Calling you hoo hoo hoo
"Strolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice," Clive Thompson writes in Wired magazine. " 'Who's there? Who's there?' she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull. Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. It broadcasts audio in a focused beam, so that only a person standing directly in its path hears the message. In this case, the cable channel A&E was using the technologyto promote a show about, naturally, the paranormal. I'm a geek, so my first reaction was, 'Cool!' But it also felt creepy."
Fun in the shower
Today is the birthday of actor Anthony Perkins (1932-92), who played the homicidal maniac in Psycho. It's still hard to get some people to take a shower. However, for those who are ready to move on:
Last year, shower manufacturer Kohler introduced the DTV II, its top-of-the-line shower system. Michael Wandschneider, the company's senior product manager for performance showering, said: "This new product takes the shower to an unexpected and uncharted level of performance with an all-encompassing sensory and completely integrated experience." A digital control panel allows consumers to customize four elements - water flow, music, coloured light sequences and steam.
"I'm a 27-year-old woman who has been married for 18 months," writes a reader of the Philadelphia Daily News to the paper's relationship advisers. "So far, things have been great. My husband is loving and supportive, and we get along very well. There is one small problem: He insists on showering with me every day. I thought it was cute at first, but now it's a pain. It's crowded ... I have to take another shower later." The male adviser told her marriage is about compromise. The female adviser suggested the reader shower with her husband once a week, to give him something to look forward to.
Many dermatologists disapprove of all the unnecessary showering people do because it can leach the natural oils from our skin, Ross Gittins writes in The Sydney Morning Herald. However, many people enjoy showers. "The funny thing here is the opposing reasons we have for enjoying it. Some people say they find showers invigorating, the perfect thing to wake them up ... But then the evening brigade say showering is relaxing, a great stress reliever. I must say, I've had both emotions. Magical things, showers."
Other source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Arts and letters
Britain's Arts Council has a new requirement for organizations applying for grants: They must state how many board members are bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, lesbian or have inclinations that are "not known."
Barbara Oakley, an associate professor of systems engineering, has written a book about the "Machiavellian" personality titled Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend.
Sources: The Times of London, American Scientist magazine
No cake? What celebration?
A primary school in Auckland, New Zealand, is banning birthday cakes, starting next term, The New Zealand Herald reports. Oteha Valley School says the government's healthy food guidelines, to be introduced in June, are the reason for its ban. Birthdays can still be celebrated, but shared edible treats will not be allowed for students having the big day at school.
World o' cats
Recent notes about man's best household god:
"Such are the restrictions on pet ownership in high-rise Tokyo, and such is the craze for all things feline, that the latest hit in the city are cat cafés," The Independent on Sunday reports. "At one, Calico Café, you can rent a kitten and its quarters for [$8]an hour, and so many people want to pet, cuddle and play with one of its 19 'staff' kittens that reservations are advised at weekends and holidays."
Switzerland is the last Western European country where it is legal to sell cat pelts for garments and blankets, The New York Times says. "Legal, that is, but increasingly stigmatized - and soon Switzerland is likely to outlaw the practice. That the first country to outlaw it, Italy, did so only six years ago reflects the long European history with car fur and how quickly the public has soured on its use."
Whenever it rained, Albert Einstein's cat got depressed. A friend records him trying to comfort the animal by saying: "I know what's wrong, dear fellow, but I don't know how to turn it off."
Other source: The Daily Telegraph
Thought du jour
"Isn't it time that being rude and thick became unfashionable?"
- British author Duncan Fallowell, quoted in The Mail on Sunday