07.14
First off, thank you to the people at Lexulous for reminding me of pending moves in my non-existent ongoing games. Seems like a bit of a desperate marketing attempt reminiscent of “You’ve already won!” junk mail. Secondly, “Lexulous” is a godawful name. It replaced “Scrabulous” in September of 2008 due to legal issues with that name’s similarity to “Scrabble.”
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06.26
I have several complaints about the recently announced expansion of the best picture nominees from five to ten.
- Confusion. Our short term memory only allows us to consider about five to nine items at once, making ten too many by at least one. It’s relatively easy to think of five things and choose your favorite. Ten requires you to do something like write them down and assign scores to each. Is the Academy unaware of integers between five and ten?
- Faulty logic. One of the main reasons cited for the change is that the Academy has been perceived as “elitist” in recent years for ignoring crowd favorites. But isn’t this the point of a professional critique—to choose the elite? Crowd favorites can easily be determined by looking at the box office returns, or the number of tickets sold—or by letting anyone vote instead of just Academy members.
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03.17
It's been un-geekified
Landor has renamed the Sci Fi Channel. The new name? “Syfy.” I assume it’s homophonic with “SciFi.” Reasons for the name change, according to a TV Week article and a few blog posts, include:
- A desire to create a “more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.” – Dave Howe, president of the Sci Fi Channel
- Disassociate the channel with “geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that.” – TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network
- Make the name more “ownable,” since there are “hundreds of sci-fi Web sites and sci-fi publications.” – Dave Howe
- To stay connected to the channel’s “heritage and the track record of success.” – Dave Howe
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