Yesterday was World Logic Day, a holiday that I must confess I didn’t realize was a holiday until yesterday.

It was started by UNESCO in 2019 as a way to get people invested in logical concepts and their practical applications to the world at large, celebrating humanity’s great successes through reason, knowledge, and logic.

Of course, as a puzzle guy, I’m all for a celebration of logic. I could’ve marked the day with a discussion of different logic puzzles, highlighting the marvelous human ability to make deductions from limited information and snatch unexpected revelations from a few simple clues or facts.

And maybe I will do that in the future.

But today, instead, I have a minor grievance to share.

The built-in search bar for Microsoft had this little logo there for days. I didn’t notice because, honestly, I never use that search bar. But I happened to spot the Rubik’s cube yesterday and I was very confused.

Green, orange, white, yellow, dark pink, light pink, dark blue, light blue…

This cube has too many colors!

So naturally, I went onto Reddit to see if I was the only one with the same complaint, and I wasn’t. There was a lively discussion about the viability of this Rubik’s cube.

Many commenters pointed out that the colors are probably the result of shading to create the three-dimensional effect. Several even proved the pattern was legitimate by posting their own Rubik’s Cubes to match. (Although at least one was a tongue-in-cheek posting of a cube with the stickers moved and reattached.)

The cube appears to be modeled on the World Logic Day logo from 2024, based on the color choices, but the shadow effect really makes it look like a child had a coloring book page with a blank cube and just scribbled in it willy-nilly.

So maybe, in the future, on World Logic Day of all days, we could avoid making one of the most recognizable puzzles on the planet look weird?

UNLESS.

gasp

Unless it was intentional.

Unless this was all a master plan to raise awareness of World Logic Day by provoking neurodivergent thinkers with an image practically guaranteed to annoy them, thereby causing them to click on the image, driving more attention to World Logic Day!

DIABOLICAL.

I fell right into their trap.

And now, you have too.

Happy Belated World Logic Day, fellow puzzlers!