From the Office of Poorly-named Products

Please send me your ideas, and let me know how you want to be credited for them, Thank you, PDK.

I added new ones on 2010-08-18 thanks to suggestions by the SV\DL Riders Google list, Kay Kile, and an episode of Top Gear.

So far I have avoided punny hair salon names such as “Sheer Perfection“, “A Cut Above“, “US Hair Force“, and “Curl Up And Dye“, but they do deserve a special place. ” (Yes, I know “Curl Up And Dye” is from the Blues Brothers, but folks have used it for real salons too.)

Bad Non-automotive Product Names

There are so many poorly-named cars, that they get their own section.

AcipHex

Thumper Ray suggested this one: “How about a drug pronounced ‘ass effects’ that has flatulence listed as the third most common side effect and constipation as number five.  Ass effects indeed.” I was actually able to Google the correct spelling of AcipHex by typing it in phonetically: not a good sign.

Barf

I can’t make this stuff up.  Kay actually brought a box back from Azerbaijan.

The photo is by Flickr user almada, and is licensed under Creative Commons.

Duke Nukem Forever

Apogee Software (a/k/a 3D Realms) released the Duke Nukem video game in 1991, Duke Nukem II in 1993, and Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. The name “Duke Nukem 3D” is a pun; it’s the 3d version of the game, and it’s played in 3D.  How will come up with a pun for version Duke 4? How about “Duke Nukem Forever” (4-ever, Duke  4, get it)?  …only, it’s been over 13 years since the last version of the game was released. It really is taking them “forever” to complete it.

GoLYTELY

GoLYTELY is a polyethylene-glycol-electrolyte-solution that makes everything in your digestive system come out really, really fast: “go lightly” indeed. Yes. Polyethylene-glycol is also the stuff in Miralax: which does work mildly, but the same cannot be said for GoLYTELY.

On another note: the word polyethylene-glycol-electrolyte-solution sounds to me like something that you could make by melting a full bottle of Gatorade.

Hydrox

John suggested Hydrox: a cookie that sounds like a chemical. Donlon McGovern added: “Yeah, and with all that sodium they could call them Sodium Hydroxides but then that would be a little caustic.”

Nanotax

There is a new cancer drug called Nanotax: as if they combined the words “nano” and “tax“, and no, that’s not a mistake. NanoTax is a contraction of the words “nano”, and “paclitaxel“, but who can hear the name of this product without thinking of being taxed for every little thing?

Razorbraces

I know how vitally important it is to let your patients know that you are a fan of the geographically local sports team. Who would go to an orthodontist that wasn’t? That said, getting braces is bad enough, without getting razorbraces in your mouth.

Bad Automotive Product Names

There are so many poorly-named cars, that they get their own section.

AMC Gremlin

Gremlin is also another name for a mechanical problem.  This was like naming your Operating System “Buggy”.

Ford Aspire

Does it aspire to be a car?

Chevy Nova

Nova: a star that suddenly increases its light output tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity in a few months or years.

I never believed the other explanation. Folks would say, “No va means doesn’t go in Spanish!” and I would say, “The word nova means the same thing to Spanish-speaking people as it does to English-speaking people. It’s a scientific term.”

Honda Fit

• It’s small enough to fit in your other car.
• You’ll barely fit in it?
• It will remind you of your kids throwing a fit ?

Daihatsu Charade

The word charade means a piece of ridiculous pretence which is so obvious that it does not deceive anyone. Was this meant to be a parody of a car? Because it only had 3-cylinders? Americans weren’t buying 3-cylinder cars back then (’88-’92). Daihatsus are no longer sold in the US. That’s too bad: the Daihatsu Copen is a beautiful (but not powerful) car.

This photo by is by WikiMedia Commons user Tennen-Gas, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Honda Odyssey

We read an English translation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” in fifth grade.  All of the men that went on the trip with Odysseus died. “I know! Let’s name a vehicle that families take on trips after a story about a trip, where almost everyone dies!  That’s a great idea!”

Honda Prelude

Remember: the prelude introduces what comes later.  OK, then that’s the car I want.

Mitsubishi Lancer

Like what? Lancing boils?

Mitsubishi Mirage

It’s not real. It’s only a mirage.

Subaru Justy

Is it just barely a car?

Toyota Urban Cruiser

I believe that Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear described an Urban Cruiser as “someone that you don’t want around a school with children in it”. That sounds about right. It’s not available in the US, but it is very similar to a Scion xD, which is.

This photo by is by WikiMedia Commons user Matthias93, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

From the Office of Reused Product-names

Honda Odyssey

This is a Honda Odyssey. These little guys were sold from 1977 until sometime in the 1980′s It was a very popular product, but who today thinks about anything, except minivans when they hear the name “Honda Odyssey”?  I really envied the people that drove these when I was a teenager.  I lived in the Adirondack area, and folks would ride these on the frozen ice. This video is by alicecooper2009 (if that is his real name):

Honda Pilot

The original Honda Pilot was not an SUV.  It was a miniature dune buggy, just like the Honda Odyssey.  Bad Honda.  No bisquit. This video is by StonerLouie:

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access isn’t a very good name for a DBMS.  When I mention that folks usually say, “But it helps you to ‘access’ data”, but all programs help you to access data.  Being able to use a computer, when you cannot even get to a physical console?  Now, that would be a good product for the name Access to belong to, and it did.  Microsoft Access was originally the name of a Terminal Emulator.

Mitsubishi Lancer, Mitsubishi Mirage

At one point Mitsubishi had a couple of cars.  One was the Lancer, and the other was the Mirage.  When they decided to import the Mirage to the United States they named it the Lancer, so when they decided to import the Lancer to the United States they named it the Mirage. Folks see these cool off-road Rally Lancers racing in Europe, so they want one like that!  Mitsubishi gives the US car some body styling to look like the Rally cars, that’s cool right? …but the racing Lancers were called Mirages in the US, so the Lancer that you bought way-back-when with the cool wing wasn’t really what those race cars were based on at all. Those cars were actually based on the Mirage that was sitting in your Mom’s driveway.  Why do companies reuse product names?

The World’s Smallest Political Quiz. -AND- Where Does Paul Danger Kile Stand Politically?

This is what happens when the editor chooses to go off topic! This essay existed before this Web page became devoted to motorcycles. The current publish-date represents the latest edits.

If you are interested in The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, but not in my own results, and explanation, then go directly to The World’s Smallest Political Quiz.

Third-parties will always be a losing-proposition in this country.  It is simply easier to collect the magic-number of votes if there are only two large parties. (The magic-number of votes is one-more than 50%.)

According to the Advocates for Self Government: a multi-dimensional model is needed as a replacement for the left-to-right-wing straight-line continuum.

My ex-mother-in-law used to tell me that it was evil to be left-wing, because Pol Pot was left-wing, and he had all those people killed. I would follow that up with an almost identical analogy using Adolf Hitler instead. Kids: Uncle Paul does not recommend that you compare your in-laws’ beliefs to Hitler’s. This does not go well. He was young and immature at the time. [2009-01-07] Al Franken just used the same “Hitler” rebutal with Ann Coulter! Maybe he-too is young and immature?

Traditionally Libertarians are thought to be right-wing, but there are many Republican party values that aren’t Libertarian. David Nolan realized that a better model would show how much government control a person wanted over personal issues, and how much government control that same person wanted over economic issues. If we map these two dimensions, then we will have four quadrants.

(The block-quotes are from the “Advocates for Self Government’s World’s Smallest Political Quiz FAQ”. It is no longer available at its URL, so some links have been removed from this page.):

Conservatives tend to favor economic freedom, but frequently support laws to restrict personal behavior that violates “traditional values.” They oppose excessive government control of business, while endorsing government action to defend morality and the traditional family structure. Conservatives usually support a strong military, oppose bureaucracy and high taxes, favor a free-market economy, and endorse strong law enforcement.

Liberals usually embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but tend to support significant government control of the economy. They generally support a government-funded “safety net” to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations, defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles.

Libertarians support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

Statists want government to have a great deal of power over the economy and individual behavior. They frequently doubt whether economic liberty and individual freedom are practical options in today’s world. Statists tend to distrust the free market, support high taxes and centralized planning of the economy, oppose diverse lifestyles, and question the importance of civil liberties.

The Advocates for Self-government have a Web application called The World’s Smallest Political Quiz. (Mark Shroyer: do you remember telling me about this quiz!?) Here are my results:

The red dot shows where Paul is on the Nolan political chart.

I am on the intersection of Liberal (considered to be left wing), Libertarian (considered to be right wing), and Centrist. Really. I am not a Democrat, and I am not a Republican, and neither of those parties will ever accurately represent me.

USDebtClock.org

This is “fun”: usdebt.org.  It’s not as bad as it seems. USDebt.org’s clock doesn’t take inflation into account. The less that each dollar is worth, the less the nation is in-debt in-terms-of the work needed to pay the debt off.  Please feel free to consider this last comment to-be sarcasm, or wisdom, depending on your mood.  This one was sent in by Don Benish.  Only dangerismymiddlename.com can be held accountable for the words in this post though.

Unions are Corporate

I planned to write this essay long ago.  Here’s what prompted me to write it now:

1. Super Dave Rosno (motorcycle racer, and former racing school owner) posted a Detroit Free Press article on facebook that included this quote: “A $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans.“
2. One of his friends blamed the automobile companies’ management for the current situation.  Here is part of what he wrote: “The company offered it as a management decision believing that they could provide the coverage at a lower cost to themselves that if they offered higher wages and allowed the workers to obtain their own coverage. The companies then took the surpluses during fat years, spent them elsewhere, and when we hit a few lean years they complain that they don’t have the money to make good on a contractual obligation.“
3. Um, no.  There was no choice there.

I worked for a GM subsidiary for a while (in a GM foundry). They have a history of merging with profitable companies, and then selling those companies for profit later on (Hughes Aerospace, EDS, all the parts companies that eventually became Delphi, etc.) Why do they do this? With the exception of Cadillac, they have been losing money on every car that they make for quite some time (based on what I saw I believe this to have been going on for decades). They sell off their actual money making businesses so that they can continue to lose money on cars (By car, I mean automobile, pickup trucks and SUV’s have small profit margins during the good years).  Why do they do this? These people, from the top to the bottom, love building vehicles. Really.

GM’s largest asset is their people, and as long as those people don’t realize that they are the company, then things can’t ever go well.

There was no choice between higher wages or better compensation. The choice was: we will shut you down now via strike, or you will go out of business later.

Remember: the union is a corporation. The difference is that the Union finds it easy to get sympathy while they are making an unreasonable amount of money.

Are emergency rooms really that big a drag on the medical system?

This is a new version of my contributions to Are emergency rooms really that big a drag on the medical system? on The Straight Dope board (A message board for fans of The Straight Dope).  I highly recommend The Straight Dope.   If your favorite newspaper doesn’t carry it, then go here. Everyone knows Snopes.com. The Straight Dope has a different purpose, but it is Snopes equal in the fight against ignorance.

Emergency rooms are not supposed to be free, but they must help everyone, and some never pay the bill. If a patient doesn’t pay her bill, then who ends up paying it? The hospital does at first, but ultimately we all do. As Shodan said, “If you are mandated to treat everyone whether they can pay or not, you have to charge those who pay more to cover for those who don’t.” We currently have a national health care system without a detailed policy for those that cannot pay. The patients, the insurance companies, and the Physicians have little means of controlling those costs.

I was in poverty for many years. I am certainly not against care for the poor. Being “against” national health care is meaningless. We have had it for quite some time (whether we are talking about Medicaid, Medicare, or yes, those that simply don’t pay). The question is whether we want control over what is happening, or not, and “not” is just bad business.

How bad is the problem? Go here to read Malcolm Gladwell’s Million Dollar Murray. Here is a teaser quote: “Culhane estimates that in New York at least sixty-two million dollars was being spent annually to shelter just those twenty-five hundred hard-core homeless.”

Being against national health care is unreasonable. We have it, we just do it really badly. Lets stop doing it badly.

Malpractice and The High Cost Of Healthcare Short Rant

Most health care costs are incurred in a person’s final three years-of-life. The best way to fix health care is to change from a culture of “extending life at all cost” to a culture of “making our last years as comfortable as possible”.

Physicians won’t let patients die, because they are incented not-to by malpractice suits.  This is one more (indirect) tax that we do not need to pay.  We need to lower the cost of malpractice by limiting the size of judgments.  All Physicians have bad results, because we all die, but that’s what they get sued for, regardless of their actual (in)competence.

Do you know who begins these lawsuits? It’s almost always a family member that wasn’t even there during a patient’s last days. The ones that were there know the Physician, and know that their loved one is dying. Its the guilt of the other relatives that fuel malpractice suits.

I should note that my wife who is a Physician believes that Physicians won’t let patients die, because its not what their culture values, more than for any other reason.  Still we need to change that culture to to a culture of “making our last years as comfortable as possible”.

Why do I feel so strongly about this?  I have had non-stop (the intensity does rise and fall) pain for 21 years now.  I understand how much discomfort can affect a person’s quality of life.

Find Your Next Job Online

Following this introduction is a short essay that I wrote for Brooks’Rejection Emails Web site; where he critiques rejection letters. If you meet Brooks, then hire him.

My advice below eventually generated leads. That said, you never know where your next offer will come from. I met a Wal-Mart recruiter at a Diversity Job Fair during the dot-bomb implosion. (It’s not diversity without at least one caucasion man. Right?)

The Dallas Metro area lost over 78,000 IT and Telecom jobs during the 12 month period prior. Many of those folks were at this job fair. There were only two tech companies present. One of those two was interested in applicants with flight simulator engineering experience. The other said, “Go to our Web site. We are not taking resumes.” O… K… I was near the start of the line, so I let others know what I learned, and I heard a lot of, “Thanks, now I don’t have to waste anymore time here” in response to my news.

So, I introduce myself to a Wal-Mart recruiter at her empty booth. She took one look at me and said, “I am not recruiting computer programmers. I am recruiting night stockers in Dallas for the holiday season.” I reply with, “That’s OK I was a Night Stocker at Ames Department Stores. I like retail, and I like stocking shelves. Also, I would like to move to Bentonville Arkansas to be a computer programmer.” She took my resume, told me that she would bring it home, and give it to a tech recruiter, and that my-friends was the beginning of the highest paid position that I have held in my entire life. Heh, and people think that Wal-Mart doesn’t pay well… only better than everyone else!

OK, after this line comes the part that I wrote for the Rejection Emails Web site. Everything up above was just some additional rambling on my part:

I had this experience back during the dot-bomb bust. Obviously I need to paraphrase here, because this conversation happened long ago.

Recruiter:

“How are you doing your online job search?”

I then describe how I search for positions via friends, Monster, etc.

Recruiter:

“That will never work. Those ‘known’ positions potentially have hundreds of applicants. It doesn’t matter how good you are. There are just too many other applicants. Here is how I find potential applicants. One of my clients contacts me directly to fill a position. These are typically not positions that are widely advertised. My client wants to interview a small number of highly qualified people. I go to one of these Web sites (she then shows me Monster). Then I search on the keywords that are in the job description, the potential applicant’s location, etc. Then I contact the folks on the first page. I am almost always able to fill the position for someone near the top of my search results.

So, the most effective way for you to find a position is to be on that first page. You don’t look for positions, because too many other people are applying for those very same positions. You simply position yourself so that I can find you. See this? The results near the top were edited recently. Make a resume. Put it on here. Put all the technologies that you know on it, and update it every single day, even if you simply add a space somewhere. Editing it every day puts it near the top of the search results. This advice will help other recruiters find you. In the meantime I will see if any of my clients need you now.”

Needless to say, this turned everything upside down. My job wasn’t to look for a job. My job was to market myself.

Keith Olbermann – 8 years in 8 minutes