The marketing is weird on this product.
- named "pangolin" and illustrated with a bull - the bull is disturbingly ugly - the introduction makes no sense to me? Is team red the Democrat party?
- named "pangolin" and illustrated with a bull - the bull is disturbingly ugly - the introduction makes no sense to me? Is team red the Democrat party?
I suspect that, given we're a year on from the initial transmission of the virus in humans, unless the Chinese government has more research they haven't made public, we'll likely never know the truth.
My understanding is that there's really no evidence for it being the source at all; it's effectively a myth. It was an early super spreader, but there's no particular reason to think it was the _source_.
Edit - looked it up. Ah, so that's about the Chinese market trading exotic wild animals that was the ground zero of the outbreak. Never remembered that it had pangolins in the mix and I doubt that very many people do.
South Park did it. Probably NSFW
It's a little like if you're shopping for a video game console or a phone and can't get a straight answer on anything due to children arguing over which brand's product they like better all over the internet.
I get that it's just terminology but it's always struck me as odd that buyers would affiliate themselves so strongly with a brand in an open, competitive marketplace.
At least between (for example) Android and iPhones there are objective differences that might matter to you in picking one or the other, but for internal components that fundamentally don't impact how the device works it seems odd to have such strong feelings about it.
Surely all I care about as the consumer is if this laptop is objectively better for my use case than my other options in its price range?
The choice between AMD and Nvidia has a strong impact on how your device will work - and that is beyond just performance.
I feel the same way about politics
There are fundamental differences to AMD vs Nvidia GPUs if you're using them in a professional context. Main one being if the software you need uses CUDA acceleration you need to buy Nvidia because it's their technology and will not run on an AMD card.
IIRC the Pangolin is already on their laptop lineup since a couple of years.
Interestingly, this is surprisingly recent. In 20th century Democrats were usually (though not always) red, and Republicans blue, which would approximate UK usage (red for Labour, blue for Tories). Some TV network switched in the 90s, and it just caught on. Apparently 2000 was the first time it was done consistently.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red
So Team Red -> Seeing Red -> Bull?
It unintentionally may attract various political party fans, as well as other fans of the color red.
Coincidentally, China is associated with the color red, and AMD was forced out of China in 2019 for having a relationship that was too close: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tried-to-stop-china-acquiri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD–Chinese_joint_venture
But, team green and team blue have China links as well. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/technology/china-intel-nv... And also possibly relevant (x86): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin
As for the bull- bulls are associated with red for multiple reasons ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muleta in bullfighting, Red Bull caffeinated drink, color of Bulls NBA team jerseys). System76 marketing: “No bull. ...Is it charging? It's charging. Must be all the AMD red. Time to run. No, bull!”
Red has also been used for "workers" parties and organizations, like the UK Labour party and various socialist and communist parties.
I'm pretty sure that the choice of red by System76 has nothing to do with politics.
red - amd green - nvidia blue - intel
I agree though that the marketing is indeed weird.
Nothing saying you can't switch them around..
PS. I haven’t verified this but I’ve heard that the current colors were assigned in the year 2000.
> sporting components from team red. AMD Ryzen CPUs team up with AMD Radeon integrated graphics
Also, I’d associate the bull with anger and power on the bull’s part, because of the breeding and/or natural selection to favor it. The bull is also angry at being penned and possibly maltreated, before being killed.
“During the breeding, in order to preserve their natural characteristics, the bulls rarely encounter human beings, and if ever, never on foot.
...
Some commentators trace the origins of the fighting bull to wild bulls from the Iberian Peninsula and their use for arena games in the Roman Empire. Although the actual origins are disputed, genetic studies have indicated that the breeding stock have an unusually old genetic pool.
The aggression of the bull has been maintained (or augmented, see above) by selective breeding and has come to be popular among the people of Spain and Portugal and the parts of Latin America where it took root during colonial rule, as well as parts of Southern France, where bullfighting spread during the 19th century.
In May 2010, Spanish scientists cloned the breed for the first time. The calf, named Got, meaning "glass" in Valencian, was cloned from a bull named Vasito and implanted into a Friesian host mother.”
and
> The bull is also angry at being penned and possibly maltreated, before being killed.
Related to the GP's point: are any of these things being associated with your brand going to be a good thing?
Is there a segment of the market that identifies with (not just sympathises with) tortured, maltreated animals that are soon to be murdered for sport?
If someone were to say,”Do you want a Red Bull?” would you get upset?
Portugal, France, Mexico and Colombia off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other countries in South America as well.
I'm less sure of how popular bull-torturing was elsewhere, but I would guess quite popular. Blood sports were a big deal more or less worldwide until surprisingly recently.
While many countries outlawed this for of torture-as-a-sport, Wikipedia indicates it's also still a thing in Portugal, Southern France, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru.
I know other countries use to have this but banned the practice.