Geek Friendly

The McKenzie Exercises are a sequenced selection of stretches to help relieve vertebral pressure and sciatic pain– good stuff.

It’s not often that design gets the level of press coverage that it truly deserves, and when it does, it’s usually negative– as is the case with the hub-bub surrounding the recently announced identity for the 2012 London Olympics. Almost 50,000 people have signed an online petition to have the logo– designed by Wolf Ollins at a cost of $800,000– changed, and there have been reports of animated versions of it causing epileptic seizures.

Personally, I think the brand is atrocious. Not only does it not evoke ‘London,’ but it also fails to convey anything but clashing colors and meaningless abstraction. But I’m just a lowly design student, so let’s see what other people are saying.

Love it:
Coudal Partners – Just like you, our first reaction was shock. But we talked about it all morning. By 3pm, we decided we love it. And here are ten reasons why you should, too:

The Serif – It’s got that Marmite factor. But we find that even with things that people start off disliking, they get used to them. & …it’s incredibly noticable, brave and confrontational.

Hate it:
Seth Godin – A great logo doesn’t mean anything until the brand makes it worth something.

Design Observer – The London 2012 logo is a solid gold stinker.

Ambivalent:
Speak Up – I believe, despite any ensuing boo’s, that this is some of the most innovative and daring identity work we have seen in this new millennium, and the lack of cheesy and imagination-impairing gradients gives me hope that identity work can still be resurrected on a larger scale.

It was only when discussing the image with my mother was I able to glean some meaning from the spilled tangrams.

At least this shows that there was some reasoning behind the brand other than abstract PR nonsense.

A few days ago, I was listening to a podcast lecture on the basics of quantum cryptography when I got into a discussion about the nitty-gritty of the subject with my friend Justin.

…
dantekgeek: exponential on a regular computer, but reasonable time on a quantum computer, right?
justinwick: Right right
justinwick: assuming ur in ur quantum computerz, giving them enuff qbitz
dantekgeek: hahahaha
justinwick:
justinwick: schrodinger’s lolcat
…

I quickly searched flickr for a suitable image, and came across Kevin Steele’s fantastic “a box for every cat.” Some quick work in Skitch, and Schrodinger’s lolcat was born.

I figured my circle of friends would get a kick out of it, and that maybe it would be picked up by BoingBoing, but could never have predicted the amount of exposure my little creation has received.

Others had the idea long before I came across it, but for whatever reason, it was my LOLcat which gets all the glory. This puts me in kind of a weird position; On one hand, I don’t want to be seen as taking credit for an idea that was already floating in the ether, but the fact remains that we did create this thing without knowledge of prior-art, and I think that should count for something.

I want to make clear that I couldn’t have made this thing on my own, and it was only through the spirit of the meme, my conversation with Justin, and Kevin’s photo that this thing came to fruition. I am but one small robot on the LOLcat assembly line.

I’m in talks with Justin and Kevin about possibly printing up some t-shirts, but nothing is guaranteed– we might choose to just let this thing stay online, where it was born, and where it belongs.

Despite his shoddy pirate technique and library and content library management, my younger brother really does have quite good taste in music– a fact which I often fail to acknowledge due to sheer laziness. He introduced me to Pendulum a few weeks back, and this evening assisted my discovery of Basshunter.

I listen to a lot of great music, and I’m sure you readers do as well– so what makes this Basshunter fellow post-worthy?

Geek cred.

Not only is his music some excellent upbeat eurodance, but the themes are about as nerdy as you can get. His first international hit, Boten Anna, tells a tale of mistaken identity involving an IRC bot, and his second single is a sort of techno tribute to Warcraft 3 mod “Defense of the Ancients” and voice-conferencing application Ventrillo– complete with sound samples from the game mixed in.

For fans of dance and geeks alike, Basshunter is definitely worth checking out. Below is the video for Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum yesterday announced the winners of the eighth annual National Design Awards, honoring the very best in American architecture and design. This year’s winners include Apple’s design chief Jonathan Ive, rockstar cover designer Chip Kidd, and design software giant Adobe Systems.

While the awards go a long way in recognizing exceptional design across America, they do leave something to be desired when compared to international awards such as those given out by I.D.

Mark Hurst, User Experience expert and author of the new book, Bit Literacy is hosting a seminar and reader meet-up in NYC this coming Wednesday, May 23rd. The seminar is $40, and includes a copy of the book. Unfortunately, I get into the city too late for the seminar, but I’m hoping to make it to the meet-up later in the evening. Let me know (via the spiffy new contact page) if you’re planning to be there, and we can meet-up!

Brilliant new ad for the Samsung Ultra series of mobile phones. To quote the ever witty Phil Torrone,

We’re never going to solve the bees all dying off if we keep throwing tiny pies at them…

[via Make]

Student Arrested for Making Videogame Map of School. I’ve tried to do the same, but I’m no good at 3D modeling.

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

The BBC is reporting that AACS, the company behind the HD-DVD copy protection, has vowed to track down and prosecute any and all bloggers who posted 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0.

Slashdot, as always, has a fantastic analysis of this story in the comments.

AACS, come and get me.