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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?

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?

throwawaysea 6y ago
I agree it’s a bit weird but I think I’ve cracked it: the red is referring to AMD’s main brand color (“team red”). They are rolling out the red carpet like a matador/torero uses red cloth to bait a raging bull. They are also saying “no bull” as a play on words to say they aren’t bullshitting us by putting out this laptop with all AMD components. As for “pangolin”, I think that’s just them reusing the model name that was previously used for this form factor in their lineup.
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
  Teams: red - amd green - nvidia blue - intel
alok99 6y ago
The three big CPU/GPU companies are often (between each other, at least) called Team Red, Green, and Blue - for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.
Uehreka 6y ago
Among CPU geeks “Team Red” means AMD. If you’re talking about their GPU competition then “Team Green” is Nvidia, and if you’re talking about their CPU competition “Team Blue” is Intel (and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans). I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot, but hey, it’s original.
- eps 6y ago
  I am in Europe and it's the first time ever I hear about bulls spreading Covid to humans.
  - terhechte 6y ago
    Pangolin
    - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
      The pangolin as an intermediate host between bats and humans is a valid virologist theory, but as far as I am aware there is no physical evidence for these zoonotic jumps, is there?
      - InitialLastName 6y ago
        As far as I've been able to tell, the evidence for pangolins as the vector for Covid is somewhat circumstantial at the moment, based largely on their presence in the Wuhan wet market that has been implicated in early spread, a history of pangolins being found to carry and transmit various coronaviruses similar to Covid-19, and some specifically suspicious test results in pangolins from the market. Nothing specifically causative that I've seen (AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established). 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.
        rsynnott 6y ago
        > AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established 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_.
  - Uehreka 6y ago
- headmelted 6y ago
  I have to say I cringe a bit when I see terms like this and it's oddly off-putting to me. 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?
  - iameli 6y ago
    I hear these a lot but I've never heard someone self-identify as being on "Team Green" or whatever. They're just nicknames.
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    > 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. The choice between AMD and Nvidia has a strong impact on how your device will work - and that is beyond just performance.
  - IanSanders 6y ago
    > 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. I feel the same way about politics
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - Xevi 6y ago
- thefz 6y ago
  > I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot IIRC the Pangolin is already on their laptop lineup since a couple of years.
- throwawayffffas 6y ago
  The thing that confused me was saying no bull in at least two sentences, and having a huge bull in the middle of the picture.
  - cestith 6y ago
    "No bull" in this case being short for "no bullshit" - no misleading, exaggeration, or lies. It's an idiom, possibly an American one but I'm not sure. They're using it here as a pun.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans 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.
  - bradwood 6y ago
    Right. Red is normally for lefties... ("Red" being a reference to communism, I guess).
    - senkora 6y ago
      Wikipedia has a great article on all the different ways that color is used in politics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour
- gshulegaard 6y ago
  I believe that it's a reference to the colloquialism that references how matadors use red capes to fight bulls: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red So Team Red -> Seeing Red -> Bull?
- Lio 6y ago
  Poor old pangolins. Personally I'd heard of them because they're so critically endangered with extinction. They seem like quite timid little creature. Hopefully their involvement in Covid transmission will encourage people to stop eating them or using them for bullshit folk medicine.
greenkey 6y ago
No, it’s from the ATI logo which is red and was co-opted by AMD after its acquisition of ATI in 2006. Team red is AMD, team green is Nvidia, and team blue is Intel. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/81r2d9/what_is_red_team/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/81r2d9/what_is_red_tea... 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-acquiring-world-class-chips-china-got-them-anyway-11561646798 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tried-to-stop-china-acquiri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD–Chinese_joint_venture 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-nvidia-xinjiang.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/technology/china-intel-nv... And also possibly relevant (x86): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin 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 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!”
- rswail 6y ago
  The "democrat" party (actually Democratic, using "democrat" is a Republican party slur) in the US is conventionally blue and the Republican party is conventionally red. 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.
  - greenkey 6y ago
    Corrected, thanks
est31 6y ago
Yeah IMO they should have hired a different SFX studio to make the bull.
WhyNotHugo 6y ago
Additionally, the bull is a reference to how bulls are tortured for sport in many cultures, which I found very out of place for marketing material.
- greenkey 6y ago
  Many cultures? Where outside of Spain? 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.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    Who would breed a bull to be harder to handle?
    - greenkey 6y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Fighting_Bull https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Fighting_Bull “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.”
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    > bulls are tortured for sport 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?
cpach 6y ago
The Democrats are associated with the color blue, it is the Republicans that are associated with the color red. But as other has pointed out Team Red in this context has no political implication. I agree though that the marketing is indeed weird.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- quotha 6y ago
  I remember when they would switch colors back and forth between democrat and republican, each election, but somehow those colors stuck one time. Nothing saying you can't switch them around..
  - cpach 6y ago
    You and I could decide right now to switch them around. Or even assign totally different colors. It might have a slight impact though on our ability to be understood by the the rest of the world. PS. I haven’t verified this but I’ve heard that the current colors were assigned in the year 2000.
ubermonkey 6y ago
"Democratic" party.
- ashtonbaker 6y ago
  It's such a small thing amidst all the other political noise, but it seems so quaint that George W. Bush actually apologized for using the phrase "democrat majority".
Hendrikto 6y ago
Well, the team red comment is unfair, as literally the next word explains what it means. Context: > sporting components from team red. AMD Ryzen CPUs team up with AMD Radeon integrated graphics

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?

throwawaysea 6y ago

I agree it’s a bit weird but I think I’ve cracked it: the red is referring to AMD’s main brand color (“team red”). They are rolling out the red carpet like a matador/torero uses red cloth to bait a raging bull. They are also saying “no bull” as a play on words to say they aren’t bullshitting us by putting out this laptop with all AMD components. As for “pangolin”, I think that’s just them reusing the model name that was previously used for this form factor in their lineup.

oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
Teams: red - amd green - nvidia blue - intel

alok99 6y ago

The three big CPU/GPU companies are often (between each other, at least) called Team Red, Green, and Blue - for AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.

Uehreka 6y ago

Among CPU geeks “Team Red” means AMD. If you’re talking about their GPU competition then “Team Green” is Nvidia, and if you’re talking about their CPU competition “Team Blue” is Intel (and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans). I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot, but hey, it’s original.

eps 6y ago
I am in Europe and it's the first time ever I hear about bulls spreading Covid to humans.
- terhechte 6y ago
  Pangolin
  - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    The pangolin as an intermediate host between bats and humans is a valid virologist theory, but as far as I am aware there is no physical evidence for these zoonotic jumps, is there?
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      As far as I've been able to tell, the evidence for pangolins as the vector for Covid is somewhat circumstantial at the moment, based largely on their presence in the Wuhan wet market that has been implicated in early spread, a history of pangolins being found to carry and transmit various coronaviruses similar to Covid-19, and some specifically suspicious test results in pangolins from the market. Nothing specifically causative that I've seen (AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established). 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.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        > AFAIK, the link to the wet market as the source rather than an early transmission location isn't even well-established 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_.
- Uehreka 6y ago
headmelted 6y ago
I have to say I cringe a bit when I see terms like this and it's oddly off-putting to me. 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?
- iameli 6y ago
  I hear these a lot but I've never heard someone self-identify as being on "Team Green" or whatever. They're just nicknames.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  > 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. The choice between AMD and Nvidia has a strong impact on how your device will work - and that is beyond just performance.
- IanSanders 6y ago
  > 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. I feel the same way about politics
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Xevi 6y ago
thefz 6y ago
> I can’t speak to the aesthetics of the Bull or the odd choice of the mammal best known in the West for spreading Covid to humans as the version mascot IIRC the Pangolin is already on their laptop lineup since a couple of years.
throwawayffffas 6y ago
The thing that confused me was saying no bull in at least two sentences, and having a huge bull in the middle of the picture.
- cestith 6y ago
  "No bull" in this case being short for "no bullshit" - no misleading, exaggeration, or lies. It's an idiom, possibly an American one but I'm not sure. They're using it here as a pun.
rsynnott 6y ago
> and in American politics, Team Red generally would refer to the Republicans 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.
- bradwood 6y ago
  Right. Red is normally for lefties... ("Red" being a reference to communism, I guess).
  - senkora 6y ago
    Wikipedia has a great article on all the different ways that color is used in politics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_colour
gshulegaard 6y ago
I believe that it's a reference to the colloquialism that references how matadors use red capes to fight bulls: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seeing%20red So Team Red -> Seeing Red -> Bull?
Lio 6y ago
Poor old pangolins. Personally I'd heard of them because they're so critically endangered with extinction. They seem like quite timid little creature. Hopefully their involvement in Covid transmission will encourage people to stop eating them or using them for bullshit folk medicine.

greenkey 6y ago

No, it’s from the ATI logo which is red and was co-opted by AMD after its acquisition of ATI in 2006. Team red is AMD, team green is Nvidia, and team blue is Intel. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/81r2d9/what_is_red_team/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/81r2d9/what_is_red_tea... 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-acquiring-world-class-chips-china-got-them-anyway-11561646798 https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-tried-to-stop-china-acquiri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD–Chinese_joint_venture 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-nvidia-xinjiang.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/technology/china-intel-nv... And also possibly relevant (x86): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin 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 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!”

rswail 6y ago
The "democrat" party (actually Democratic, using "democrat" is a Republican party slur) in the US is conventionally blue and the Republican party is conventionally red. 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.
- greenkey 6y ago
  Corrected, thanks

est31 6y ago

Yeah IMO they should have hired a different SFX studio to make the bull.

WhyNotHugo 6y ago

Additionally, the bull is a reference to how bulls are tortured for sport in many cultures, which I found very out of place for marketing material.

greenkey 6y ago
Many cultures? Where outside of Spain? 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.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Who would breed a bull to be harder to handle?
  - greenkey 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Fighting_Bull https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Fighting_Bull “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.”
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  > bulls are tortured for sport 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?

cpach 6y ago

The Democrats are associated with the color blue, it is the Republicans that are associated with the color red. But as other has pointed out Team Red in this context has no political implication. I agree though that the marketing is indeed weird.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
quotha 6y ago
I remember when they would switch colors back and forth between democrat and republican, each election, but somehow those colors stuck one time. Nothing saying you can't switch them around..
- cpach 6y ago
  You and I could decide right now to switch them around. Or even assign totally different colors. It might have a slight impact though on our ability to be understood by the the rest of the world. PS. I haven’t verified this but I’ve heard that the current colors were assigned in the year 2000.

ubermonkey 6y ago

"Democratic" party.

ashtonbaker 6y ago
It's such a small thing amidst all the other political noise, but it seems so quaint that George W. Bush actually apologized for using the phrase "democrat majority".

Hendrikto 6y ago

Well, the team red comment is unfair, as literally the next word explains what it means. Context: > sporting components from team red. AMD Ryzen CPUs team up with AMD Radeon integrated graphics