Category Archives: humanities

awkward expectations

Posted on Sunday, 2011 February 20 by Anton

Many of the anecdotes at Not Always Right concern customers who expect someone to know, without being told anything, what they seek. It crosses my mind that, if you’re stupid enough, you frequently encounter someone who accurately infers things that … Continue reading →

Posted in psychology | Leave a comment

how do people talk?

Posted on Monday, 2011 February 14 by Anton

When (American) TV actors utter the phrase “What are you doing here?”, as I must have heard dozens of times lately, they nearly always emphasize doing — and I nearly always think it would make more sense to emphasize either … Continue reading →

Posted in cinema, language | 1 Comment

try this analogy on for size

Posted on Thursday, 2011 February 03 by Anton

An anarchist who uses the Internet is as hypocritical as a Protestant who uses the Latin alphabet.

Posted in language, politics, religion | 2 Comments

2+2=God?

Posted on Friday, 2010 December 17 by Anton

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

Posted on Thursday, 2010 December 16 by Anton

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

Posted on Friday, 2010 December 10 by Anton

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

superstition and the market

Posted on Thursday, 2010 October 14 by Anton

The local Humane Society has such a hard time placing black cats that it offers a deep discount on the adoption fee.

Posted in Cascadia, pets, religion | 3 Comments