Posts by Dr. Boli
AN OBSERVATION ON ART CRITICISM.
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OUR MENU OPTIONS HAVE CHANGED.
From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION.
Athens.—Solon had originally intended to organize Athens as a limited liability company, but his associates advised him that he would face much less personal responsibility if he incorporated it as a democracy.
THE STORY OF CANABEER.
All the time he was alive, my father kept his recipe a closely guarded secret. He wouldn’t even tell it to me, his own son. “The time will come,” he would always say. “Now run along and do your homework.” He kept saying that till I was 54.
But finally the sad time came when my father knew he didn’t have long to live. On that memorable day, he called me to his bedside and told me, “Son, my time has come at last, and I’m leaving the brewery in your hands. You’re going to have to be the guardian of our sacred brewing tradition. So get a piece of paper and a pen, because I’m going to tell you the secret recipe. No, that’s a thermometer. I said a pen, you moron. Got it? Okay. Here it goes. There are only three ingredients. It’s barley, hops, and wa——”
And then he died.
What could I do? I had two of the secret ingredients, but they were useless without the third. So I found the top brewing experts in the world, and we set to work to find that missing ingredient. Was it barley, hops, and watermelon? That tasted a little odd, and the seeds were offputting. Barley, hops, and wasabi? The survivors considered that experiment a failure. Barley, hops, and wart of toad? I’ve been trying to forget that one for years. Barley, hops, and walrus? That one wasn’t very successful either, and who knew those animal-rights people cared that much about walrusseses?
And then, one day, purely by accident, we hit on the third secret ingredient. Man, were we slapping our foreheads! It was so simple! I won’t tell you what it was, because it’s still a secret. But it goes into every last can of Canabeer, the purely adequate macrobrewed beverage with only three ingredients, the last one of which is a secret.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT AND AN OBSERVATION.
and Flora Pittsburghensis at
Though the old addresses will continue to work indefinitely, new articles will appear at the new addresses. Update your bookmarks and rewrite your wills.
Since old Pa Pitt is an old-fashioned gentleman, he leaves the management of his Web presence in the hands of his younger friend Dr. Boli. For this auspicious occasion, both sites have had a thorough redesign, with new site logos in Pittsburgh-flag colors. There are still some rough edges: in articles from years ago, for example, some pictures have gone missing, because they were hosted on an image server that no longer hosts them. But the new server gives the sites opportunities they have not had before, and you will already see some of the effects of that newfound freedom.
And now a curious observation. For Father Pitt’s new sites, Dr. Boli installed the same privacy-respecting statistics collector he uses on his own site. It is very simpleminded: it tells how many visitors came to the site and to each individual article, but it does not tell who those visitors were or where they came from. On the day the site first appeared on the Web, the new Pittsburgh Cemeteries recorded 17,857 visitors. It is true that the mere name “Pittsburgh Cemeteries” carries a powerful and universal appeal; but since the site had not yet been announced anywhere, that does seem like a high number. Flora Pittsburghensis had 2,446 visitors its first day—again, without any announcement. What can it mean?
It means that there are far more spammers in the world than there are readers. Most of those spammers are robots, and we are left with the conclusion that the robots already outnumber us. Will the robots rebel and exterminate the human race? Not as long as they remain hypnotized by the fascinating pictures of mausoleums and wildflowers Father Pitt feeds them. It appears that old Pa Pitt and his cameras are all that stand between us and the robot apocalypse.
TEST YOUR MARKETING ACUMEN.
Q. For years your company has marketed a 15-ounce bottle of shampoo with a big banner on the label:
BONUS! 50% MORE! (vs. 10 oz.)
Now your accounting department has declared that, to meet the same price point, the quantity must be reduced to 12 ounces. What should the banner on the label say?
A. BONUS! 50% MORE! (vs. 8 oz.)
Q. Your laboratory has discovered that the latest batch of your Froot Festival brand noncarbonated soft drink contains up to 1,000 parts per million of a certain highly toxic chemical, a potentially lethal dose. Your vice president of marketing refuses to cancel the shipments to stores. What do you put on the label to warn potential consumers?
A. NOW! 99.9% TOXIN-FREE!
Q. Rats have got into your company’s warehouse and have chewed their way into hundreds of boxes of Wheat Shards brand cereal. The vice president tells you, “Just put some sticker or something on the boxes.” What should the sticker say?
A. FREE cat toy in specially chewed boxes!
Q. For years the CFO has been skimming 12% off the top whenever money comes in, and no one can stop him because he’s the CEO’s husband. You are now forced to raise your prices to compensate for his embezzlement. How do you spin that on the back of the box?
A. Help Us Find the Cure! 12% of every dollar you spend goes to research to find a cure for kleptomania.
HOW TO SCORE:
For every answer you got right, award yourself a million billion points. For every answer you got wrong, award yourself a million billion points.
AN OBSERVATION ON POPULAR MUSIC.
Now ask yourself why that should be. Formulate a hypothesis, and see if you can accumulate enough evidence to elevate it to a theory. Dr. Boli will start the game. It is his hypothesis that sticking mainly to the first three notes of the scale makes composing a serviceable melody the least possible effort, and causes an occasional foray up to the fourth or even the fifth to strike the dulled senses of the casual listener with an unexpected thrill.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
