The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with
colleagues, via the Internet,
which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas
cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So
we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at
which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul
gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how
many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that
exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these
religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can
project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rate s as they are,
we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we
look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states
that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the
volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until

all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls
in Hell,
then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman
year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take
into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must
be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen
over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it
follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore,
extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine
being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+

Never a dull day in the North East

With the launch of the revamped events-led website for visitTeesvalley and the bid website for Durham City of Culture, residents from in and around the region have absolutely no excuse to sit at home and twiddle their thumbs… more

Glue: A multi sensory art & design event to inspire, influence and involve
Sunday 8th November | 5pm ’til 1am Uncle Alberts (opposite the Railway Station), Middlesbrough… more

Introducing the new Face of Tees Valley
Over the past two months, visitTeesvalley has searched for two energetic Challengers ready to indulge in all Tees Valley has to offer, become ambassadors for the area and stand a chance of winning £1000 and the accolade of becoming the Face of Tees Valley….more

Advent Calendar Online
Another Calm Christmas is fast approaching, which means exciting times for Calm as Santa’s little helpers prepare to personalise an Advent Calendar Online for a number of clients not just in the UK but as far away as Australia and Dubai…. more

Daniel and Danielle
Although it isn’t mandatory for your name to be a derivative of Daniel to work at Calm, it must certainly help… more

Calm’s quest for SEO perfection
The majority of people think of (SEO) Search Engine Optimisation as an art to improve their search engine rankings, being a time studied profession that without putting a great deal of time and effort into it should be left to the techies. Wrong! more

Final Thoughts
We’d like to say a big thank you for reading our quarterly newsletter – we hope it you’ll be able to make use of some of the information. As always feel free to contact us: www.calmasylum.com – www.calmdigital.com – @calm_asylum – @adventonline

We posted a link to a 3 year old website of an e-commerce client in the interest of goodwill to help drive traffic to the site. Unbeknown to me, the site owner had recently uploaded some images of new stock, but put a £0.00 amount against them.

The comments that this invited ranged from constructive advice to very harsh criticism of the developer. (One kindly Twitizen mentioned that this was a tad “ungentlemanly” of said critic). Some said it made the site look broken, and others said that we should have validated amount field so it doesn’t allow a £0 against a product. I have put solutions to these issues to the client and will see whether we can take this forward. The comments, although hard to hear,  will (we hope) serve to make the user experience a lot smoother and ultimately increase sales through the site.

If brands are given a chance to explain their position and are humble enough to acknowledge where they can improve, clients will benefit from a better result. Who wants a brand that thinks it already knows everything and there is nothing left to be learned?

It’s hit the Tipping Point!

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explores three personality types that are essential for reaching out to people: Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople.

Connectors: These are folks who naturally build links, networks and connections between individuals and groups – think twitter fiend Jonathan Ross.

Mavens: In the best sense of the term these are people who love to gather practical information and share it with others, think  Stephen Fry, Arch Twitterer.

Salespeople: Folks who love to sell because they are passionate about people and twitter. – Phil Schofield fits this archetype.

Of course there are also those who by their very status can ifluence simply by adopting, like Barack Obama.

These personality types are enjoy people and effectively build community. Prominent personlaties fitting these archetypes can influence individuals and organizations who may adopt Twitter, becoming contributors, followers and ultimately twitters best advocates.

Add to the mix a global networking frenzy in the form Twestival, a live networking and fundraising event in 202 cities in the world, and yo, twitter hits the mainstream in a big media glitz type way.

Calm Asylum Communications presents a one-off seminar that will give you valuable tips and insight into ways in which you can steer your business calmly through the current financial storm, without any big-spending.

We will give you solid advice that you can really use, and let you in on marketing, business and sales secrets that you can implement yourself so that you can see 2009 through with a stronger profile than ever before.

You will walk away with a raft of ideas that translate into real value for your business. And you could also walk away with some fantastic prizes:

A free Financial health check from Harland and Co.
Valued at £500.00
Calm Media Centre: web syndication for your news etc
Valued at £2,500.00
A New You – Book by Author Nicola Cook
Valued at £10.00 (but the content is Invaluable)!

Calm will be delivering this event in partnership with Harland and Co. Financial Planning and engaging speaker, Nicola Cook of Aurora Training.

Presenters:
Simon Brown – MD, Calm Asylum
Bianca Robinson – Calm Asylum
Philip Murray – Harlands
Nicola Cook – Aurora Training/ Nicola Cook.

There are only 30 places available for this one-off event. Book now and reserve your place visit keepcalm.calmasylum.com or phone  0845 058 0511 .

Barack’s strategy includes using web 2.0 to share information using popular social media tools such as facebook and Youtube for his weekly address, web 2.0 was also a major force in his bid for president.

Good luck Barack!

Related Articles:
Obama speech an inspiration felt worldwide
President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
Obama Updates

I’m a big fan of David Meerman Scott’s blog – you can real all about exactly what can be learned from the Obama campaign. It’s also worth reading his free ebook New Rules of Marketing. Word of mouse marketing really is the way forward!

The design of this toaster allows user to see the bread whilst its toasting.

The North Sea Airport “lily pads” are an outlandish concept – yet look at what is being created in Dubai with the ‘Palm Island’ & ‘The World’. The reclamation of land is happening at an alarming rate, just look at what  Singapore has acheived.  And then there is the size of the current ocean going cruise liners… Is it beyond comprehension that either of these things could not be in our near future?

Add global warming, the quality of technology and the advancement in engineering………?

Introducing the Calm Asylum online interactive Advent Calendar 2008!

Forget sending Christmas cards this year, they’re not good for the environment and they are BORING!
 
Send your clients to a fun online Advent Calendar instead, and let them play a game a day throughout December. Take advantage of our early booking offer and save £200 by ordering your interactive Advent Calendar today. (Early booking offer ends August 15th)

Click here to try one of our all time favourite games and see just how easy it is to put a smile on your clients faces.

We’ll personalise it for you to include your company logo, you’ll get a graphic to add to your own website, and a branded email to send to your clients too.

We’ll also keep track of how many of your clients and their friends visit your own website from the Advent Calendar. Last year one company received over 200,000 hits to their website!

Posted by Calm People

“Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival.” – W. Edwards Deming

“Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.” – Michael Porter

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

“My Memory Lane is full of potholes” – Bill Austin

“It is like trying to lasso a wave” – Declan Metcalfe

A brief is the most important piece of information issued by a client to an agency. It’s from the brief that everything else flows. Therefore it’s essential that every effort be taken to prepare the best possible documentation of what is required.

It’s in the nature of creative thinkers that giving them the tightest of parameters will often stimulate the most inventive of responses – and 79% of clients and agencies agreed that: “It is difficult to produce good creative work without a good brief”. Im sure the Calm creative team wholeheartedly agree!

The client brief can be considered the platform for a communications campaign. The better a company’s corporate or brand position is defined and the more thoughtfully its key business issues are described, the more likely it is that strategic and creative thinkers in agencies will be able to apply their specialist skills to produce great solutions.

“The whole idea is to stimulate the creative imagination, not to restrict it. Ultimately you are buying creative ideas. Procurement people can sometimes write briefs as though they were buying copper piping or paperclips. But selling is an art. It’s more like briefing an architect. We need agencies to feel inspired so they can do their best work.”

© IP for this article is fully reserved by ISBAthe IPA, MCCA and PRCA, who have co-authored and produced the above.

“The Local Government Association (LGA), an association of English and Welsh local authorities representing over 50 million people, has told local government officials to ditch meaningless jargon. According to an article in The Telegraph , the LGA has sent a list to Town Halls of 100 words and phrases that should be avoided. The list includes “empowerment,” “synergies,” “revenue stream,” “sustainable communities,” and “stakeholders”.”

Pehaps this means they will stop “next generation communications with flexible, robust terminologies, around  world-class, scalable, cutting-edge, mission-critical, market-leading, industry-standard, turnkey, and groundbreaking offering” to their stakeholders and service-users?

The guy in question mentioned that he hadn’t physically visited some websites in over 18 months as he accesses the content he wants when he wants it through his RSS reader. It made me ask myself the question “is there a fundamental shift in the way people are accessing web content”…I guess I already know the answer to this just by looking at my own reading habits. It did however reinforce to me just how important really content is.

In my experience, from talking about websites in both a personal and a business context, many of the conversations (certainly with clients) are weighted towards the ‘look and feel’ – colours, navigation, and image style etc…basically the form, not the function. If the answer to my question is what I think it is, such a focus on form is becoming a dangerous game to play. Of course a website must be presented in a way that is relevant for its audience but looking good just isn’t enough anymore.

Don’t get me wrong I love using the web, experiencing all the good, bad and sometimes very indifferent ways some site authors present their information and allow users to interact with their websites. However, due to an increasing number of sites and decreasing available time, website owners should be aware that I, and many others, have been drawn in recent months to begin picking and choosing the sites that I actually physically visit.

In the same vein, this also applies to the barrage of content from email newsletters that I get sent each day promoting all manner of things, some of which I have chosen to receive, some of which I haven’t (I don’t have the money to invest in a Nigerian Mine, and I already have a watch so don’t need a new Ralex or Rolax). When I subscribe or sign up to something I am happy, and expect to, receive content from that source, but not from a raft of other content sources targeting me with ‘once in a lifetime opportunities’ or ‘extra special offers’…the stuff I didn’t sign up for!

So, although the conversation at the event initially seemed strange I asked myself how long it would be before I am just like ‘that guy’ accessing ALL my favourite content through selected, targeted, and incorruptible RSS feeds.  They provide me not only with text content, but now with accompanying links to other rich media such as related images and multimedia content. Just what I need….the content I want, when I want it.

The answer for me is not soon enough. Although, there are some sites that I like to visit that have not embraced RSS to allow its regular users to be updated when fresh content is available…come on guys catch up because chances are your users will be way ahead of you!…

Hilarious - The Calm Asylum’s favourite man on the net…

Known as The Poetic Prophet AKA the SEO Rapper AKA M0Serious, he’s created raps covering conversion closing, search, links, design code and more.