... and the Neal Stephenson fan in me was just a smidgen disappointed that this was not the introduction of a hypervelocity flechette gatling railgun.
Similar to the point that I'm sure it is a subconscious plagiarism. In other words, the person who created the logo had seen Reason magazine's and unintentionally channeled it when creating the new one.
You mean 'un-reasonably' similar ?
It's also about as similar to the common representation of ruthenium on the periodic table.