Archive forunder the hood

Gatorade v. Powerade

So, I got to wondering just what the difference between Gatorade (Pepsi) and Powerade (Coke) really was.

My experimental samples:

  • Gatorade Orange flavour
  • Powerade Strawberry-Lemonade flavour

Here are the ingredients lists.

Gatorade v Powerade

So, there you go.  Not really much difference.  Or, maybe more precisely, really not much difference.

Maybe this speaks to first-mover advantage: Powerade sells essentially the same product, but despite its efforts to gain “official drink” status for various sports teams and events; it’s stuck at 14% market share in the US, compared to 83% for its rival.

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Less energy? No problem.

This New York Times article summarizes why I believe peak oil’s imminence doesn’t mean the end of first-world living-standards as we know it.

It turns out, the US is ridiculously unproductive when it comes to GDP-per-unit-CO2: at 93rd (of 137) it ranks below even Thailand and Mexico!  [corrected from 167 as per comment below]
Ah, but there’s more to that than meets the eye…

__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)

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Comics under the hood

I went to a Comicon last weekend, scouting out artists to adapt my samurai play into a graphic novel. There are two things I took away from that event:

1. I finally met someone whose brother was named “Thor”

2. I found out that it takes 8+ hours (!) for a professional illustrator to draw a single page of today’s typical Western superhero comics. This does include time spent doing the layout — but wow!

I asked a manga artist about the same thing, and was told six hours was typical!
…so, I did not at all appreciate how much work goes into a monthly, 20-odd page comic, and can only imagine how manga artists go through, to churn out 20 pages a week. (Specifically, I’m imagining a huge entourage of assistants…)

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