curious about causality

Posted on Wednesday, 2020 August 26 by Anton

Without trying, I can think of five webcomics authors who changed their pronouns long after they started posting: Dana Simpson (Ozy and Millie), Joey Alison Sayers (Thingpart and now Alley Oop), Allison Shabet (Deadwinter), Elli Stephens (Goblins), and now Maelyn Dean (Real Life).

Is there something in the ink?

(See also.)

LATER: add Jodie Troutman (Sporkman), Jackie Lesnick (Girly, Cutewendy), Daisy Finch McGuire (Gastrophobia), Jeanne Thornton (The Man Who Hates Fun); and, the other way, Nate Stevenson (Nimona).

Posted in cartoons | 4 Comments

polyglot priority

Posted on Saturday, 2020 August 01 by Anton

A genie offers to make you fluent in twenty or a hundred languages, living or dead. How do you choose?

The greedy algorithm: add whatever language most increases the number of people, living or dead, with whom you could have (had) a fluent conversation; repeat.

Alternately, the language preferred by the most recent ancestor with whom you cannot already converse; repeat. (Closely related dialects come at a discount.)

But I’d trade some slots on either of these lists for some smaller languages of historical or literary interest, such as Etruscan and perhaps Volapük, plus sign languages (ASL, Plains, BSL).

Posted in language | 8 Comments

hope you don’t mind if I sit this one out

Posted on Thursday, 2020 April 23 by Anton

Looks like I’m staying home alone until a vaccine comes; it’s what I mostly do anyway, though I miss the weekly card games. As a libertarian, I do not presume to know what’s best for others. So, lucky me, I need not obsess about policy.

Posted in medicine, politics | Leave a comment

early webcomics gallery

Posted on Sunday, 2020 April 19 by Anton

Joe Average’s first anniversary strip features characters from 37 other strips. Can you help me name them? Some have fallen off the Web.

Nukees S.S.D.D Look What I Brought Home (?) Superosity
Road Waffles ? Life at Bayside (?) Bobbins
Krazy Larry Ashfield When I Grow Up
Bruno the Bandit Avalon High Joe Average
Pentasmal Soap on a Rope Melonpool
? ? It’s Walky
Awkward Zombie (?) Newshounds? ?
Help Desk Clan of the Cats GPF
Sinfest ? ?
Everything Jake Real Life ?
Alice Funny Farm The Class Menagerie
Down to Earth (?) Suburban Jungle ?
Posted in cartoons | Leave a comment

Scribbles: The Ensmoothening, Part III

Posted on Monday, 2020 March 30 by Anton

Many of the curves in this chart have some unsightly wiggles. That’s because, when a function of degree 2 or higher tries to approximate a piecewise constant, it tends to go back and forth across the target. So here instead I fitted each such function not to the piecewise constant directly but to the fit of the next lower degree.
Continue reading →

Posted in curve-fitting | 1 Comment

supply issues

Posted on Wednesday, 2020 March 11 by Anton

I’ve had a number of mugs printed by Zazzle, and most of them came out gorgeous; but last summer I was peeved enough by a delivery cock-up to want to take my business elsewhere. Recently I got around to doing something about it, with even more disappointing results.

Threadless would not let me sign up. I can’t tell which of my address, handle and password offends it, let alone how.

Cafepress failed to upload my design.

Spreadshirt and CustomInk cannot do a wraparound design on a mug.

Who else is out there? Maybe I have cooled off enough to go back to Zazzle.

Posted in merch | 1 Comment

pull the other one

Posted on Monday, 2020 March 09 by Anton

This week I’ve had a flood of mail with titles like VIDEO OF YOU! and YOU GOT RECORDED!. A tweetmate asked me to save and share one, so here it is. Continue reading →

Posted in spam | Leave a comment