ORIGINAL: superflea
The free and well founded advice around here is to not try learning alone, so it seems odd that there are some companies that are marketing planes with that notion in mind when the true experts, us say its a silly, lonely way to kill balsa.
I totally agree, and as I said, personally, I think that there should be an Asterisk after Hangar-9's claim that "You can learn to fly with a P-51"
But we as consumers are never going to change the way products are marketed. "Let the buyer beware" is a common expression that has been around for over a century and is no less applicable today.
In 90% of all advertisments it's not what they say, it's what they don't say. I love to watch Infomercials to catch this stuff - Like the dinky little "Bullet" food processor that can make salsa in 3 seconds.... All you do is to add your tomatoes, Onions, Celantro, garlic, and a squeeze of lime juice to the "Wonder Machine" then ZIP ZAM ZOWIE! We have Salsa!
What they don't tell you is that while you were cutting up the tomatoes, onions, etc. so they would FIT in the stupid little thing (You DID notice that everything was already cut up didn't you?) You could have easily whacked the knife a few more times and had Salsa without having to get the machine out and clean it afterward!
There are also words that all advertisers rely on. Words like "Like" - Because there is no concrete definition of "Like". It means "Similar To"
So Blue Bonnet can't say, "It tastes the same as butter" But they CAN say "It tastes just like butter" Perfectly legal. Is it ethical? I don't think so, but no one cares (Nor do they care about the fact that the margerine their doctor has told them to replace butter with is 10 times worse for them than the damn butter was in the first place)
Did you know that "Light" beer can have more calories that regular beer as long as the color is lighter?
Here's one of the best (Or worst) ones I have ever seen: Remember, it's what they DON'T tell you. And I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to tell you about a product that i saw advertised and at first glance I thought, "What a great idea!" Then I saw what they DIDN'T say. See if you can figure out why this is not such a good product:
Many of you many have seen Fiberglass Poles that are sold in Army Surplus stores (Tank antennas) that some guys make fishing rods out of etc.
Well some enterprising individual was selling these things in a garden catalog as a "Revolutionary New Tomato Stake". You push it into the ground about 3 ft away from the plant, bend it over, and tie a string from the tip of the pole to the top of the plant. Now when the plant grows, the rod will pull it up and keep it off the ground so you no longer have to keep tying the plant ever higher on a wooden stake.
Can anybody see what's wrong with this picture?