backbytes

Dungeons & prisons

2010-02-02T17:19:29Z

Kevin T Singer, currently serving life for first-degree intentional homicide at Wisconsin's Waupun prison, is still banned from playing Dungeons & Dragons this week after his legal battle for the right to be a fantasy wizard for a few hours each day was squashed by the US Court of Appeals.

The prison banned Kevin from playing because it argued that it promoted gang-related activity and was a threat to security, especially as the prison is situated in an ancient mythical land where mighty fiends sleep in the earth, ready to be awoken by the blackest sorcery of Kevin T Singer.

Prison officials told him that it "promotes fantasy roleplaying, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviours, and possible gambling". It sounds much more exciting now we know all that.

The new Iron Age

2010-02-02T17:18:20Z

The information that clothes with carbon nanotubes in them can recharge your mobile phone got Keith Swinford at Saint-Gobain Abrasives Ltd thinking.

"Presumably these carbon nanotubes are recharged using body heat, so would the act of ironing your clothes produce enough charge to drive the iron itself? Has someone, at last, not only invented perpetual motion, but shirts that iron themselves, and not even realised it yet? Can it do toast too?"

We're excited at the possibilities for non-iron shirts, but less so that some people we know will never run out of mobile phone charge, and so potentially never be unable to use Twitter or send and receive texts. Which way will society go?

Furtive phone furkling

2010-02-02T17:17:14Z

Further to our theme of high-tech clothing that recharges your, um, device, Helen George at Recital Corporation has an idea of how society will choose: "I can see it now - a boob-shaped phone to tuck into your bra or the chunky trouser snake phone," she says, "Girls will obviously have to have two phones, or else they will look lopsided. I suppose it will be acceptable now for one's partner to furkle about on the pretext 'I'm just charging the phone!'"

We're not about to tell you how to live, Helen, but we're not sure your employer is ready to endorse widespread furkling during work hours. Maybe someone in HR could let us know the basics of office furkle standards.

Vague and absent danger

2010-02-02T17:06:59Z

Finally, there's an inquiry that ought to be informed: more from the archives at data.gov.uk, which has inspired Matthew Reardon at Netex Systems to send us an email announcing, finally, that "It's official!"

Signs of bitterness

2010-01-27T15:06:24Z

Acts of public revenge don't come much stranger than the billboards erected in downtown New York and Atlanta by YaVaughnie Wilkins, former mistress of Charles Phillips, co-president of Oracle.

The billboards featured a picture of the two of them canoodling, with the words "You are my soulmate forever", and the link to a web site (now taken down) that showed the two of them together at, among other things, a Hall & Oates concert (When you're a multimillionaire, you know how to show your girlfriend a good time).

"I had an eight-and-half year relationship with YaVaughnie Wilkins. My divorce proceedings began in 2008. The relationship with Ms Wilkins has since ended and we both wish each other well," Phillips told US reporters.

We're guessing those wishes aren't very sincere on either side.

Lost in the post

2010-01-27T15:04:48Z

Last week, we were asking why Royal Mail doesn't let you track parcels until they've been delivered, when - presumably - you've got a pretty good idea where they are and no longer care where they've been.

"I was tracking a package sent from deepest Norway on Posten's web site," says Tim Gilbert. "On the Norwegian system I could monitor the package from a local post office, through to the back room, on to the van until, less than 24 hours later, I got 'Dispatched overseas'. I then had to start using my tracking code on the Royal Mail site, where no entry occurred until five days later when, once delivered, I could suddenly see where the package had been. What is the point?"

Well, it gives us stories to write.

"Am delighted to tell you my parcel has arrived," adds John Batty, who started the whole thing off. "You can therefore imagine my disappointment when returning to the Royal Mail site I discovered that despite it having been delivered, they still can't track it. They seem shy about admitting they have delivered it."

When sex hits a nerve

2010-01-27T15:03:13Z

The Sun reports that if you are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome it might not be caused by your bad posture at the keyboard.

"Pain is often blamed on excessive computer use or working with heavy machinery," the paper says. "But a controversial new report has suggested a much saucier explanation - too much SEX. Repetitive movements during lovemaking puts extra weight on the wrists, according to a top medic."

Among the tips for avoiding the problem: "Warm up the wrists before sex by doing some gentle exercises."

The Sun doesn't go into any more detail on exactly what those exercises might be, but it helpfully prints a picture of a young woman in her underwear to inspire you.

Boxer short circuits

2010-01-27T15:01:56Z

To California, where scientists are trying to change cotton and polyester into "conductive energy textiles": that is, clothing that doubles up as a rechargeable battery. "Wearable displays and embedded health monitors are examples of these novel applications," the report in Nano Letters explains.

You do this using ink made of single-walled carbon nanotubes, as you had no doubt already concluded. The tiny tubes can store electricity, and will keep their properties even after they had been washed in a machine. This raises the possibility that you can recharge your mobile phone by plugging it into your underwear.

Here we go again

2010-01-27T14:57:33Z

All government initiatives start somewhere, and so reader Michael Aspaturian decided to visit http://www.data. gov.uk to check where, exactly, the government was starting.

"The Homepage invites us to 'Search Data' using a keyword. With fired up enthusiasm I type the keyword it suggested: 'Crime', to be told 'Your search returned no records'.

Come on Tim, you of all people should have known better than to get involved in a government IT project."

Smart excuse

2010-01-20T09:41:04Z

Yet again, while writing a column that specialises in making silly jokes about teasmades, we touch on a deeper truth. As it was when we were discussing why John Batty can only track and trace his parcel after delivery.

"Surely this is just a restatement of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle?" asks Phil Adams at Moy Park. "You can know the position of an object or the velocity, but not both at the same time." We've complained many times at the post office, but so far they've never tried the "Well mate, it's yer uncertainty principle, isn't it" excuse on us.

Caution, wet surface

2010-01-20T09:12:06Z

Last week we covered the important New Phytologist data report on water droplets that can cause skin burns.

"This is misleading," says Alistair Maclean (not that one), who points out that we might have left you with the impression that you're covered with a lot of tiny magnifying glasses and will undoubtedly catch fire if ever the sun comes out again. "Water droplets on smooth skin and leaves will not cause burn marks as the droplets are unable to focus light to a point," Alistair points out. "However, water droplets on hairy leaves (and presumably hairy skin) cannot make contact with the leaf surface and are suspended from the fine hairs. This causes a more lens-like shape to be assumed by the droplet, allowing light to be focused on to the surface of the leaf (or skin)."

Aha! But, as he points out, the sun will do something else too: evaporate the water.

Yorkshire tease?

2010-01-20T09:09:54Z

"Gratifying though it is to see my previous email in your column," starts one of those emails that always has a "but" in it, this time from Howard Ritherdon, "I would hate to have inadvertently offended any Yorkshire readers."

Howard, we omitted to point out, is from Lancashire, and thus part of a delicate cultural experiment as we situate the country's two bluntest groups of people next to each other, with only a set of mountains in between.

No job too small

2010-01-20T09:08:29Z

One of the better jobs in the world has to be a nanotechnology scientist, because they get to build really, really tiny machines for fun. For example, the journal Organic Letters reports that scientists in Texas have successfully created a nanodragster with carbon wheels containing 60 atoms each. It looks like a knobbly real dragster, except that 50,000 of them jostling wheel to titchy wheel would be the width of a human hair. On the positive side, you could bring more or less anything to a progress meeting and claim that it's a nanodragster because no one can see what you've done. On the negative side, don't sneeze when you're at work.

Steve Jobs, man of mystery

2010-01-20T09:07:25Z

Another one of those surveys lands on our desk this week: the one that says that one in five Brits thinks that Steve Jobs is a second division footballer. It doesn't explain why being able to recognise his name should be more important than knowing which actor plays Janine Butcher, for example, but another 10 per cent thought he was a trade union leader, which is probably nine per cent more than would recognise the name of a real trade union leader. Still, we can be encouraged that another 20 per cent had no idea who Jobs was at all, which has to be the most sensible answer.

Executive relief

2010-01-20T09:06:26Z

If, however, you're well aware who Steve Jobs is because you bought his iPhone, then might we suggest you download Meeting Magician from Addictive Mobile. The application allows you to play buzzword bingo while looking like you're working, calculate how much money you're wasting in your meeting by adding up the salaries per minute of the people in it, and will even generate an automated fake call for those meetings that you really have to get out of before they kill you.