Monday, August 8, 2011

What's wrong with this picture?

Short answer: it was designed in Washington.


The problem with the "Department Of Innovation" Logo is that the gears physically cannot turn:

Smithsonian.com has launched a new blog called Department of Innovation to track “all things innovative, not just in science and technology but how we live, how we learn, and how we entertain ourselves.”

The logo of this cool new enterprise is shown here. You don’t have to be a mechanical engineer to notice something a little wrong with the gear arrangement: In this configuration, none of them can move. One poster to the blog suggested that they might stand for the president, Congress and the Senate.
But I hear that the Administration has Top Men on it.  Top Men.

11 comments:

MonteG said...

Darn, looks like they already changed it.

Rev. Paul said...

It's the government: the design, they changed right away. It's the actual function that will remain gridlocked.

The Big Guy said...

Your throw-away line at the end was great...

Eaton: We have top men working on it...
Indy: Who?
Eaton: Top. Men.

Don't know why, just tickles me.

BTW, you were right- The Bells - they were a hoot!

TBG

MonteG said...

I think their comment about the goof needs more Monty Python:
‎"Thank you to everyone for your comments about our logo. We have since shifted the gears and switched in a new logo."

Should read:
"We apologise for the fault in the logo. Those responsible have
been sacked."

Home on the Range said...

It's the perfect symbol! "Sure they don't turn now, but if we spend millions on brainstorming and development grants maybe we can invent gears that turn any way we want, like make them completely smooth like wheels. That's it! We'll re-invent the wheel!!"

North said...

Why do I have this mental image of the people responsible being the same as the "Do people with smart phones do dumb things?"


"Can the gentleman with the BroStache come to this party?"

Ritchie said...

Modeled after a broken Peugeot transmission someone saw once? And, FWIW, le spellcheck knows Peugeot but not spellcheck.

kx59 said...

No, wait it will turn for a bit. I see just enough proximity in the teeth.
Then the teeth will break off and it will eat itself. Much like our federal government.

Unknown said...

gotta love the irony...or is it the idiocy? what doesn't make me crazy(ier)ab I have to laugh at...

Glenn B said...

I work for the goobermint and I tell you that the way they were set up they could have moved. If you don't see how they could have moved let me give you a hint, they could have moved just like the current government. Thus, once enough force was applied to those gears from an outside source, such as We The People, the gears would have broken. That means yes they would have moved but just not the way it had been planned by the airheads currently in the administration. In fact once moved that way, it would have been easy to clean up the pieces and start over again. Keep up the pressure, maybe the IMMOVABLE gears will move after all.

All the best,
GB

Logan Wahler said...

Immovable gears can be useful under some circumstances, like when you engage the parking gear in your car to lock an automatic transmission. A good, innovative mechanical engineer would be able to recognize that potential even if this is not the standard for how it is done.

The government, in all its filibusters, can be analogized to this.