Day: May 17, 2001

The Irrational Perfume

Most people seem annoyed by spam. Personally my reaction is generally fascination at the bizarre products, services, and oddball business schemes that spammers pitch. For example, it wasn’t until they spammed me that I knew that perfume maker Givenchy manufactures a colone aimed at geeks — Pi — A Sign of Intelligent Life.

Now what would be really cool is if they marketed different Pi perfumes. You could have, for example, Babylonian Pi (3.125), Ptolemy Pi (3.14166), and for the man who truly has everything Takahashi and Kanada Pi (number unprintable in its entirety here, but calculated to the 6,442,450,938 digit). And, of course, they could come out with regular upgrades as some group of researchers or another extends the number of digits (for example, the discovery that the five trillionth bit of Pi is zero certainly deserves a special limited edition perfume all its own.

Can it be much longer before some wisecracking movie actress is forced to quip, “Is that an irrational number in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

ALF Steals Ducks

At the end of April, activists with the Animal Liberation Front broke into the Cornell University Duck Laboratory and stole 250 ducks that were being used for medical research. The activists painted several barns the animals were housed in with slogans such as “No more animal testing.”

Ironically, the ducks were being used in tests to find treatments for viruses that afflict ducks. I guess ducks, just like humans, have no right not to get viruses either as far as the animal rights activists are concerned.

Source:

250 ducklings taken from laboratory. Associated Press, April 30, 2001.

Lebanon Hosts Conference On Honor Killings

Lebanon recently held a two-day conference to explore the problem of so-called honor killings in that country. In an honor killing a woman who has allegedly disgraced her family’s honor is killed by her husband or other close male relative. Such murders are still an all-too common affair in some countries.

In Lebanon, for example, lawyers speaking about the topic estimated that about one woman per month is killed as part of an honor killing (typically for allegedly committing adultery or engaging in pre-marital sex). Technically Lebanon’s legal code was modified in 1999 to outlaw the practice, but many men in the country believe that they will not suffer any legal penalty for such killings.

In addition, men who commit honor killings are allowed to use that as a mitigating circumstance in their trial. A man convicted of an honor killing might receive only a few months in jail.

Honor killings are a big problem in countries such as Pakistan and India where, as in Lebanon, they are technically illegal but prevailing customs mean judges and juries look the other way and let perpetrators of honor killings off with light sentences.

Fortunately there are a growing number of women and men in these countries starting to stand up and demand an end to this hideous practice.

Source:

Beirut hosts ‘honour killing’ conference. Kim Gattas, The BBC, May 13, 2001.