Comments on: For Cosma Shalizi, Daniel Davies etc

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:20:17 +0000

If something cannot go on forever it won’t.
What the graph clearly shows is that shaving as we know it will not exist in 2015. I take this to mean that biotechnology will have provided us with a virus that modifies our facial skin cells so that they no longer grow beard/moustache hair.

(Meanwhile in the real world, I would have to agree that Mach3 is a kick-ass razor, and that Quattro is actually step backwards. The extra size or something of the Quattro head means that it doesn’t handle small puckered areas like just above the lip at the right or left edges very well.)

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:51:10 +0000

Not to mention this classic Dave Barry column:

I bet an urgent memo has already gone out in Gillette's marketing department. ''Hold some focus groups immediately!'' it says. ``Find out what number comes after four!''

By: eweininger

eweininger — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:38:58 +0000

Uncle Kvetch is absolutely right. To the best I can recall, it was a faux advertisement, and began with a closeup of a three-bladed razor accompanied by some super-portentuous music. The punchline had John Belushi insinuating that if you believed this was real, you were basically a gullible dolt.

I don’t think it reflects badly on the era to point out that, in the late 70s, this was hilarious.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:16:55 +0000

Ah, let us not forget the old Onion piece that started this line of joking.

I seem to remember a Saturday Night Live sketch that predates that Onion piece by about 20 years, based on the exact same joke. Can anyone corroborate?

By: aaron

aaron — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:57:30 +0000

Cool! Reproducing nanobot razors that cut hairs as they grow. Just 9 years away.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:10:54 +0000

It’s still too early to tell if beards will be more common in the twenty-first century than they were in the twentieth, but they’re more fashionable now than they were a hundred years ago, at least for men.

Buicks used to sport a variable number of portholes, ostensibly for a supercharger. As best as I can recall, their number never exceeded four. As strange as it may seem, there are limits to what people can be sold. [One might approximate an infinitely-bladed razor with an emery board or a scouring stone.]

I’ve reverted to an electric razor to smooth my neck for occasions when I need to wear a tie.

By: joel turnipseed

joel turnipseed — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:39:05 +0000

Ah, let us not forget the old Onion piece that started this line of joking. That said: the Mach 3 is one kick-ass razor (note to Gilette marketing folks: I'm absolutely not going to try that abominable thing you call Fusion, or even think to attempt adding a battery to my Mach 3, which is, to my mind, the apotheosis of the shaving experience).

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:07:21 +0000

Apropos of nothing really, but I just finished Spin and it's as good as everyone says. I.e. really amazingly good.