One false move – and you’re toast
Martin Williams, at Powys County Council, sends us to www.halfgiraffe.com/toast.html, saying that it ‘portrays the dangers of attempting to make ones own toast so graphically that I’m not surprised the mail order business is booming’. He’s also provided another warning, from a news story from May last year that we unaccountably missed. ‘Tesco commissioned the world’s first study into making cheese on toast and concluded that a family of four wastes as much as 168 grams of cheese each week because of badly cut slices that hang over the bread and drip onto the grill,’ reports his local paper, The Western Mail. ‘The apparently simple dish apparently costs about £70 a household each year in wastage because of the amount of cheese that we let drip into the grill pan,’ tut-tuts Martin. If you’re still brave or rich enough to actually make your own toast, Helen George points us to the recipe for ‘Underpant toast’ on www.NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com. Don’t worry, there’s no real underpants in toast. Unless, of course, you know different.
Musing over musophobiacs
IT technician Lee Jones, at Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, has been set to thinking by his users. ‘Can you actually suffer from a tragic ailment from using a computer?’ he says. While we think the effects of RSI, back strains, headaches and so on are pretty well-established by now, he’s wondering about more bizarre problems. ‘For example, is there anyone out there who is so afraid of rodents, that they cannot handle a mouse?’ We’re looking for ridiculous or bizarre health excuses you’ve been given by your users. He’s offering, as a prize, the crisp packets that he has just rescued from one of his student’s floppy disk drives.
Kiss me Hardy… if you dare
More beards. ‘You’ve had some fine examples of facial hair, but the time has come for me to contribute one with which I was briefly acquainted while at university,’ says an anonymous reader. ‘Nigel Hardy, of the Computer Science department at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, had a beard the envy of beard lovers across the campus… not least of which must be his wife, Janet, who works in the same department.’ Judge for yourself, and more about our moustacheless star this week at http://users.aber.ac.uk/nwh/
Three is the magic number
We’re delighted to hear that three-year-old Mikhail Ali, who knows the Arabic alphabet, can add, subtract and multiply, and spells words backwards for fun, has become the youngest ever member of Mensa. The little mite now gets to hang around with people 20 times his age in the Leeds area who have similar talents, and good luck to him. He’ll need it.Does anyone have any tips for how to get on with Mensa members? We’d like to know.
Harp stayed sharp
It had to happen: the inevitable result of people selling bits of their body as advertising space is a lawsuit. Ananova reports that pregnant woman Elisa Harp, who lives in Roswell, near Atlanta, is being sued by sunpoker.com. She put advertising space on her bump up for auction on Amazon, but got on the wrong side of sunpoker.com after the auction ended and she decided to instead advertise The Golden Palace Casino. After all, she wouldn’t want her bump plastered with anything tacky.
All I want is shoes
Regarding leaving things on public transport, Andy Huntley, at Transport for London, nominates one of his colleagues (who would like to remain anonymous, but let’s just say he was previously featured in Backbytes for being a champion pizza eater). ‘He once came into work sporting some lovely new brown shoes, bought specially for a party we were all attending straight after work,’ Andy writes. ‘On the way home, realising the train was now empty, and that his feet were aching in these new shoes, he decided to slip them off to give his heels a rest. He then fell asleep. ‘He woke up again just as the doors were closing at his stop, and so quickly jumped up and ran off the train… leaving his lovely brand new brown shoes behind, last seen travelling to Ware.’ If you picked them up, please send them back, care of Backbytes. Pizza Hut discourages people with no shoes from using its all-you-can-eat buffet.
The right reverend reaper
More things left on trains. ‘My local vicar down here in Dorset is almost a caricature of the eccentric country clergyman. One of his endearing traits is his forgetfulness,’ says Kevin Bowmer, at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
‘This sounds like the plot of a cheap TV sitcom, but it is absolutely true. His father was a Londoner, but lived down here to be near his son. When he died the vicar took his father’s ashes back up to London to bury him in the churchyard he had loved as a boy.
‘He left the urn on the Tube. He had taken his own shovel with him, so imagine the consternation of the lost property clerk when approached by a bloke wearing a cassock and a black beret, carrying a shovel and trying to find his father’s ashes.’ This closes the topic of dead bodies on Tube trains. Unless you know different.
The seat of learning
Our occasional series on Japanese inventions had to come to this: The Z Series Neorest toilet, from Toto Solutions. If going to the toilet is not sufficiently entertaining for you, the Z Series offers auto fragrance release and stereo music. These change according to the season. That is, if you’re there for long enough.
Volt’s that all about?
We need someone to explain what the problem is with our household equipment when the mains voltage drops to 110V in Ely, and Michael Aspaturian, of British Energy, is our man. ‘This problem usually relates to a distribution transformer fault,’ he says. Here comes the science bit: ‘Electricity is supplied at 415 volts across phases. Star-connected, centre-earthed windings derive the 230 volts domestic supply. Modern equipment, with switch mode power supplies, usually tolerates this fault, as many are designed to work from 100 to 250 volts. ‘Equipment powered by a conventional transformer does not fare so well, as secondary side voltage will fall in proportion to the drop in mains voltage. Such equipment usually becomes unpredictable, though not permanently damaged. Incandescent lights dim to quarter power, but some electrical motors are damaged. ‘This is because many electrical motors need to rotate to keep themselves cool. Half voltage will cause these motors to stall and overheat. The good news is that your electricity meter will only register the power that you use. Therefore the saving made can be used to offset the cost of repair to any damaged equipment.’
Earning a crust on the internet
‘Online shopping for toast with toppings is already possible,’ says Colin English, at florall.com. ‘For example, searching on amazon.co.uk for “toast” produces: “Toast with Jam 6 for Macintosh”. So they’ve had at least five earlier goes at selling stuff like this online.’ Brian Pull, at BT, has also been Googling for toast shops. ‘I was delighted to see under the sponsored links that Amazon has a “blowout sale” with “up to 66 per cent off toast”. How did we ever manage breakfast before the internet?’
Suspicious-looking character
How many of those little one-letter-per-box forms do we have to fill in these days? Well, quite a lot. They are obviously much quicker and cheaper and more accurate because they can be read by optical character recognition (OCR). ‘I imagined this data being processed and various checks being performed automatically, and then this week the result arrived,’ says a reader who would like to remain anonymous, because the document in question is his Criminal Records Bureau disclosure form. ‘Just one problem: my name was spelt with an “O” instead of an “I”. Does that mean the correct entries have been checked? Is the document valid for me?’ So he has a clean record. At least, someone with a broadly similar name does. Having followed it up with the relevant authorities, he was told that errors are quite common because the OCRed applications are retyped. And not cross-checked. Can it be true?
Bored stiff
Neil O’Connor has more information about trains in India. ‘A friend spent an eight-hour train journey sitting opposite an apparently sleepy old woman and her sombre-looking family. Half way into the journey it emerged that Grandma was going to her own funeral on the other side of the country,’ he reveals. Lucky they weren’t taking her on one of our trains. It’s bad form to be late for your own funeral.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Our latest job of the week, discovered by a reader known only as ‘Steve’, is from Gisajob for a ‘Team leader: IT security’. The advert says: ‘This role is 60 per cent techy and 40 per cent about team management,’ and offers a salary of £9999999 a year.
‘They could at least pay the market rate,’ Steve complains. The ad also contains a link for ‘more jobs like this’. Bring ‘em on.
Emergencies and canoes only
We return to the question of how you get a canoe on a bus. Luckily, one of our readers is former Great Britain canoeist James Wingfield, now a director at Data Management & Exchange. ‘It is actually very easy,’ he says, recalling his school bus. ‘The older type of double decker has an emergency door at the back on the driver’s side. You can get your canoe in through that and lay it in the aisle. ‘Things are much easier nowadays. Some of the modern freestyle canoes are actually shorter than the paddles that I use for racing, so they can fit inside a family hatchback.’
Meals on reels
Thanks to reader Richard Bennett for the news story about a chef in Chicago who has created a computer that prints paper meals. The specially-developed inkjet printer uses ink made of liquidised food to print a picture snack on low-calorie edible paper. They have already experimented with ink made of crushed carrots, tomatoes and purple potatoes. ‘Imagine going through a magazine and looking at an ad for pizza. You wonder what it tastes like so you rip a page out and eat it,’ says the chef. That‘s all very well, but this could ruin the lucrative online toast market.
Hooray for ACSII
We know that many of you still yearn for line printer art, with the pictures made up for letters and numbers, but what’s the point when we all have inkjets and laser printers that can feed you as well? Thanks to reader John Szwer, who has discovered a site that takes the concept and brings in into the 21st century in a completely pointless way. ‘Now you can have the modern movie version,’ he writes, excited to discover Hollywood movies rendered in ACSII on the internet.
Well, we were excited before we got a headache from watching them. Pick your movie, pick a pixel size to suit your monitor, and relive the days when your first reaction to a picture on a computer screen was to screw up your eyes and try to imagine what it was actually a picture of: go to www.romanm.ch and click on ‘movies’.
Web television masterpiece
Don’t read this column. On second thoughts, don’t read this column until you’ve watched this week’s most excruciating web television, brought to you by FRx and recommended by Richie Hindle at Cyberscience Corporation. Find it at www.frxsoftware.com/ProductDemo/main.html. ‘A charming example of web TV advertising, featuring an enthusiastic accountant in a beige pullover,’ he says. ‘Hey, that financial report you emailed me was exactly what I needed to build a dynamite presentation,’ says the man in the pullover. ‘I love FRx Financial Reporter,’ says his colleague, who knew she would have to do some demeaning things if she was going to make it as an actress, but never thought it would come to this. It’s because this stuff exists in the world that Backbytes has to exist too. If you still have the will to live after watching it, find us a few more web TV masterpieces that we can share.
The 110-volt question
There are so many questions to ask about electricity, and so few answers that we know. But you, Backbytes readers, were apparently listening during physics lessons at school. ‘If you put 440 volts into a piece of equipment designed for 240 volts, you’d expect a smell of burning. What happens when you put between 110 and 118 volts into modems, routers and cordless phones?’ asks John Loader, at DotSix Brailling Services. Why, you might ask yourself, would he ask such a question? Because last week he and a friend independently measured their electricity supply at that level for around 15 minutes. ‘It seems to us that the reduced voltage reprograms equipment. Routers and modems lose their settings and cordless phones no longer talk to base stations,’ he says, bitterly. Is this true? And why? Was the electricity really being supplied in the Ely area at 110 volts (which, as John points out, is illegal)? Answers, please, to all these questions.
Please take your corpses with you when leaving the train
More lost public transport stuff. ‘My father, who was in the RAF, was posted to the Far East. On his way out there he managed to leave his Sten gun and four spare clips of ammunition on Bombay station,’ says Simon Frost, who obviously didn’t mention this amusing family tale in his job interview for EDS. Paul Davidson of Vehicle Data Systems has a heartwarming story that might rekindle our faith in the rail system. ‘A friend left a DVD box set of series three of The West Wing on the overhead shelf of a train,’ he says. ‘He had accepted that it was gone forever only to find it in the same place on his return train journey several hours later.’
‘I recently spent a lot of time on the absolutely excellent Metro system in Calcutta. I was impressed by the widely-displayed, definitive list of things you can’t take on the tube there,’ says Martin Williams at Powys County Council. The list includes the sort of things you wouldn’t want someone to leave behind (cans of petrol, bombs), but is completed by ‘corpses’.
Chicken and chips
Regular Backbytes contributor James Durant spotted an item in The Times that reveals how a senator in Oklahoma wants to fit roosters with little boxing gloves and vests configured with electronic sensors. Cockfighting has been banned in the state, but now the senator reckons the electronic sensors will allow them to take part in a kind of kick-boxing. ‘Obviously a bantamweight contest,’ says James.
It’s far from odour
We offer a special Backbytes round of applause to Islington Council this week after its computer systems were brought down by a smelly toilet. Thanks to reader Steve King, who sent us the clipping from the Islington Gazette, which reports that an untrained administrator sent an email called ‘Toilets and odour in the municipal offices’ to all 6,000 council employees by accident. Because all 6,000 recipients were names in the ‘To’ line, each email was 1MB in size, and when 40 employees replied with their own additions to all 6,000 staff, the email system gave up the struggle, and the entire computer system had to be shut down and the emails wiped. ‘Never hit reply to all is the moral of the story,’ the council spokesman suggested, though we suggest ‘Show your employees how to send an email’ might be better.
However, one thing is working properly: ‘The offending lavatory has now been repaired,’ the Gazette reports.
In need of some group therapy
And on that subject, David Bibby writes to tell us about the normally sleepy SAP Business Workflow user group he and 600 others subscribe to, which burst into life last weekend with hundreds of postings. ‘A DVLA employee’s out-of-office message had spammed 708 messages to all 600 users worldwide and made the user group virtually unusable,’ he says. Trouble was, when a message reached the user group, it was sent back to the subscriber at the DVLA, which obligingly posted another message to the user group to explain that he wasn’t in to read the message, which was posted to him and 600 others, and so on. ‘The messages were coming in as fast as you could delete them,’ David says, which bearing in mind the purpose of the group is somewhat ironic.
Store wars, episode one
More bad news for the Toast Shop. Not only has it been pilloried in the popular press – well, in Backbytes – for not offering pre-topped toast, David Wakelin, at the Faculty of Public Health, has discovered a competitor. ‘The big boys are already getting in on the act,’ he says. ‘A search for “toast” on Google reveals the advert: “Buy toast at Tesco and get free delivery over £20”.’
What’s not going on ’ere then?
‘Spurred on by the recent intensive advertising promoting the police service, I decided to visit its careers site to see what opportunities it offers,’ says Damian Kuczera, at the Delectable Pub Company. You can tell this isn’t going to end well. He visited www.policecouldyou.co.uk, and found his way to the bottom of the page, the drop-down menu titled: ‘Where do you fit in’. ‘Of the options given I decided to click on “Developing my potential and leadership skills” as this seemed the most relevant area in which IT may be covered,’ he explains. On clicking through, he found his answer: ‘Sorry, unknown’. ‘I’ve since decided that the police force may not be a positive career move after all,’ says Damian.
On the dog and bone
We’re very excited to find in the paper of record for technology enthusiasts everywhere – The Daily Mirror, of course – that a new mobile phone called PetsCell has been developed for dogs. The newspaper reports that the pawset is shaped like a bone, and fits on his or her collar. There’s an option that has a
camera, too, so you can see the exciting things that your dog sees. The paper handily quotes Beverley Cuddy, the editor of Dogs Today: ‘People already talk to their dogs on the phone,’ she says, confirming that they’re obviously daft enough to buy one.
Information superbridge
The search for the must-see TV programme of 2005 is over, and it’s on the Microsoft Developer Network.
We suggest you join Renee and Chris as they discuss ‘the background, user experience, and development story of Information Bridge Framework’, as discovered by reader Simon Guerrero. ‘OK Chris, so tell me what is the information bridge framework and why is it so interesting?’ asks Renee.
‘Information Bridge Framework, or IBF, is a framework,’ begins Chris. Tune in for the other five excruciating minutes at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/default.aspx, and if you know of any similarly awful web TV, please tell us, because soon the football season will be over and we’ll need something to watch.
Canoe believe it?
You learn things you never thought you needed to know by reading Backbytes. Last week we asked you for tales of what you have left on public transport. ‘I recently worked on Transport for London’s (TfL’s) “Sherlock” project, which is the database that manages TfL’s lost property office in Baker Street,’ says Richard Steele, at Basemap. ‘There is a huge amount of cash left every day on buses, tubes
and cabs. The biggest single amount I saw was £10,000 left in a cab. There was also a record that someone found and handed in a lost child.’ This, however, is less surprising to us than his other discovery. ‘Sifting through the data one day, I came across a record stating that someone had left a canoe on a London bus,’ he says. This raises so many questions. How do you get a canoe on a bus? How much is the fare? Once it’s on, how do you forget it? Does the canoe’s owner read Backbytes? If so, let us know. More left-on-public-transport stories please.
Hairy heartthrob
Girls, quiet your beating hearts. This week’s bad beard is nominated by Alan Fryar, at Eurotherm. ‘This is Mark, who has been threatening to trim his beard for the past decade or so,’ he says. We’re so glad he didn’t, as we would have been deprived of this beautiful fluffy creation.
Topping service
Toast by post, part 54: after we fearlessly carried Chris Harris’s complaint that the Toast Shop doesn’t offer ready-marmaladed toast, we are proud to announce that our action on behalf of the consumer is bearing fruit. Or, at least, fruit preserves. This week the Toast Shop writes to tell us that ‘topping and
spreads are an emerging market that we are currently monitoring. The market for toast is well established and The Toast Shop prides itself on its long-earned reputation for quality and service’.
Even better for Chris is the following considerate offer: ‘The Toast Shop does not hold a postal address for Mr Harris, but, if he would be so kind as to supply these details, we will forward a complementary sample of our wares.’ Proof, if proof were needed, that despite the problems experienced by some large retailers, we Brits still hold a global lead in mail order toast delivery customer service.
Community chest
We’re delighted to announce the winner in this week’s silliest eBay auction: item number 5951626613, other wise known as ‘ADVERTISE ON MY CLEAVAGE, GLASGOW, FOR 15 DAYS’. Advertiser Angel Brammer’s cleavage will be carrying the logo of the Golden Palace Casino, which has paid a handsome £422 for the privilege. ‘I will display your company logo, slogan or web site address in the form of a temporary tattoo,’ promised Angel. ‘I’m a 27-year-old auburn-haired lass. I’m an ample size 42GG, and I usually wear low-cut tops. ‘I am renting the top part of my cleavage (the part which is legal to display) for you to put your company’s logo upon. During the 15 days, I can have photos taken of me, with your logo, in front of any of the popular landmarks in Glasgow, or our nation’s capital.’ We suggest that some of you rent out your beards for the same purpose, because we can’t imagine them receiving fewer stares than Angel’s chest.
