I received this unpleasant-looking object in the mail at work a few days ago. It's supposed to make me want to buy stuff from HP (Hewlett-Packard). In fact I do buy stuff from them, and have always respected their engineering, but this certainly did nothing to encourage me. It's about the size of a large egg, and it arrived in a little box containing either nothing else or a very small piece of paper with a bit of advertising on it (I can't remember for sure). The color in this picture is not accurate–the thing is actually a very plain grey, and made of a sort of foamy plastic. The orange lettering is the address of a web site.
This wouldn't be at all remarkable, except that it could only have happened with the work and cooperation of a number of people, most of whom must have thought it was a good idea. I know! We'll send them this plastic brain, and it'll be like "Now that you have a brain, buy HP!" It'll be huge!" And it probably represents an investment of many thousands of dollars. Someone had to design it. Someone had to find a manufacturer (probably in China–so picture the cargo hold of a plane stuffed with boxes of these)…etc.
Well, my cat really loves it. I brought it home from work to show it to my wife, and left it on my desk. The cat immediately started playing with it and when I got home the next evening it was two rooms away. Come to think of it, maybe the cat is trying to tell me to get rid of it…
Light On Dark Water 
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