| Wow. Just... wow. |
[16 Jun 2009|05:06pm] |
From the Guardian.
An extraordinary document called The Pepsi Gravitational Field has been leaked on to the internet. The claim is that this 27-page wonder represents a successful $1.5m (£1.05m) pitch to make a slight modification to the Pepsi logo. Welcome to the science of PR.
"By investing in our history and brand ethos we can create a new trajectory forwards," they explain in the opening pages. This is entirely reasonable. A cognitive linguist by the name of George Lakoff has done some fascinating (and no doubt gruelling) empirical work on metaphors in English literature. He has shown, for example, that we often conceive of the abstract in terms of the concrete: anger is an overheated fluid in a sealed vessel, emotional states are locations, and fascinatingly, we don't just talk about things in this way, we may also reason using these metaphors.
How else can you explain the fact that "baby, we're riding in the fast lane on the freeway of love" is so instantly meaningful to us? Perhaps - and this is speculation - we think about abstract things using brain hardware that originally evolved to deal with more simple visuo-spatial manipulations.
I am open to new ideas. Lakoff may or may not be entirely correct, but he is not throwing words around at random: his ideas are often coherent and stimulating, and they may have explanatory force for real world phenomena. Let us return to the Pepsi document. It is gibberish. "The investment in our DNA leads to breakthrough innovation and allows us to move out of the traditional linear system into the future". This is accompanied by a helpful diagram. "The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillations," they explain. There is talk of an "authentic geometry". "The breathtaking colour palette is derived," they explain, "using a scientific method of colour assignment based on the product's essence and primary features." They go on to discuss "attraction theory", and the "Pepsi proposition".
This involves the "establishment of a gravitational pull to shift from a 'transactional' experience to an 'invitational' expression." The accompanying diagrams show a "typical light path" being subjected to gravitational pull, and then the gravitational pull of Pepsi. The words "relativity of space and time" appear next to a curved light beam, but the diagram for Pepsi shows many Pepsi logos, distorting the human path through "typical shopping aisle".
Here we find further parallels with conventional physics. "The universe expands exponentially with f(x)=e^x (1 light year = 671 million miles per hour)." One light year is not - if I can anally interject - 671 million miles per hour. Maybe that works because "the Pepsi Orbits" "dimensionalise exponentially".
This might be a useful moment to mention that the new logo is basically the same as the old one, except one of the curves has been changed a bit to look more like a smile.
The Arnell agency has yet to comment on the veracity of the document, but Pepsi certainly announced a revamp in October last year, and from reading his work, Peter Arnell does quite like the word "dimensionalise". At a recent news conference, he also compared his advert for SoBe Lifewater to the achievements of Thomas Edison in inventing cinematography.
And even if this is an elaborate 27-page long spoof, the horror is that it's believable. Across huge swaths of the world, scientific reasoning is regarded as decorative: a rhetorical stance, or a speech in a white coat from a 1950s B-movie. We live in a world that has indulged these buffoons for so long that they think they are heroes, while nerds are regarded with contempt. Our only hope is that after the robot wars, you will all starve, cold and in the rain, wearing leaves and eating mud.
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| The day of updates. |
[30 May 2009|11:24am] |
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 cheerful |
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I strongly recommend that everyone play this:
Grow Tower
The most infuriatingly addictive little game ever.
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| OMFG Swine Flu. |
[30 May 2009|09:51am] |
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mood |
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 amused |
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Oh, swine flu. You rear your ugly head about two months ago and suddenly the papers (Daily Mail readers take note) are full of massive headlines shouting MILLIONS WILL DIE.
The media proclaimed you as the worst pandemic to hit the world ever. They shouted at the government for not acting sooner. They shouted at the world health organisation for not declaring a world pandemic sooner.
Doctors were testing people to see if they'd caught you - I was subject to this myself - just because they had a cold. This was all very important, because if people caught you, they'd probably die.
We now arrive at the present. You've infected about 13,450 people, which I admit is impressive.
I'll tell you, Mr H1N1, what is NOT so impressive.
You've killed a grand total of 97 people. Worldwide.
What happened? You started out so strong, apparently killing 159 Mexicans (I don't know what happened to 62 of these - maybe they got resurrected by the local voodoo practitioners).
Then you went on to the US and started infecting the yokels. I had such high hopes. It would have been wonderful - kill off 80% of the world's population, leaving the poor, benighted survivors to pick up the pieces.
But no. You swept into Britain, with huge media coverage, and you've killed nobody. NOBODY. You weak, underpowered freak of nature.
I mean, even standard flu kills about 4000 people a year. And that's just in the UK. You've managed 95? That's just sad.
I expect more from you in the coming months. Rain down some doom.
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[19 Aug 2007|10:19pm] |
|
Plymouth!
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| ... |
[01 Apr 2007|12:59pm] |
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mood |
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 awake |
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Pandora's Box was good, wasn't it? As always :)
Sorry for leaving unexpectedly early - those of you who saw me later in the night could probably see how tired I was!
Good music - good company. Just how I like it.
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[13 Mar 2007|11:51am] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
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Inquisition : Saturday 17th March @ Clwb Tafod.
Cardiff's Premier Goth night! Feat. Dj Sets by Dj Jonthegoth and the usual & the slightly unusual suspects.
Bringing Cardiff a unique mixture of Goth, Darkwave, Deathrock, 80's, Electro & EBM every 3rd Saturday of each month!!!!.
£4/£5 Entry.
Door 8pm til 2am.
Dress code:- Goth!
I'm DJing this one for an hour so try and make it if you can :) Those of you who said you wanted to go - I'm driving as usual so have two spare places. Only downside of coming with us is that I'll be going for 6pm since we have to set up - so you'll have to make your own amusement until opening time! First come first served!
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| Wireless adaptor? |
[19 Feb 2007|03:39pm] |
I'm after a wireless adaptor to steal someone's wireless connection... Only thing is I have no cash, or very little.
Anyone got a spare PCI or USB wireless adaptor that I can borrow / steal for a couple of weeks?
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| Weird video afternoon. |
[08 Feb 2007|02:15pm] |
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mood |
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 calm |
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Found this link on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) metaquotes and thought I'd share it with the strange and wonderful people out there in Bristol...
Click for oddness.
A series of commercials/films for various companies made by a gentleman called David La Chapelle. I especially recommend the "MAC Instore Movie", "MTV Raw" and "Phat Ride+Dog Food+Vanity" to satisfy your cravings for odd.
Enjoy.
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| I am idiot. Hear me roar. |
[08 Feb 2007|11:08am] |
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mood |
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 angry |
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Well done me. I got my car towed last night due to a moment of stupidity in which I left the little Proton parked innocently on the Gloucester Road... during rush hour.
£135 later and I have it back. This is not good timing.
In other news the flat's lovely, Denice is even lovelier, and the piggers, rats and hammie are all doing well. We have boxes everywhere but D has managed to organise them into a semblance of order, so we can actually find things now which is nice.
Proper update soon when I can be bothered - hope everyone's well out in the snowy wasteland (sic).
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| Better late than never! |
[01 Feb 2007|11:28am] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
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So I finally finished editing the photos of PB... Quite a few here (under the cut below) so mind your bandwidth :)
( The rest are under here! )
There you have it. Until next month... captions gratefully accepted for any of these :)
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| Frustration! |
[30 Jan 2007|10:35am] |
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mood |
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 frustrated |
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Today is an annoying day.
Message received on MySpace:
Hi WastedIndustry, sorry for the lack of contact, I have been very busy with recording the album and moving house. How are you? Hope 2007 is a good year for you.
Speak soon
kj
My reply to the hapless twat:
Fuck you. Sending random messages to people you've never even contacted before in the form of spam text messages is the lowest of the fucking low. Your music sounds like something that dropped out of a drain, your face reminds me of something which dropped out of a dog's ass, and you're a cunt to boot. Get fucked.
I think I'm going to have a 'shout at users day' today.
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| Can you say "woo"? And can you then follow that up with a "hoo"? |
[27 Jan 2007|01:44pm] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
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Well bugger me, we have a flat. And it meets all our hopes and blows them out the window.
Really lovely first floor flat in Bishopston - massive bedroom, huge lounge, small kitchen and small bathroom. Really friendly landlord, who was there with what looked like the whole of his family redecorating the place, nice neutral decor, and it's a beautiful area - five minutes walk from my mum :/
And it's also within our budget :D
( Piccy under here. )
It is a bit far from everyone, but that's a relatively short distance in a car, so we'll still be able to come out for drinks whenever anyone wants to :)
Deposit's down, and we move in on Saturday next week. Hurrah!
PS - any assistance that anyone can offer us in moving all our crap would be greatly appreciated!
House warming party planned for sometime in the next month ;)
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| Pikchors. |
[21 Jan 2007|04:35pm] |
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mood |
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 artistic |
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Well it was fucking freezing and windy, but it was also lovely and sunny.
Pictures of the most regularly-visited tourist attraction in Bristol - amongst other things. I did consider somewhere else but I reckoned this would give me a sufficient variety of shots. These are, however, the best of a bad bunch - it appears I need to improve my knowledge of both photography and my camera.
( Pictures under the cut - mind your bandwidth, these are pretty big. )
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| Christ. |
[21 Jan 2007|01:02pm] |
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mood |
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 blah |
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Sunday TV is fucking soul-destroying. If it's not Big Brother and the shameless mongs inhabiting "the house", it's fucking X-Factor and the wailing idiots trying to get their face on TV.
Then we have someone in Roman armour wailing about how some woman has shamed him, 'Allo 'Allo (possibly the worst sit-com ever created), and some afternoon matinee involving religion.
I'm off out to take advantage of the sun by taking some piccies and seeing what my camera can do. People who watch TV on a Sunday should be shot.
Out.
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