New directions in the science of green materials
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From the web page advertising the new Asus bamboo series:
Mature Moso bamboo, around 2 years old, is used in the Bamboo notebooks. This aligns with the natural lifespan of the bamboo, and the manufacturing process uses less energy than traditional metal alloys that are refined from petrol.
Unlike the Pomegranate, the Asus bamboo is an actual product — I saw one in use just a couple of days ago. But this leaves the question of whether the ad page is a hip joke, or was produced by copy writers who paid less attention in science class than they did to environmentalist clichés.
Later we learn something new about bamboo's superordinate category as well:
Users will have a highly individual and personal experience with the Bamboo notebook where every touch on the touch pad will be reflected by color and surface change over time and use, as only a natural fiber like bamboo can demonstrate.
The same question arises in this case: hip joke or mindless rhetoric?
One of the other advertising pages for this product makes an intriguing claim:
And underneath the beauty of the surface is a feat of engineering, boasting an incredible resilience that has been testing to its limit successfully on the unforgiving conditions of Mount Everest.
I'm tentatively voting for the "copy writers on automatic pilot" theory; but maybe the jokes are going over my head.
[The bamboo in question seems to come from this company. A key part of the process involves glue — "The bamboo strips are pressed against each other vertically and glued under high pressure" — and I wonder whether the glue is a traditional animal glue, or a more modern type made from petrochemicals, say urea-formaldehyde glue (where both urea and formaldehyde are now typically produced from coal, natural gas, or other fossil hydrocarbons).]
Klank Kiki said,
January 24, 2009 @ 7:47 am
Didn't they teach you at school that the hardest metal is diamond?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080124080525AAk32WI
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Diamond
No wonder manufacturers refine their metals from petrol, which is made of mostly carbon.
Elena said,
January 24, 2009 @ 8:16 am
Sounds like standard Chinglish advertisement to me.
For example,
Or,
Maybe ASUS has better translators than Xi'an Tangdu Paper Products Co., LTD or KeLeYiShang (where "individuality and fashion are eternal themes") but the head of their advertising department probably went to the same school as the guys heading up Tangdu and KLES. After all, ASUS's logo reads: "Rock Solid. Heart Touching."
Tom Williams said,
January 24, 2009 @ 8:39 am
Or in other words, it'll suffer from wear and tear. The use of the touchpad on my macbook is reflected by color and surface change over time, too. Apple just don't advertise it as a selling point.
Firas said,
January 24, 2009 @ 8:54 am
The elevation of wood as a luxury substance when compared to plastic, metal etc.–with special reference to its origins, age, wear and tear–is hardly unique to laptop makers.
[(myl) Sure, but that's got nothing to do with the point of this post, which deals with the odd idea that metals are "refined from petrol" and that bamboo veneer is a "natural fiber". And the theme of the ad is not that wood is a "luxury substance" (like the wood veneers in luxury automobiles) but that it's a "green" substance. ]
Dan T. said,
January 24, 2009 @ 9:06 am
"…an incredible resilience that has been testing to its limit…" seems ungrammatical… "…tested to its limit…" would make more sense. One can say that the experimenter "has been testing to its limit" some object, attribute, or hypothesis, but the object of the experiment seems to only serve as the subject of such a phrase when "tested" is used as a past participle, rather than the present participle "testing".
[(myl) Yes, I think this one is either a typographical error (I make mistakes like this in typing all the time), or else evidence that a non-native speaker was involved at some stage of the copy-writing process.]
Albatross said,
January 24, 2009 @ 9:58 am
"… uses less energy than traditional metal alloys that are refined from petrol."
Perhaps my knowledge of science is not as extensive as it could be. Is this claim made based on the heat needed to produce the metals, heat which is achieved through fossil fuels? Or is the statement claiming that metals are actually made from petroleum?
bread & roses said,
January 24, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
I think it can be argued that the bamboo is a natural fiber, to the extent that "natural" means anything at all. It looks like the fibrous nature of the bamboo is still intact in the product, despite being heated, glued, sliced, etc.
Natural is a sorely abused word these days, along with its brother "handmade". But to call the bamboo natural is not as much of a stretch as to call metal "refined from petrol". I have never encountered a notebook computer that had a metal case, all the ones I've touched are plastic. So I think the error is not the "refined from petrol" phrase, exactly, but the "traditional metal" part.
I do worry that no truth will survive the blizzard of marketing surrounding environmentally responsible products.
[(myl) Bamboo wood contains fibers, which can be made into cloth, but it's not itself a fiber, any more than than pine or teak wood are. It's another question how "natural" bamboo wood is after being sawn, glued, re-sawn and finished into veneer — the technology involved in creating such veneers is probably more recent, and in some respects more advanced/unnatural, than smelting is. (Though the metals used in laptop cases are not the easy ones like copper or bronze or iron…)
It's also worth noting that most "bamboo" cloth is *not* made from natural bamboo fibers, but rather is woven out of fibers extruded from a chemically-extracted bamboo cellulose gel, using techniques that are basically the same as those involved in manufacturing rayon, which is made from other sorts of wood chips. See here for details. ]
The other Mark P said,
January 24, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
I do worry that no truth will survive the blizzard of marketing surrounding environmentally responsible products.
My favourite: "organic salt", which uses two words that are literally contradictory, in both their technical and previous common usages.
dr pepper said,
January 24, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
It's obvious that the reference to wear and tear and discoloration is about individualization. Your notebook will start out looking identical to all the others of the same model, but after a few dings and smudges, it'll be unique. Yours.
I'd rather have a notebook with a tougher case. I can always put stickers on it.
Nick Lamb said,
January 24, 2009 @ 8:20 pm
It's true though, only natural surfaces, such as bamboo, ABS plastic, or stainless steel have the property of wearing and otherwise altering through repeated touch. If your laptop was made of luminiferous aether or unicorn tears it wouldn't show the unmistakable evidence that you once spilled coffee on it.
Prior to The other Mark P's remark about "Organic salt" the most ridiculous product I'd seen in this category was "Organic water" which is widely available for sale in my country, to my disappointment.
Robert said,
January 25, 2009 @ 3:20 am
Organic salt, in the technical sense, isn't an oxymoron. Sodium ethanoate would qualify. As for this advert, the copywriter might possibly have been laughing while they wrote it, but they'd be laughing at the many people gullible enough to believe such nonsense. 'Refined from petrol' could be a translation error for 'Refined with petrol'.
David Marjanović said,
January 25, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
As would sodium palmitate — or soap for short.
Sili said,
January 25, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
Funny. I have an Asus. With an Aluminium casing. That is well and truly patinated after five years. As is the plastic bit on which I rest my wrists.
This does put a whole new meaning to 'bamboo computers', though.