Xref: utzoo rec.humor:26775 sci.bio:2289
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!pell
From: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,sci.bio
Subject: Re: More dodgy products (i.e. Re: Ott Computer Safety Light)
Message-ID: <11533@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 11 Sep 89 16:28:43 GMT
References: <15388@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <1199@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
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In article <1199@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> zanussi@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk writes:
>On the subject of dodgy products and wild claims, here is a verbatim copy of an 
>advert that surfaced a few months ago :-
>
>                   PHOTOTRON - State Of The Art In Biotechnology
>                   =============================================
>                            Over 80,000 sold worldwide

Yes, the now-famous phototron, which is used for growing cat-nip, of course.
But, to the original issue of "dodgy products" and shifty merchandising,
I was curious about its rather odd dimensions:
>
>The Phototron measures only 92 cm tall by 46 cm wide. 

Now, that sounds to me like one yard (3 feet) by a foot-and-a-half.
Unless the numbers "92" and "46" have some cosmic signifigance of which
I am unaware (entierly possible, I am not up on the "new age"), it
seems as though the fellow with the masters in the cannaboid profile
built the thing to "american" units (the English rarely use them anymore)
and then someone told him he would seem more scientific if he used metric units.
Someone using metric from the start would almost certainly use 50x100.

That is a cute trick marketing people use.  Use terminology that makes you
sound learned and scientific when selling something like this.

-tony