Shitty Advertising

Repost of a facebook note from 2/03/10:

I'm not going to visit any of the universities I applied for. I don't care, I'll go for the one with the best academic record, this is all that matters, everything else is what you make of it. I've been to so many open evenings I'm far too cynical now for them to do any good. For example; the blurb for Exeter uni's Engineering lecture hall:

"The School’s recently refurbished lecture theatre features comfortable seating, scratch-resistant benches and state-of-the art presentation equipment."

Lovely, so far so good, maybe the seats aren't fully adjustable £3k orthopaedic miracles but I get the point, you can sit on them, they have cushions and they're not covered in weird stains, wet patches or chewing gum, good.

"The projector screens can be used for video conferences, watching DVDs or videos, or displaying laptop or computer presentations." Well no shit, they're projectors, you can plug anything into them with the right cables, they could also be used for porn, or playing COD, or Forza, depending on preference, woop da woop. "Dual projector screens allow any two of these to be displayed concurrently. Oh wow, really, duh. But here's a thought, how about 3? That would be even better. Or, bear with me here, this is gonna sound crazy, four? This lecture theatre has been designed so that every one of the 164 seats can see the screens equally well. SERIOUSLY?!?! OMG!! Wow I never thought I'd go to a lecture theatre where the displays that are pretty much essential for any sort of teaching to be done in the 21st century could be seen by every seat, I mean at best you only expect 70% of the seats to be able to see the screens, everyone else is fucked, and usually only 87% of the seats are in the damn room. Well this is a real breakthrough, let me go and tell the world. And equally well too?! Wow have you somehow developed some sort of quantum seat so that everyone can sit in the same space at the same time, there is simultaneously no one at the back of the room and everyone at the back?!

"The use of variable lighting..." On no shit you installed a dimmer switch as well?! Fuck me this is real cutting edge "... and a microphone and sound system..." OMG i think i just wet myself with excitement! "... make this a suitable venue for any kind of presentation or meeting and also has video-conferencing facilities." Oh video conferencing huh? Yeh that thing that skype and a webcam has let you do for the last FOUR YEARS!

It's a goddamn lecture theatre, it should just work, anything else is an unimaginable, spectacular, massive epic fail.

(Apparently I felt the need to bitch about that... it's ok i'm done now, WOOOOSAAAAaaaaaah)