Top stories

Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

A Commanding Sight In Iceland

commandsymbol-20081110.jpg

The keen Mac cultists among you will already know the story behind the cloverleaf Command symbol (⌘) but for those of you who don’t, this photo (by cogdogblog on Flickr, used under CC license) tells the story rather well.

The ⌘ was discovered for Apple by bitmap artist Susan Kare in a dictionary of symbols, where it was said to be commonly used in Scandinavia to identify places of interest or camp sites.

Cogdogblog’s photo shows the symbol alive and well in Iceland, 1300 miles or so away from Stockholm but culturally close nonetheless.

Where else has the command symbol been spotted? In a jellyfish. In a bakery. In a bedroom. If you’ve seen it anywhere interesting, do let us know.

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He is a columnist for PA, and has written for the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, MacUser, Macworld, and The Morning News. He has a blog you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

Email the author | Read more posts by Giles Turnbull.

8 comments

    ⌘ is comonly used all over europe “to identify places of interest”. usually on brown background.

    They use the same signs in Sweden for ‘interesting points for tourists’:
    http://blog.tice.de/beitrag.php?file=2007_02_09_2251&sprache=englisch

    And in Norway, we have them placed under water also :-)
    http://www.norway.org.uk/culture/heritage/kulturminneskilt.htm

    The logo is adorned on the football shirts of Histon FC in England.

    http://www.histonfc.co.uk/images/histonsquad0809.jpg

    I don’t think it has anything to do with a Swedish campground – if this was so, you would expect to find it here: http://www.camping.se/templates/article____312.aspx. As I understand it, the meaning is any kind of tourist attraction. I always thought it was meant to resemble a castle seen from above.

    This sign is used in Lithuania to denote places of interest as well. Maybe in other Baltic states too.

    You can find it even in street art XD
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cranjam/2853234904/
    is it meant as a weapon??? :P

Buy Inside Steve's Brain Buy from Amazon.com Buy from Barnes & Noble