Assorted things, Grafton Centre edition
There's a pub on my way to work (The Hopbine) with a massively annoying advertising board. It used to have an advert for a "Husband Daycare Centre". "Ladies! Do you want to shop in peace? Leave your husband with us. You only pay for his food and beer." And for the endless limitations and microaggressions of living in a sexist society, I always wanted to add.
Now they have a new advert, which is even more annoying. It reads "I don't want to get technical but chemistry says alcohol is a solution". Taking my problems with this in reverse order:
1. No, chemistry does not. Chemistry has a specific, useful, and technical meaning for the word "alcohol", which describes things which aren't solutions. Chemistry would call an alcohol solution "an alcohol solution". Stop spreading misinformation.
1a. "Chemistry says" beer is a solution, as are wine and spirits. Why didn't you use one of those instead?
2. Science is not about appealing to authority. Or are you just distancing yourself from knowing something?
3. Also science is not window-dressing for your advertising campaign.
4. *Why* don't you want to get technical? Is scientific literacy too uncool for you?
In less grumpy news (but only relevant to people in or visiting Cambridge) there's a new remaindered bookshop just inside the Grafton Centre, next to Boots, which has a good selection of SF&F. I spotted Lauren Beukes, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Tricia Sullivan, and Adrian Tchaikovsky, plus a selection of Gollancz yellow-back omnibuses.
comments at Dreamwidth
Now they have a new advert, which is even more annoying. It reads "I don't want to get technical but chemistry says alcohol is a solution". Taking my problems with this in reverse order:
1. No, chemistry does not. Chemistry has a specific, useful, and technical meaning for the word "alcohol", which describes things which aren't solutions. Chemistry would call an alcohol solution "an alcohol solution". Stop spreading misinformation.
1a. "Chemistry says" beer is a solution, as are wine and spirits. Why didn't you use one of those instead?
2. Science is not about appealing to authority. Or are you just distancing yourself from knowing something?
3. Also science is not window-dressing for your advertising campaign.
4. *Why* don't you want to get technical? Is scientific literacy too uncool for you?
In less grumpy news (but only relevant to people in or visiting Cambridge) there's a new remaindered bookshop just inside the Grafton Centre, next to Boots, which has a good selection of SF&F. I spotted Lauren Beukes, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Tricia Sullivan, and Adrian Tchaikovsky, plus a selection of Gollancz yellow-back omnibuses.