OGC Has Some Logo Related Issues
In Design, Humor on Apr-30-2008 with no comments
The British Office of Government Commerce (OCG) recently paid more than $28,000 for a London design firm to create them a new logo. According to the Telegraph the objective of the logo was to convey “a bold commitment to the body’s aim of improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement.”
Well recently when the logo was unveiled to their 564 staff members they quickly noticed what nobody had noticed before. When the logo is rotated …. well you make the call.
The Telegraph also mentions that the new logo had already been printed on pens, mouse pads, and who knows what else. Staff members were told to turn in all the swag so hopefully it wouldn’t appear on eBay.
A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC—and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
Why The Wright Story Deserves More Attention
In Culture, Media, Politics on Apr-29-2008 with no comments
Glenn Greenwald of Salon sums up pretty much everything I’ve been thinking about Jeremiah Wright, Obama, and our traditional media with this short post:
I think the most important thing to note about the Jeremiah Wright Story is that we’re a Nation plagued by exceedingly few significant problems; blessed with a quite healthy political culture and very trusted political and media institutions; composed of a citizenry that is peacefully content with its Government and secure and confident about their future; endowed with a supremely sturdy economic foundation free of debt and other grave economic afflictions; vested with the ability to command great respect and admiration from the other nations of the world; emancipated by the burdens of war and intractable conflicts which have toppled and destroyed so many other great nations of the past; and, most of all, we’re becoming freer and more prosperous by the minute.
Not only that, but we have an extremely impressive, serious and honor-bound ruling imperial class devoted to the preservation of all of these blessings.
So it isn’t as though we really have anything else to talk about besides Jeremiah Wright. There are some countries in the world—probably most—which have so many big problems that they could ill-afford to devote much time and energy to a matter of this sort. Thankfully, the United States isn’t one of them. I believe it’s critical that we keep that in mind as we discuss him for the next seven months.
Complete Darwin Papers Debut Online
In Science on Apr-29-2008 with no comments
The complete works of Charles Darwin—the man who wrote The Origin of Species—are finally available online. Heck it only took 126 years and another scientific revolution (kind of) to make it happen.
Cambridge University, where Darwin studied theology, has digitized and published online its entire collection of some 30,000 items and 90,000 images. Some include scans of the original draft of The Origin of Species, audio samples, private papers, tons of journal entries, and just about anything else you can image. Pretty neat stuff for both those interested in Darwin and hardcore scholars alike.
What Would A Hostile Takeover Of Yahoo Look Like?
In Business, Technology on Apr-28-2008 with no comments
Marc Andreessen addressees that question today. Fascinating read:
We have seen extensive press coverage of Microsoft’s pursuit of Yahoo over the last few months, including notably excellent coverage from Silicon Alley Insider and the Wall Street Journal. However, I have not seen a detailed analysis of how a full hostile takeover might play out—the kind of analysis that you would be receiving if you were a Microsoft or Yahoo board member.
So I asked a pair of expert corporate attorneys—Michael Sullivan and Ed Deibert at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk and Rabkin in San Francisco—to work up such an analysis. What follows is their take blended with my commentary.
Domain Country Codes Poster
In Design, Infographic on Apr-27-2008 with no comments
[Found via Byte Level Research]
Op-ed: Bowling 1, Health Care 0
In Opinion, Politics on Apr-27-2008 with no comments
Elizabeth Edwards has an op-ed in the New York Times where she outlines how our media seems far more interested in covering Hillary’s pants suit than any of her policy proposals.
I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.
Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.
Of course this is 110 percent true. The media doesn’t want to cover health care, monetary policy, or any other complex issue. The media wants to tell a story, an on-going narrative. This is done by turning each candidate into a cartoon like character and building on it and talking about it ad nauseum. Many of the so called experts and talking heads justify this process by saying it is important cause the public wants to know this junk. I don’t know about you but I sure don’t.
Tommy Young is a marketing consultant, tech geek, designer, writer, and sometime thinker based in St. Louis. More »
← Back to Home
Copyright © Idle Musings 2007-2008. All Rights Reserved. Powered by WordPress.