An Alternative Lojban Logo
Over the weekend, that one guy from the west coast who hates Unix and open source software was flaming the Lojban mailing list about the Lojban flag, which is a cartesian coordinate system superimposed on a Venn diagram. (The reason we need a flag is for graphic language-selection menus.) He thinks it makes our language look like it's associated with open source software and science fiction. Um, it's probably not a coincidence that most jbopre are involved in one or more of them. I happen to like the logo, but he got me thinking what I would have submitted in the design contest if I had been involved at the time. I invented an alternative logo and flag for Lojban. Is it not nifty?
So far feedback from Lojban speakers has been encouraging. But it's more than just attractive, it's symbolic. Colors are the purplish-blue and burgundy-magenta used in the earliest years of Epcot Center's Future World. The art repeatedly uses the Fibonacci ratio or "golden" ratio, phi, symbolizing consistency in rules, and modular expansion. It's asymmetrical in every direction, symbolizing unique decomposition and parsing. The dots symbolize the five default fill-in-the-blanks in a simple Lojban sentence. The person's arms embrace them into a relationship. Inside the mind is the thought of that relationship, so the head is between the first and second blanks, just like the relationship word or phrase in a Lojban sentence. This represents Lojban's precise syntax.
Only after the top was done did I realize it could be extended downward to become a human form. This anthropomorphic figure personalizes the ideogram and symbolizes:
Cultural neutrality algorithmically derived from the five largest language groups of our species.
Root word concept choices derived from anthropomorphic concerns.
Attitudinals, which can be combined modularly into one of the most thorough catalogs of the human heart offered by any language.
Comments
stormgren on Aug. 15, 2005 6:26 PM — Ouch...
Oh... THAT jackass.
Sorry to hear he invaded the Lojban community.
His behavior and comments about OSS/Unix/ULOSen have resembled that of an obsessive-compulsive stalkerish type.
He rants about "unix morons" and whatnot and saying that things aren't being done how they should be, but yet never quite proposes what that should be.
His screeds usually contain great examples of classical logical fallacies. That, and he never offers any proof.
Hopefully all the jbopre on the mailing list end up ignoring him.
matt-arnold on Aug. 15, 2005 6:36 PM — Re: Ouch...
They are ignoring him. I have proposed that he be encouraged to continue his ranting on the condition that it all be written in Lojban. Any language can be used for expression of the full universe of discourse, including abuse, threats, defamation, racism, obscenity, madness, pyramid schemes, libel, chain letters, and business solicitation. This is forbidden unless it's written in Lojban. The IRC channel is quite pleasant for this reason.
ciocusrareb on (None)
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