Category: Items of Interest

Science Tarot

The Science Tarot is a new, creative project to bring scientific concepts to new segments of society in a visually compelling way.

Science Tarot is a creative science communication project that combines science, art and mythology into a tarot deck to engage and awaken people’s curiosity about science and the natural world.

The deck illustrates science stories to engage scientists, artists and tarot enthusiasts alike. In this way we aim to bridge disparate communities and foster both science education and self-discovery.

You can hear the creators discuss the project on Skeptically Speaking when the podcast version is posted.

This Poster’s Grammar Could be a BIG Problem

My workplace is very safety conscious, which is laudable as we regularly deal with a wide variety of unpleasant substances that scientific tradition teaches us to treat with a cavalier attitude. This sign appears to be warning me about the slips and trips[1]. Unfortunately, what one says and what one means are not always the same thing. Continue reading “This Poster’s Grammar Could be a BIG Problem”

Plato’s Mouthwash

Like I didn’t have enough problems already, now I’m convinced that my mouthwash is conspiring[1] to provide me with less than adequate dental hygiene. How do I know? The evidence is hiding in plain sight:

The Most Advanced & Complete Mouthwash

Let’s parse this bitch:

  1. Most modifies both “advanced” and “complete” as indicated by the ampersand and the positioning of the words on the label.
  2. Most Advanced indicates that this is the best mouthwash produced.
  3. Most Complete is a phrase of a complexity that necessitates a sub-list:
    1. Knowing what is most complete requires knowing what would define a complete mouthwash, the Platonic Mouthwash[2], if you will[3].
    2. Most complete implies that the mouthwash is not complete (if so it would just be complete), but just closer to the Platonic Mouthwash than others.
    3. Most complete indicates that a complete mouthwash is not available for ready money.

This analysis clearly shows that Big Mouthwash knows the recipe for the Platonic Mouthwash, but is not providing it to us, for some reason[1]. I feel betrayed. Minty fresh; but betrayed.

Or, it could all be meaningless marketsperanto devoid of any other meaning than “BUY ME!”, which I did. God, I feel worse about myself now than when I made that self-immolation joke.

NOTES

  1. As with all good conspiracies, the potential benefit to the mouthwash industry is convoluted and initially non-intuitive; but I think it goes a little something like this:
  2. This is a ham-handed allusion to Plato’s Republic, which proposes an deadly dull societal structure.
  3. You will. Trust me.

Proud to be an American?

As seen in a Darwin College (University of Cambridge - Cambridge, UK) bathroom.

Not that Trojan Condoms being “No. 1 in America” is particularly surprising, but I did not realize this was a relevant endorsement for British college students making a consumer choice in the competitive contraception marketplace. Apparently, my homeland is world renowned for our refined sensibilities in this area.

As an aside, shouldn’t “most effective” trump “most popular”?

Disappointment

I’m always extremely disappointed by Brits with poor vocabularies. It’s like discovering that Henry Ford was a bad driver*.

*Which he probably was, since they hadn’t invented traffic yet.