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Shakespeare monkeys mural

Shakespeare Monkeys : That time monkeys were funded to type the works of Shakespeare.

Back in 2003, Plymouth University students received £2,000 from the Arts Council to give six monkeys one computer for a month. After six months, the Shakespeare monkeys had failed to produce a single word of English, broken the computer and used the keyboard as a lavatory. They pressed a lot of S’s,” researcher Mike Phillips […]

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milkshake duck

What is a Milkshake Duck and why is it 2017 word of the year

Milkshake Duck – The phrase so famous you never heard of it. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary has awarded “milkshake duck” its 2017 word of the year. On June 12, 2016, Australian cartoonist Ben Ward tweeted it to describe our tendency to foist instant celebrity on some person and its inevitable backlash. In Ward’s tweet, the cuddly duck is accused […]

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smart aleck

Call anyone a 19th century pimp lately?

Called someone a smart aleck lately?  Well, you just compared them to a 19th-century pimp. Turns out that Smart Aleck was a real person – and not one you’d like to meet down a dark alley. Or any kind of alley. Missouri professor Gerald Cohen writes that the term is derived from a real-life person. Alexander Hoag was […]

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marketing directory

The Cynic’s Marketing Directory or what marketing terms really mean

Here are some gems for a real world marketing directory. Content calendar What we’ll do if everything works perfectly, you pay on time and nobody has a day off.   Content. Lorem ipsum Polyfilla to anyone except the harmless drudge who has to write it.   Best Practice. What everyone else pretends to do. Or, […]

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bra size discount Chinese Restaurant

Ick or slick marketing? Chinese restaurant offers bra size discounts

A Chinese restaurant has gotten in trouble for offering discounts based on bra size. The Qianjiang Evening Post reports local complaints about the above poster for the Trendy Shrimp restaurant. One complaint said it was “vulgar advertising” and “discriminatory towards women”. The posters have already been removed. Trendy Shrimp general manager Lan Shenggang tells it straight […]

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craft beer named by AI

An AI beats humans at naming craft beer

A neural network system has learned to name craft beer from a huge dataset extracted from BeerAdvocate.com.   Credit: Lewis and Quark   Researcher and electrical engineer Janelle Shane has already trained AI to name kittens, metal bands, Pokemon, paint colors, and more. The AI-generated craft beer names vary from likely, to weirdly impressive, to bet-level […]

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