Monthly Archives: December 2010

suspension renewed

Posted on Thursday, 2010 December 23 by Anton

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

Posted on Wednesday, 2010 December 22 by Anton

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?

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 type | 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 type | 5 Comments

all the politics I need

Posted on Monday, 2010 December 06 by Anton

I designed a bumper sticker, which is not acutely relevant just now — but I wanted to get it done ahead of the rush.