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The Royal Society of Chemistry is today reclaiming the word chemical from the advertising and marketing industries.

It has been misappropriated and maligned as synonymous with “poison”. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently defended an advert which perpetuated the myth that natural compounds are free of chemicals.

The truth, as any right-minded person will say, is that everything we eat, drink, drive, play with and live in is made of chemicals - both natural and synthetic chemicals are essential for life as we know it.

I get annoyed with the opposite treatment of the word nature, which is taken to mean ‘good’ in advertising and marketing, even when nature itself can be anything but.

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AC/DC have released what they’re calling the world’s first music video in an Excel spreadsheet:

AC/DC smashes through your firewall with real rock ‘n’ roll! Download the spreadsheet to watch the Rock N Roll Train video in all it’s Low Definition™ glory!

It’s another surprising pop music/Microsoft Office combination.

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The researchers created two conditions: one of order and the other of disorder. In the former, the walls of the alley were freshly painted; in the latter, they were tagged with graffiti (but not elaborately, to avoid the perception that it might be art). In both states a large sign prohibiting graffiti was put up, so that it would not be missed by anyone who came to collect a bicycle. All the bikes then had a flyer promoting a non-existent sports shop attached to their handlebars. This needed to be removed before a bicycle could be ridden.

When owners returned, their behaviour was secretly observed. There were no rubbish bins in the alley, so a cyclist had three choices. He could take the flyer with him, hang it on another bicycle (which the researchers counted as littering) or throw it to the floor. When the alley contained graffiti, 69% of the riders littered compared with 33% when the walls were clean.

One study doesn’t make a proof (despite what the title of the Economist article claims), but I do like watching social scientists go to ingenious lengths to try and create a controlled experiment involving unknowing humans.

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Jarvis Cocker has a beard. That is all.

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There’s more on this sine wave speech effect (including further examples) here.

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This is the Question

Marry

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —

W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.

Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.

Not Marry

No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working ‘in‘ without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

Following this scientific analysis, he went for marry.

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