NYC Walkabout

My new tattoo.

I’ve thought about this for a long time now and decided that now was the time to finally get it done. The binary code translates to “logic”—a passion of mine—mastery of which represents the highest possibility of mind (something I’m still far from achieving). The numbers are set in Verdana, which was chosen for two reasons:

1. I wanted a humanist sans typeface. Humanist because I wanted to reference the typefaces developed in the wake of Gutenberg’s revolution; sans to acknowledge modern typographic practice. The genius of the printing press and the genius of logic are the same: an expansion of the domain of knowledge through open access to its forms and functions. (1).
2. Verdana was one of the first great typefaces designed expressly for the screen and it remains among the most commonly used faces on the Web. As a humanist-inspired face it links the Web to Gutenberg, but in its ability to be easily read in electronic forms, Verdana has played an important role in the Web’s explosive growth, a revolution in knowledge even more significant than Gutenberg’s and, likely, the greatest revolution—political or otherwise—yet seen.

1. When the Russian read the version of this post I put on Facebook, he asked me, “Ummm…. what does that even mean?” I told him, “It draws a parallel between the importance of logic and the importance of the printing press in the consumption of data points, the creation of knowledge and the practice of politics and philosophy. The printing press was an important step in democratizing access to ideas and history. It facilitated learning, the spread of concepts and—a point rarely discussed—was absolutely essential in the development of modern democracies: what’s the point of constitutionalism if there isn’t a text referenceable by the people? Logic is the key resource in analyzing and interpreting the meaning of these data points because it creates an architectural framework—open to any who want to study it—in which claims about ideas and history can be evaluated. In both cases, the importance of the element is directly related to its openness of access, to the way in which the traditional structures of top-down, revelation-based hierarchies are undermined when knowledge is available to more and more people.”
2. I also created the following Venn Diagram to express my annoyance thoughts with his question: