So, there I was in Maplins today, and they were advertising a fridge:
Cools to 258C below ambient room temperature, eh? Well, ambient room temperature is normally about 20°C. So that’s approximately -238°C. Absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible, is around -273°C. So that fridge makes stuff really, really cold. I am amazed that it hasn’t been rushed off the shelf by university science departments and other ultracold researchers: that’s way colder than liquid nitrogen. And it’s only £59.99! Better still, it’ll heat up to 500 degrees! Wow! Not only could you cook dinner in it, but you could loan it to the craft department (when you’re not making solid nitrogen blocks with it) and they could fire clay. What a device! Get yours today!
That’s genius, what an advance in human development and consumer electricals that fridge represents.
Posted by matthew on January 10th, 2005.
The issue is with text encoding. Or maybe just with really bad typing. On a Mac keyboard to make a degree symbol you press shift-option-8 Like this: ° (That was the native Mac symbol, not sure how it’ll show up, here’s the html entity for it °).
So should probably be 25°C and 50°C.
Regardless it is most definitely a sing of way-crappy (nonexistent) proofing. The bullets on continuation lines is pretty smooth also.
Posted by Xian on January 10th, 2005.
So I can’t proof my own writing either. That should be:
… a sign* of way-crappy (nonexistent) proofing …
Posted by Xian on January 10th, 2005.
Xian: I suspect that whatever Maplins print posters on doesn’t have a degree symbol. So they print an 8 and then the shop staff are meant to Tippex over the bottom loop of said 8, whch they didn’t do…
Posted by sil on January 10th, 2005.
Did you know that Cambridge University maintains that any text is readily readable so long as the first and last letters of the word are in the correct place (the remaining letters can supposedly be written in any order).
Ubneilveble tse azmanig pweor of tse hmuan mnid!
Well, this really is the most anal examination into the origins of a labelling error the world has yet seen. Keep up the good work folks!
Posted by bilbo's dwarfen finger on January 10th, 2005.
This is just great! It will keep my beer extra cold, and also have the ability to cook my steaks!! :)
Posted by DJ At Work on January 12th, 2005.
oooooooo yea… i love cooking in my fridge :D
Posted by oogabooga on January 14th, 2005.