Tag Archive for: Water

Bottled Water Brand Heads For the Blue Ocean

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Familiar with “Blue Ocean” marketing strategy?” That’s when a business tries to hit the growth and profit jackpot by finding or creating an uncontested market space—in effect, wide-open “Blue Ocean”—rather than getting beat up and bloodied trying to succeed in crowded market segments with a lot of competition for customers’ money and attention.

I think the marketers behind Activate brand must have read the book! (The product is from Rising Beverage Company in, no surprise, Los Angeles, CA.)

With countless brands fighting it out it with variations on the “enhanced” formula, Activate actually brags that they’ve taken all that junk OUT. Who NEEDS nutrients that “deteriorate sitting in water.” GONE. Minerals? OUT. Let the others ionize their brands. Activate DE-ionizes. You’ll love it, cool consumers, because you’re not like everyone else, I know. You’re different. You’re PURE. You don’t follow the crowd. You follow the hip people, leisurely paddling around their exclusive blue ocean space by themselves. (It doesn’t float with me!)

The Value of Water, Explained by Two Grannies

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Those witty folks at Yorkshire Water UK are at it again, with time with a kooky campaign centered on two thrifty Grannies. “Edna and Mary” urge us to “Look ‘ow much you get for your money!” and are backed by a spot on the telly, their own corner of “t’interweb,” and of course, Twitter and Facebook.

It’s a wide stream of slapstick silliness surrounding know-it-all Edna and disheveled Mary. But grounding it all is the fact that Grannies everywhere will definitely be paying a lot more for water in the future. It’s no joke that many people don’t comprehend the huge (and escalating) costs and complex infrastructure required to deliver the cheap, clean tap water we take for granted. From the video’s YouTube page,

Research has highlighted to us that nearly 40% of our customers don’t know what they get for their money when it comes to their water bill. It’s important to us that our customers understand what they get for their money so we’ve launched this latest campaign to explain where your money goes.

The website is loaded with campy jokes and stereotypical dialogue which sometimes goes a bit too far; despite this, the two frugal frumps are a gateway to a lot of valuble, concise information, like “How do we spend your money?” or “how we collect and treat your water.”

YouTube commenters have quickly piled on with the expected criticisms, mostly on the theme of you’re wasting the public’s money on this stupid campaign and advertising.

A mentor of mine once told me, “If you’re not being criticized, you’re not making progress.” He was right.

Embedded video below or view on YouTube here.

The Devil Made Them Do It!

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This could explain the presence of certain contaminants in our water! You can muster your own evil wit to write a wicked caption or ID these frolicking fiends on this 1906 antique postcard. (If you’re tempted, add them in the comments!)

I wonder if “Miss Harris” of “Primley Hill” was properly shocked when she received it; it’s now available to collectors of strange ephemera from cardcow.com for a smidge under twenty bucks (despite the visible $2 price penciled in on the back!)

Corbin, Kentucky’s Water Tower Sure is High!

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How high is Corbin’s water tower? Literally or figuratively? It seems that some of the town’s drug-crazed youth found that the town’s tower was a great place to cook up a little methamphetamine! Yessir, I’m talkin’ ICE, and not the frozen kind!

Not litter but evidence. Photo: thenewsjournal.net

Not litter but evidence. Photo: thenewsjournal.net

The Corbin, Kentucky police have nabbed a 17-year-old boy on numerous felony charges after a portable meth lab was found tucked in a backpack right by the city’s landmark water tower. (When authorities arrived, the teen was carrying a generator out to the water tower “lab.”)

From thenewsjournal.net,

(Police Sgt. Glenn)…”Taylor said he believes the boy was a methamphetamine addict who has been making it for himself and some other friends. He said police searched a home last week, where the boy was allegedly staying, in an attempt to find evidence of drug activity, but found none.

“My informant said this backpack was there. They knew we were coming and started hiding it up here,” Taylor said. “They don’t keep it at their house because they are afraid I am coming.”

So what was found at the tower?

Police discovered nearly all the ingredients for making meth: tubing, salt, drain line cleaner, fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia, a funnel, a propane torch, etc. Also discovered was a large Mason jar that contained a “pill soak.” Taylor said it appears that the “meth oil” most recently produced had already been poured off the mixture. He believes the juvenile was returning to the site to make another batch. He said there was enough pseudoephedrine present to make anywhere from 2.8 to 4 grams of meth.

And in case you’re wondering, “Authorities say if the meth lab had caused an explosion it probably wouldn’t have been bad enough to put the water tower at risk – but certainly the person making the meth.”

If this weren’t such a tragic state of affairs, I suppose I could have a field day creating fake-funny slogans to be painted on the tower. (Like, “CORBIN: THE CRYSTAL CITY!”) But somehow, I just can’t get in the mood to make light of the national misery that is meth. It’s just too sad.

A. Blackwell was Passed Over, Again!

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Southwest Water names Glenn Fountain as project manager. (via WaterTechOnline.com) We’d like to see another announcement, perhaps “Forest Brook and Marsh Wells will assist.”

Finally, Guilt-Free Bottled Water!

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Well, this has been a long time coming! Better than recycling or even compostable bottles, new TossNot brand goes further with a fully edible bottle! We’ve just finished trying one out, the water was great and the bottle was satisfyingly crunchy in a gelatinous, nail-biting kind of a way!

Behold, The Fantastical Anti-Water Device

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What if? What if there were a technology that repelled water, similar to magnets with like poles? And, what if there were a talented 3D animator who attempted to visualize the fantasy applications for such a thing?

We don’t have this technology, but we do have the mind-bending visualization via Roy Prol. Though the “Anti-Water Device” is imaginary, the visual “what if” is still stunning and breathtaking. Water towers, dams, umbrellas, underwater tunnels, even weapons of war are re-engineered and rendered in the beautiful fantasy sequence.

As is common in the land of YouTube, the comments can be as entertaining as the video. Of course, it did not take long for armchair scientists to jump into the fray:

  • “Wouldn’t such a device also reject humans and other animals, since we are made out of 60% water? Cool animation tho.”
  • “what powers it? what if there would be a power failure in the tunnel, or if someone used a EMP on a dam over a city, then the city would be destroyed xP”
  • “what if a bird shits in the water tower? ;)”
  • “If it was possible, it would be a solution to the tsunami.”
  • “Nonsense and completely against known physical laws. As per Newton’s third law, every action has a reaction – so the force with which this device repels water would be also applied against it. That would crush the device in the underwater tunnel due to the force of several tonnes of water. And it would make the ‘bomb’ go straight up because it repels water and water repels it, but it has a much smaller mass.”

Leading the creator to emphasize and remind everyone that,

  • I know action-reaction principle very well, and I know lot of physics too….. But this is just imagination!!!

It might be bad science, but it’s good creative ingenuity and a great escape!

What’s a Fountain Without Water?

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That’s the subject of a personal photo project I’ve been working on this past month. In Kansas City, Missouri (the urban counterpart to my suburban Shangri-la) 47 public fountains will be turned on April 6th, the city’s annual “Fountain Day.”

kansas city mo dry muse of missouri fountain

In Kansas City, MO: The Muse of Missouri, dry.

In 2009, severe budget problems drove city officials to threaten that that the fountains would remain dry due to lack of funds. Political grandstanding, maybe, but the citizenry greeted the proposal harshly and vocally. This year there were no such attacks on the fountains, although other basic city services will see budget cuts and/or rate increases (including water).

What’s a fountain without water? It’s not like a wallet without money; it’s more like a soul without joy.

(If you can’t view the slideshow below (Internet Explorer users, probably talkin’ about YOU) visit the full set on my Flickr page.)


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Reverse Caption Contest: Wastewater Overflow!

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Not the usual “write a caption for this photo! Instead, let’s find a photo for this caption! I saw this headline yesterday on Water Technology Online and was immediately driven to pair it with a photo:

Equipment Malfunction Causes Wastewater Overflow

Equipment Malfunction Causes Wastewater Overflow

I think this is the perfect one! (Via blogs.momtourage.com)

Provocative Poster Gallery: 40 Days of Water

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tap water forty days of water posterBrowse this neat poster set created by Flickr user pope saint victor tied to the 40 Days of Water effort from Blood:Water Mission. This initiative is encouraging groups and individuals to drink water as their only beverage for the 40 Days between February 17th and April 3rd. Water for thirst and food for thought, too!

40 days of water facts. fact #20., originally uploaded by pope saint victor.