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brand cultivation for infants
Wednesday, August 3 2005
I did some rather dangerous work on my solar panel deck today: assembling the framework of its southern support system, the H-shaped structure that will straddle the forty five degree gable of the laboratory roof. One plan I'd had was to assemble this stucture down on the laboratory deck and them somehow raise it over the already-built northern support system and onto the roof, somehow avoiding the (temporarily repositioned) antenna mast in the process. But I decided it would be too heavy and unweildy for such a major operation, so I built the southern support structure right next to (and parallel with) the existing northern support structure, clamping its columns to the northern structure's cross member and then bolting in the southern structure's cross member, the thing that makes it a unified structure. When it is completed (a process that will include the attachment of joist hangers and diagonal braces), I'll have to figure a way to walk it out onto the roof. It will be heavy, maybe 80 pounds, but that won't be a problem so long as I can find a way to scoot out along the roof ridge. So far my eight foot step ladder has allowed me to easily reach all this stuff I'm building ten to twelve feet above the laboratory deck, but one slip or bad step could send me falling a variety of lethal distances. This is only an issue when I'm attempting to manipulate something heavy into position and my muscles and center of gravity divert their attention from keeping me on a ladder. This was especially true of the process of clamping the southern structure's two columns against the northern structure. It's not easy, while perched precariously atop a step ladder, to hold a nine foot long four by four in a specific place while simultaneously positioning a massive C-clamp around it and then somehow tightening that.
I was at a housecall today not far from home and the baby of the housecall household had one of those plastic activity stations, the kind where you can push a button and to generate a wheezy squeak or you can flip back a panel to reveal a mirror lightly encrusted with fecal matter. These days such things could easily be stuffed with electronics and made capable of doing more stuff for less money than if they actually contain the rubbery air bladders and metal bells that such toys contained in my youth. I don't know what technology this particular device was based upon, but I did happen to notice something non technological that would have been unusual even ten years ago. The infant's activity station featured cross-branding for the Vtech trademark. When I was kid, such toys would be branded, but only with the toy's manufacturer's brand. Here, it seems, I was seeing something far more ambitious. Instead of bothering with the promotion of a brand that a child will eventually outgrow, a communications company decided to familiarize infants with their brand, perhaps so they'd have a warm and fuzzy (and most importantly, subconscious) feeling when, as adolescents, it came time to select, say, a cell phone.
Matt Rogers sent me this interesting article about bottled water. I've always been suspicious of non-tap water, and now finally with this article I have my talking points. It also gives me yet another reason to curse the suburbanite wanna-bes of Dug Hill Road and the "Leisure Time" water delivery trucks that pay them weekly visits. Then again, it's entirely possible that their wells draw water from Hurley Mountain's infamous "sulfur layer." I know a few people with that problem, the most expensive solution for which is to dig another, deeper well. Ours is reportedly 600 feet deep, meaning it goes down to sea level. It draws from a layer of rock that is rich in iron, which affects the water's flavor but not its smell. Happily, dissolved iron is easily eliminated from water by bubbling air through it.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?050803 feedback
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