Negative Royalties

As I struggled with the 'child proof' top on a bottle of cough medicine, I reflected that some disagreeable person, or antisocial company, holding the copyright or patent, may receive royalties to reward them for inconveniencing me.

I wish that inconvenient inventions could attract negative royalties, so that those who devise them could fined every time their pernicious invention is used.

Is Washing Up Liquid Necessary

I've noticed that if the washing up bowl gets greasy and discoloured, filling it with washing powder dissolved in hot water and leaving it to soak overnight restores it to a state of purity.

I'm tempted to use washing powder for my washing up, but I keep the washing powder in the garage near the washing machine, so it's never handy when I wash up.

Puzzled by units

A micro-meter is referred to as a 'micron' . Why isn't a nanometre called a 'nanon' ?

That thought was prompted by my converting Angstrom units into nanons. I've always found Angstrom units very counter intuitive and thought they were being phased out, but they still crop us quite frequently.


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A False Sense of Security

The head of MI5 has complained that Mr. Snowden's revelations about the activities of our and the American security agencies puts us all in danger.

I doubt that. I suspect that mutual spying by various national agencies has given each of them a good idea what the others are doing. Large criminal and terrorist organisations probably have agents in at least some national governments, so they too will have the information.

The only people kept in the dark were the ordinary citizens who pay for it all. Now we know.

All that has been damaged is the dignity of our spies.They should be thankful that they are no longer deluded into a false sense of security.