Belling the whale
NOT for the first time in Paris, a cabal of plotters has dethroned a king. This time, however, the coup is bloodless: Le Grand K, a 1-kilogram lump of platinum-iridium alloy kept in a vault outside Paris, is no longer the canonical weight from which all others are derived.
From now on, scientists will define the kilogram based on the Planck constant, making Le Grand K little more than a paperweight.
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This got Feedback thinking: isn’t it time we standardised our own favourite units of measurement?
That is easier said than done, given that removing blue whales from the ocean, even in the interests of science, is frowned upon these days.
What’s more, Le Grand K was kept inside a trio of nested, vacuum sealed bell jars, and only removed once every 40 years for calibration and a bit of light dusting. That sort of timescale isn’t likely to challenge the lifespan of a blue whale — hereon referred to as Le Grand B — but where will we find a set of jars big enough?
Catching our standard London bus ought to be easier, and less legally troublesome. Given their habit of coming in threes, we can also distribute these to aid scientists (or is that journalists?) the world over. The passengers, however, might be upset to find themselves in Timbuktu instead of Tooting.
“Signage in a public bathroom warns Giuseppe Sallazzo that a running tap “wastes the equivalent weight of 250 penguins or £22 a day”. But what’s that in blue whales?”
Finally, standardising an area the size of Wales ought to be easy, as there is only one Wales, and no matter what size it is, it is always the size of Wales. Who said science was difficult?
Hacked headlines
FAKE news! AI researcher Janelle Shane, who previously gave us AI-generated April fool’s pranks, fed 8500 headlines drawn from the pages of CNN Business into an algorithm that imitates text.
The results aren’t particularly believable, but they do tell us something about the world of business. Many of the fake headlines allude to companies behaving badly, such as “Coca-Cola is Scanning Your Messages for Big Chinese Tech”, “Amazon is Recalling 1 Trillion 91av” and the open question: “Should I Pay My Workers?”
Others sound like practical advice and explainers we really would like to read, such as “How to Make a New Tax Law for Your Boss”, and the enigmatic “5 Ways to Trump on Chipotle Industry is the Random Wedding”.
Imperial lather
MORE slipping standards: “In your item on a gas tax increase in New Zealand, you write ‘assuming a mileage of 10 kilometres per litre’,” says Robert Wills (29 September). “Surely that should be kilometrage? Or is there some quantum blue whale conversion that I missed?”
An attractive face
FRUITLOOPERY abounds in all sorts of places, as Brian Darvell discovered while he queued in his local pharmacy. There he spotted a box of Revitale Deeply Absorbent Nose Strips, which promised “each cleansing strip has a unique magnetic system, seeking out unwanted blackheads and unclogging pores”.
Who knew skin blemishes were magnetic? Having already paused to apply fridge magnets to our face, Feedback reads on to find that the strips are powered by “natural charcoal extract”.
However, says Brian, the ingredients list not charcoal but carbon black, a delightful material synthesised from smouldering coal tar, and used mostly to make tyres more robust.
“I would not be inclined to put that on my face, or anywhere,” says Brian. Not so fast, says Feedback: a magnetic carbon black adhesive patch could make an excellent puncture repair kit.
Font of forgetfulness
READERS may recall Feedback’s discussion of a font that makes writing unforgettable, and our proposed opposite (27 October).
“Surely the typeface used for election manifestos has the unique property of causing those who write them to forget the contents?” says Brian Reffin Smith.
Dimming the lights
ANOTHER bright idea: Volkart Wildermuth sends news of an exciting development in the Harmonie lamp, which claims to be “specifically designed to enhance brightness and to minimize at the same time electromagnetic light rays, which occur in most conventional LED lamps and are harmful”.
It is true that most lamps produce electromagnetic rays – you might say it was the distinguishing feature of a lamp. Though their only health risk to our knowledge is allowing you to stay up all night reading when you should be asleep.
“I hope the people behind ” says Volkart, “enhancing power output at the same time as minimising that dangerous electricity.”
Cloudy with a chance of walnuts
THE Irish Aviation Authority is investigating an unidentified flying object spotted by three pilots in the early hours earlier this month. “We saw a bright light and it then just disappeared at a very high speed,” said one perplexed pilot.
Aliens? Astronomer Apostolos Christou had a more prosaic explanation. “It was most likely what are commonly called shooting stars,” he told BBC News. “It must have been quite a large piece of material… the size of a walnut or an apple.”
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