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Watch this video, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. It’s a brilliant (and funny and interesting!!11!) lecture on organization on the Internet. Click, please.

I spiced up the footer and added a sub-header.

How do you procrastinate? What do you do when bored? I, apparently, write down paradoxes.

Why is it so girly? Am I a girly girl? Perhaps—anyway, some tend to associate math with boys. I’m not a boy. I wanted to make that clear in case anyone decided to lift this image from my blog… ♥

Click on the picture for a larger version.

Apple Inc. is so mean; Apple Inc. is self-important; Apple Inc. thinks its customers are stupid. How can I say such things about the company who brought the world the iPod and the iMac? Easily, because Apple Inc. opposes an NYC-based non-profit organization’s usage of an apple in its logo.

As you can see, the GreeNYC logo (right) looks nothing like Apple Inc.’s logo (left). Regardless, Apple drew up a fancy Consolidated Notice of Opposition and whined about GreeNYC. “[Their logo] so closely resembles [ours] that [their mark] is likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception in the minds of consumers.”¹ STFU. No, it’s not! The marks look nothing alike! They’re different colors! Please, get over yourself! Your intellectual property rights do not include the right to ban others from drawing apples! You pompous lawyers need to take your bums back to law school! Also, invest in a conscience! =P

Since Apple is up in arms about its precious intellectual property, I thought that I should warn everyone about some of their IP policies.² If you don’t follow these rules, you may find your inbox full of nasty threats from dearest Apple.

You may not use or imitate an Apple slogan or tagline. For example: “Think different.”

Don’t use those two words together. Well, to be safe—we see how far they’re taking this apple picture thing—don’t use the words think or different, at all. Don’t even hint at being innovative.

As adjectives, trademarks may not be used in the plural or possessive form. Correct: I bought two Macintosh computers. Not Correct: I bought two Macintoshes.

What about, “I bought an Apple!”? Oh wait—no, that’s not allowed. See:

Trademarks are adjectives used to modify nouns; the noun is the generic name of a product or service.

Even if you wish to sell apple trees under the name Appletree, you’d best forget it. They’ll engage in battle with your lawyers if you use an apple as your logo, or if you for register weonlysellappletrees.com. With no logo and no website, you’d have no hope. :(

You may not use an image of a real apple or other variation of the Apple logo for any purpose. Third parties cannot use a variation, phonetic equivalent, foreign language equivalent, takeoff, or abbreviation of an Apple trademark for any purpose. For example: Not acceptable: Appletree Jackintosh Apple Cart PodMart

Look! Appletree is listed as something that cannot be used for any purpose.

In conclusion, because I’m feeling rather anti-Apple, look at this iPhone-killer, the CYON Viewty. It’s the most beautiful phone I’ve ever seen. Min Hyorin even made a music video for it. The video is sweet.

¹ Apple’s Notice of Opposition
² Apple’s Copyright and Trademark Guidelines

Rating:

Does Bennett’s book live up to its title? Does it make logic easy? No, not really. However, Logic Made Easy is a good read. It’s a basic book on logic. It covers a lot of ground. It talks of paradoxes, proofs, history, truth tables, thinking, fuzzy logic, fallacies, and language (not’s, and’s, and if’s). It’s sprinkled with puzzles and tricky questions. Overall, it’s fun (because of the puzzles) and engaging (because it encourages thinking and reflecting on one’s own thought patterns).

Ideally, if you read Logic Made Easy, you will

• Laugh (remember, it’s a fun read!)
• Learn how the words contrary and contradict differ
• Work a few puzzles (like the little brain test I gave readers of my blog)

For a nonfiction book, the majority of Logic Made Easy reads very quickly and is very easy to understand. But 5 to 10 percent of it is a little dry, a little complex, and a little confusing. If you can handle the quote below, you can handle the entirety of Logic Made Easy.

How does one assign a truth value to a statement like, “The king of France is bald”? There is no king of France. Perhaps we should declare the proposition to be false. If there is no king of France then he can’t possibly be bald. However, if the proposition is false then its negative must be true. We would be forced to accept the truth of “The present king of France is not bald,” but once again we find ourself in a quandary…

If you’re still with me and if the quote above amuses you more than it annoys you, you may want to pick up this book. If you’re a member of Mensa, I strongly recommend it. If you’re a programmer, a linguist, or a psychologist (or interested in becoming any of those things), I recommend Logic Made Easy to you too.

On a final note, I enjoyed the section on paradoxes to the utmost. There, Bennett notes one question that “[brought] on crises in thought” in my brain. The question: Is the word heterological heterological (a word that does not describe itself)? Long is heterological because long is not a long word. French is heterological because French is not a French word. Heterological is heterological because … ?

Paradoxes ftl; Logic Made Easy ftw.