MisEntropy

'How We Advertise Now' - a Punch cartoon from 1887

There were no good old days, evidently.

[Cartoon from Punch 1887 by Harry Furniss; from the book 'The Best of Punch Cartoons']

ten things i didn't know until last week

1. CS Lewis's middle name is Staples. (His first name is Clive.)

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2. Oxygen in Greek literally means 'acid giver or begetter' - because its discoverer, Lavoisier, mistakenly thought Oxygen is present in all acids.
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3. Billy Durant founded GM in 1908.
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4. In research, "Hawthorne Effect" is the idea that the very act of being experimented upon changes subjects’ behaviour.
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5. The Fedora is named for the title of an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, Fédora, written for Sarah Bernhardt.
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6. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.
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7. The price of every DVD disc includes a small royalty to Philips, which developed the format.
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8. George Bernard Shaw named his shed after the UK capital so that when visitors called they could be told he was away in London.
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9. Paul McCartney's Beatles' classic 'Blackbird' is a homage to the black civil rights movement - "bird", in this case, being a colloquial term for "woman".
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10. Che Guevera's family was half-Irish and his real name was Ernesto Lynch.
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[Original pic by SeenyaRita]

Plannersphere Top 20 - June 2009

The top 20 blogs in the plannersphere as of 6th June 2009:

01. russell davies
02. Advertising Lab
03. Noah Brier dot Com
04. Servant of Chaos
05. Nick Burcher
06. Mike Arauz
07. Talent imitates, genius steals
08. Only Dead Fish
09. paul isakson
10. Influxinsights
11. From The Head Of Zeus Jones
12. adliterate
13. Adspace Pioneers
14. Interactive Marketing Trends
15. Herd - the hidden truth about who we are
16. brand new
17. The Hidden Persuader
18. Trendsspotting
19. Get Shouty
20. CrapHammer

a. The above list winnows out the planning/strategy blogs from the AdAge Power 150 list - and represents a snapshot of their relative positions during the course of their constant Brownian flux on the AdAge list.
b. The plannersphere universe considered in compiling the above chart is this master list (curated by me) which itself was (and continues to be) derived from the Plannersphere wiki list.
c. To figure in the above chart, a blog should feature both in the AdAge Power 150 (information on submitting it is available on the same page) AND in this master plannersphere list. Do ping me to ensure the latter if you have only been recently enlisted on the AdAge Power 150.
d. In addition, to feature in the above chart a blog also needs to have been active - with at least one entry - over the last 1 month.
e. If there are any omissions, do let me know; I shall include them henceforth.
f. You can view rankings from previous months at Plannersphere Top 20.