apparently, the booklet went on like this for many pages, which Laurence has kindly decided to spare us. “I regret to say I couldn’t bring myself to send them any comments,” he adds.
MEGABANK HSBC is to collaborate with the UK Post Office from spring 2013. A Post Office press release at announces: “HSBC customers to get access to their money at the Post Office’s unrivalled network of over 11,5000 branches.”
“Does that mean I shall have a zero added to all the sums I deposit or transfer?” Norman Stevens wonders.
At the time of writing, the redundant zero is still there, although the press release is dated 17 September 2012.
THE blurb on the Signature Car Hire website touts the virtues of the Mercedes-Benz Viano Ambiente with typical promotional gush: “This car won’t fail to excite and surprise all who sit inside the breathtaking interior.”
However, when it gets to the car’s performance, : “The acceleration speed from 0-60 mph is 11.1 seconds… the Viano’s engine has reduced fuel economy by up to 6%.”
Tony Budd says he is still trying to work out the units for “acceleration speed”, but, he notes, “it obviously doesn’t help save fuel”.
A HELPFUL notice near the lift in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering building at Imperial College London reads: “Lift does not stop at levels 3, 4 and 5. To reach levels 4 and 5 please take the lift to level 6 and come down via the stairs.”
Alfredo Aguilar, who sent us a photo of the notice, is worried. He wants to know: what is on the third floor? Why are they not telling us how to get there?
FINALLY, Edla Ward was at first puzzled by her son Ray’s T-shirt proclaiming: “There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t”. After Ray explained it, Edla is pleased that she can now count to two in binary.
Back on 22 March 2003, Feedback wrote about the same T-shirt and observed that “as far as geeks are concerned, the old jokes are still the best”. We would now like to celebrate the tenth (or 1010th) anniversary of our first telling of the joke.
A little browsing on the topic of anniversaries reveals that, according to a proclamation by the American National Retail Jeweler Association in 1937, 10 years to the day when a wedding took place – or a joke was cracked – is its aluminium or tin anniversary.