Here in the United States, the Writers Guild of America -- who write a lot of the television shows -- are on strike, and have been for two months. As a result, a lot of TV shows are in reruns, and the networks are starting to move into "reality" television which doesn't need writers.
Anyway, zap2it.com, a web page with TV listings, currently has a banner ad reading: "WRITERS' STRIKE DAY -307: Find out how the Hollywood writers' strike will affect you." The strike actually started on November 5, 2007; this is day 58.
Apparently whoever wrote the code which automatically generates these banners didn't consider the possibility that the strike might run into 2008. And 308 days from today (the putative "Day 1" if the count increments by one each day) is November 4, not November 5... 2008 is a leap year! If I had to guess, I'd say that the code incorporates the fact that the strike started on the 309th day of the year... which is November 5 in an ordinary year, but November 4 in a leap year.
And do people remember how occasionally, around eight years ago, you'd see web sites referring to "19100" for 2000, "19101" for 2001, and so on, since the code which was automatically generating the dates hadn't been fixed for Y2K? This error reminds me of that, although there's no mathematical similarity. But they're both "stupid calendar tricks".
(While I'm on the topic of calendars, check out Claus Tondering's Calendar FAQ.)
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
01 January 2008
16 July 2007
not everything needs to be counted
"One eight-ounce glass counts as almost twenty-five percent of your fruit and vegetable servings." -- from a commercial for Florida orange juice I just saw on television.
Something about this "counts as" construction bothers me. It sounds to me like they're saying "it's not really fruit" or something like that, like eating is some sort of game.
Similarly, there's a commercial for the cereal Special K that, if I remember correctly,has a couple of really skinny girls deciding not to skip breakfast; if you write it and kingdom living, among others, have complained that this commercial feeds our national obsession with being thin. A calorie count is given at some point (200, I think?) and they show a bowl of cereal which certainly has more than 200 calories. (Take a look at the serving size written on your cereal box sometime. It's probably a lot less than what you eat when you eat cereal. They also seem to imply that this little bowl of cereal will tide someone over until lunch, which just isn't going to happen.)
In general, I feel that the human body knows wat it wants to eat, and that counting calories is kind of a silly idea. I would call this overmathematization, and I think it's something that various parts of our society are succumbing to -- the fact that box office numbers are becoming a big part of news broadcasts, for example, when really only the people who work in the movie business should care about those. Not everything needs to have a number.
(edit, 7:23pm: Wow, google is fast! I wondered if "overmathematization" was a word people had used, so I googled it. There are nine hits. One of them is this entry, which I posted twenty-three minutes ago.)
Something about this "counts as" construction bothers me. It sounds to me like they're saying "it's not really fruit" or something like that, like eating is some sort of game.
Similarly, there's a commercial for the cereal Special K that, if I remember correctly,has a couple of really skinny girls deciding not to skip breakfast; if you write it and kingdom living, among others, have complained that this commercial feeds our national obsession with being thin. A calorie count is given at some point (200, I think?) and they show a bowl of cereal which certainly has more than 200 calories. (Take a look at the serving size written on your cereal box sometime. It's probably a lot less than what you eat when you eat cereal. They also seem to imply that this little bowl of cereal will tide someone over until lunch, which just isn't going to happen.)
In general, I feel that the human body knows wat it wants to eat, and that counting calories is kind of a silly idea. I would call this overmathematization, and I think it's something that various parts of our society are succumbing to -- the fact that box office numbers are becoming a big part of news broadcasts, for example, when really only the people who work in the movie business should care about those. Not everything needs to have a number.
(edit, 7:23pm: Wow, google is fast! I wondered if "overmathematization" was a word people had used, so I googled it. There are nine hits. One of them is this entry, which I posted twenty-three minutes ago.)
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