Author Archives: Anton

the domain of cheapness

When I registered my domain, about 1998, .nu was the cheapest registry. It’s now €30/year. Before renewal is due (March 28) I should move to a cheaper address. (Yeah, I said the same two years ago. This time around, I … Continue reading

Posted in me!me!me! | 4 Comments

one difference between a loony loner and a policeman

When some solitary nut shoots a little girl by mistake, he doesn’t have an Internal Affairs Department to certify that he followed all procedures correctly.

Posted in politics | 1 Comment

suspension renewed

In the movie Avatar, one of the floating mountains has a waterfall, at which my suspension of disbelief groaned: there’s not enough rain catchment area, and obviously there can’t be a spring. But now I thought of a possibility. There … Continue reading

Posted in cinema | Leave a comment

the inquiring mind, however dim

When Jeff Riggenbach said that Butt-Head is smarter than Beavis, I told him about this bit (the relevant part begins at 1:30). I say Butt-Head is more worldly but Beavis is more imaginative.

Posted in cartoons | 1 Comment

2+2=God?

Travis Corcoran wrote, in response to a question: This is deserving of a longer post, but the ultra-brief version: I started out soft atheist, but always accepted the absolute existence of good and evil (it is evil to kill Jews … Continue reading

Posted in ethics | 3 Comments

more great moments in typography

I see I haven’t mentioned here that Charlie Stross’s novel Saturn’s Children is printed in modified Bembo, with single-loop ‘a’ and hook-tailed ‘gy’. It’s remarkable how much the page color is affected by those three letters.

Posted in language | Tagged | 2 Comments

great moments in typesetting

I’m reading Ken Macleod’s novel The Execution Channel (Tor hardcover 2007). It appears that someone replaced every ‘fi’ or ‘fl’ with a ligature, without checking case.

Posted in language | Tagged | 5 Comments