Ironic Sans http://www.ironicsans.com/ en david@ironicsans.com Copyright 2012 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:54:38 -0500 Wed, 16 May 2012 07:06:06 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=5.12 david@ironicsans.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[How I Scored A Million Points In SpellTower [Guest Post]]]> Preface SpellTower Champ JerryMy father-in-law Jerry is great at word puzzles. He's a retired economist for the FTC with a passion for music and a life-long interest in math and science. He says he dabbles in games and puzzles "occasionally... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/b8G-6Seh6ag/how_to_score_a_million_points_.html 421@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Preface


SpellTower Champ JerryMy father-in-law Jerry is great at word puzzles. He's a retired economist for the FTC with a passion for music and a life-long interest in math and science. He says he dabbles in games and puzzles "occasionally for relaxation," but that understates his skill. At family gatherings, he wins practically every game of Scrabble, Boggle, Bridge, you name it.

Over the holidays, I showed him SpellTower on my iPad. The game combines elements of Boggle and Tetris, and I thought he would enjoy it. By the time I took my iPad back at the end of the trip, he had already broken the SpellTower "Puzzle Mode" record on the Game Center leader board by almost 100,000 points (and shattered my high score of 17,876 which I thought was pretty good). He still has the high score on the leader board with 167,275 points.

Like most people who play the game once, he was hooked, so he bought SpellTower for his own iPad. The other day he told me that he's been playing the same continuous game for over a month now and has obliterated his own high score. He has passed 1,000,000 points, adding about 20,000 points a day. He's confident he can keep playing as long as he wants. (His score won't show up in Game Center until he ends the game).

On Jerry's behalf, I bragged to SpellTower creator Zach Gage via Twitter. Zach replied, "Holy [expletive]. He is a beast. I want to know his strategy."

So I asked Jerry if he would share his strategy. Some of it may seem obvious, and some of it you may not have considered, but here it is in full, explained in his own words in this blog's very first Guest Post:

How I Scored A Million Points In SpellTower

The key to getting a high score is patience. Don't play too fast, and don't feel that you have to enter a word just because you found it. There is no problem in letting several turns go by without making any words at all -- that just gives you a bigger collection of letters and more choices.


Approaching one million pointsThe main strategic principle is to avoid developing towers on the sides of the board. Instead, try to cultivate a shape in which the board is even, or better yet, shaped like an upside down U where the middle columns are higher than the sides. The reason for this is simple: the side rows are the hardest to clear because there are fewer possible words to make when you can connect to letters on just one side. So always look first for words that use letters in the extreme side columns. If you can't find any, just add another row until you can. Always enter the letters one by one until the board displays exactly which letters will be removed. Then examine the effect it will have on your shape before you hit the last letter a second time to enter the word. Look before you leap.

The next principle is to make long words rather than short ones. The obvious advantage is that you clear more letters, since five (or more) letter words clear all adjoining squares. You also avoid selectively removing the letters with no nasty little 6's in the corners, creating a board in which most of the remaining letters do have these nasty 6's. Yet another advantage is that you save the short, common words for an emergency. If you quickly use up many of the three letter words, you won't have those words left to help you when they are the only way to save you from death. So again, if you can't find a long word, it is usually better to add a row of letters than to make a 3 or 4 letter word. Save the short ones for emergencies and to help cut down pesky little towers or accumulations of black spaces before they get out of control. Even more important: save up the short J, X, Q, and Z words, because they are really helpful in a jam.

There is one more special technique that is handy when you really need it. Sometimes you just can't find any word, and you are close to death. Rather than taking a chance with getting good letters in your next row, you can sometimes find a word which is almost connected, but not quite. By making a short word that removes a letter or two that is in the way, you can sometimes connect the word and use it in your next turn to clear out a critical column.

I haven't said anything about how to find words -- this is an issue common to all of these words games, most notably Boggle. Just use the same strategies, such as keeping an eye out for common sequences such as ER, ING, ION, etc., and keep trying different shapes and possibilities.

And one more thing -- don't be afraid to guess. No matter how many words you know, there are thousands of other words that SpellTower recognizes that you have never heard of before. So if you are in a jam, just press in any plausible sequence of letters, and you will find that a surprising number of them are accepted as words.

It really all comes down to patience. Never make a word just because the word has a high score. One word is worth nothing. Staying alive is everything. If adding an S to your word gives you another 100 points but makes your shape worse, leave out the S! If you find a 6 letter word that increases the size of a side tower by 1, spend a little more time and try to find a different one that has a better effect on your shape. If you find a great word that gives you 1000 points but eats up the middle of the board, you are just tempting fate. In fact, if you are playing the regular puzzle mode, there is no need to die. The only thing that would be guaranteed to do you in is that eventually you will use up so many words that there won't be enough left. But even that is not a problem, because I have discovered that the memory cache for the words already used is too small, so that if you play long enough, you can start using the same words a second or third time. This starts kicking in after you have amassed about 600,000 points. But to get there, you really need patience!

]]> Games Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:54:38 -0500 2 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/04/how_to_score_a_million_points_.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000421.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/04/how_to_score_a_million_points_.html Idea: Toddler TARDIS Console About a month ago my son learned to pull himself up to stand on his own. Now that he can stand, he really enjoys his LeapFrog Learning Table. It's about waist high and has all sorts of knobs and dials... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/kdVIA62vrhY/idea_toddler_tardis_console.html 420@http://www.ironicsans.com/ About a month ago my son learned to pull himself up to stand on his own. Now that he can stand, he really enjoys his LeapFrog Learning Table. It's about waist high and has all sorts of knobs and dials and levers and switches that trigger sound effects, lights and music. As he makes his away around the table fiddling with knobs and switches I noticed that he looks a lot like Doctor Who doing the same thing in the TARDIS.

Then it hit me: someone should really make a TARDIS console for babies.

Toddler TARDIS Console

Kids will love the bright flashing lights, the numerous knobs to turn and levers to flip, the central piston, the signature TARDIS groan, and other sound effects and clips featuring characters from the show. One button would play the theme song, and another button would trigger a Dalek voice reciting the alphabet. That's sure to be a favorite feature of parents and kids alike.

There's no better way to teach your baby Time Lord about wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

]]> Ideas Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:28:46 -0500 5 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/04/idea_toddler_tardis_console.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000420.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/04/idea_toddler_tardis_console.html Protect Abed I saw this ad on the subway yesterday. I haven't visited the site, but I assume it's part of a viral marketing campaign to keep Community on the air. Okay, now I've visited the site. They've built a pitch-perfect imitation... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/xAAYmvNrJk4/protect_abed.html 419@http://www.ironicsans.com/ I saw this ad on the subway yesterday. I haven't visited the site, but I assume it's part of a viral marketing campaign to keep Community on the air.

Protect Abed

Okay, now I've visited the site. They've built a pitch-perfect imitation of a mattress-cover company's website. I'm not sure what it has to do with Abed, but I'll bet if I dig deep enough I'll figure it out. It must be some sort of meta-ironic-pop-culture-referencing thing. That's so Abed.

#sixseasonsandamovie

]]> Advertising Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:54:30 -0500 2 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/03/protect_abed.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000419.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/03/protect_abed.html Inventor Portrait: Ralph Baer, video game inventor, who turns 90 years old this week [cross-posted from my photography blog] Ralph Baer, the father of video games, turns 90 years old on Thursday. One of his early inventions, the Magnavox Odyssey, was the first home video game system. It turns 40 years old this year.... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/1XJZ-P9Fqfg/inventor_portrait_ralph_baer_v.html 418@http://www.ironicsans.com/ [cross-posted from my photography blog]

Ralph Baer, the father of video games, turns 90 years old on Thursday. One of his early inventions, the Magnavox Odyssey, was the first home video game system. It turns 40 years old this year. I photographed and interviewed Ralph over the summer for my ongoing Inventor Portraits Project, and this seemed like a good time to share some of the video in which we discuss, among other things, why he's still inventing at 90 years old.

At one point in our interview he expressed frustration that modern kids don't read anymore because they're too busy playing with their smartphones. So I asked him if he thinks kids play too many video games today. Did he accidentally unleash a monster with his invention? His answer:

Yeah. I did a bit. What I thought I unleashed was a family game. If you'll stop to consider for a second, what's the ping pong game? You can't play ping pong with yourself. It was meant to be played by two people. And we had four-handed ping pong and hockey games early on, also. I always thought of it as a family game. And it just sort of degenerated into a one player type thing which was never in my mind.

I thought that was interesting. I think I see a pendulum swinging back in Baer's direction with consoles like the Nintendo Wii, which put an emphasis on group play.

Anyway, Happy 90th Birthday, Ralph!

]]> Art Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:11:29 -0500 6 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/03/inventor_portrait_ralph_baer_v.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000418.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/03/inventor_portrait_ralph_baer_v.html Bob& Carol& Ted& Alice. Now here's a timely parody. It combines elements of a popular t-shirt from 2001 that's already been parodied to death and a movie from 1969 about swingers that you probably haven't seen. But it's been rattling in my head begging... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/uCtqbqBcfLM/bob_carol_ted_alice.html 417@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Now here's a timely parody. It combines elements of a popular t-shirt from 2001 that's already been parodied to death and a movie from 1969 about swingers that you probably haven't seen.

But it's been rattling in my head begging to be done, so here it is:

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

Now, it's possible this has already been done. I mean, what else in popular culture is already set up as four names with ampersands between them? It's almost as though the movie title was meant for this parody. But if so, I couldn't find it. However I'm pretty sure that my other idea for a Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice poster parody hasn't been done. I couldn't even bring myself to do it. It was going to be Bobby & Carol & Greg & Alice. Yeah, I know. (Bonus: just as timely!)

Interestingly, the original movie poster for the film was entirely typographical, having no photos or illustrations. Just the title repeated in Cooper Black with the tagline "consider the possibilities."

]]> Advertising Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:21:41 -0500 8 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/02/bob_carol_ted_alice.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000417.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/02/bob_carol_ted_alice.html Idea: Add Thsrs to a Twitter App Back in 2008 I launched Thsrs, an online Thesaurus that only returns synonyms shorter than your search query. It was intended for Twitter users who are having trouble staying under 140 characters. It's still used frequently by a small group... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/WgKqek-3Fyw/idea_add_thsrs_to_a_twitter_app.html 416@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Back in 2008 I launched Thsrs, an online Thesaurus that only returns synonyms shorter than your search query. It was intended for Twitter users who are having trouble staying under 140 characters. It's still used frequently by a small group of people -- a typical busy day sees a few hundred lookups -- and I hear from copy editors who tell me how useful it is when they're trying to write headlines. But I haven't really done much with it since the launch.

In the meantime, a lot of Twitter apps have emerged with competing features and styles. But as far as I know, nobody has integrated a similar feature in their product. It would be a great tool to have while you're actually composing a tweet.

So I'm putting this idea out there for any Twitter client who wants to use it, but I'm specifically looking at you, Tweetbot. Add Thsrs to your app so that while I'm in the middle of writing a tweet, I can just highlight the term, tap "Thsrs..." (or whatever you want to call it in your implementation), and get a list of synonyms shorter than the word I've highlighted.

I don't actually know if the iOS API allows for custom features in the copy/paste/etc popup dialogue. But if it doesn't, I'm sure you can find some other clever way of integrating it. Maybe a Thsrs button on the compose screen next to all those other gear/tag/camera/etc icons?

]]> Language Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:53:44 -0500 7 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/01/idea_add_thsrs_to_a_twitter_app.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000416.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/01/idea_add_thsrs_to_a_twitter_app.html I See The Millennium Falcon Previously seen: Princess Leia, R2-D2, AT-AT Walkers, more. Also related: Scientists name new falcon species falco milleannus, or "millennium falcon".... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/3KkivAFA2VY/i_see_the_millennium_falcon.html 415@http://www.ironicsans.com/

Previously seen: Princess Leia, R2-D2, AT-AT Walkers, more.

Also related: Scientists name new falcon species falco milleannus, or "millennium falcon".

]]> Star Wars Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:53:50 -0500 5 http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/01/i_see_the_millennium_falcon.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000415.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2012/01/i_see_the_millennium_falcon.html #DearInventor I recently discovered that a lot of people use Twitter to write brief open letters to unnamed inventors. They usually are expressing extreme love or extreme hatred for something. Occasionally they are even addressed to the imaginary inventor of... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/kLga_mueJ9M/dear_inventor.html 414@http://www.ironicsans.com/

I recently discovered that a lot of people use Twitter to write brief open letters to unnamed inventors. They usually are expressing extreme love or extreme hatred for something. Occasionally they are even addressed to the imaginary inventor of something completely intangible like power naps or emotions.

The more I looked into it, the more amusing I found it. So I thought I'd share. Here is a round-up of tweets from the past week addressed to inventors, grouped roughly into categories.


Clothes

[This space unintentionally left blank. There's a bug somewhere I need to squash. Just scroll down to the content for now. Thanks.]


Chap-Stick


Education

Heat


Food


Technology


Childcare


Intangibles


Medical


Other

]]> Lists Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:04:48 -0500 6 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/12/dear_inventor.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000414.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/12/dear_inventor.html Keming Revisited In early 2008, I coined the term keming, defining it as "the result of improper kerning." It's a nerdy graphic design joke, and it became one of my more popular posts. Readers suggested that I create some keming merchandise. So... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/TgQwHRWaNuo/keming_revisited.html 413@http://www.ironicsans.com/ In early 2008, I coined the term keming, defining it as "the result of improper kerning."

It's a nerdy graphic design joke, and it became one of my more popular posts. Readers suggested that I create some keming merchandise. So I did. The t-shirts are the most popular items, but my favorites are the mug and spiral notebook (both of which make excellent stocking stuffers).

I began to dream that the word would be widely adopted and become an actual part of graphic design language. How awesome would it be to coin a word that people actually use?

Well, it turns out that the word has caught on in some circles, and has become common enough that it's somewhat disassociated with me. I occasionally meet people surprised to discover that I coined it. Well, if you weren't reading this blog four years ago, I guess you wouldn't know. So I thought I'd reconnect with the word in a follow-up post examining some of the places I've seen it used.

A Design Reference Book

In 2009, Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio of the design firm UnderConsideration published a comprehensive reference book on all things design.

It's called Graphic Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design and it has nothing but 5-star reviews on Amazon. It looks like a pretty nice book. You can see details and sample spreads on their site where they call it "a comprehensive source of information and inspiration by documenting and chronicling the scope of contemporary graphic design, stemming from the middle of the twentieth century to today."

They reference keming on page 74:

Here's a detail of the page:

Urban Dictionary

Urban Dictionary, the online resource for made up words, has an entry for keming where three people have submitted examples of the word used in a sentence. They are:

What the helvetica, your kerning has turned into one massive keming fest. What the font were you thinking?

The typographer who worked on that film just pulled a keming by not having equal spacing between each letter in each word in the opening credits.

I ' mtryingtosetspacing, butIcan ' tseemtogetthekemingright.

I'm not sure I would say that someone "pulled a keming" but maybe that's a regional use.

A Whole Blog About Keming

Earlier this year, a designer in the Netherlands named Kilian Valkhof started a tumblr called Fuck Yeah Keming, "a celebration of horrendous kerning all over the internet." He has some good examples. Check it out.

Reddit

My old posts don't usually get that much traffic, but the original keming post still gets hits on a regular basis from one site in particular: reddit.

Redditors have taken a liking to keming, and it comes up often in the comments. Usually the submitted article features some sort of keming, which prompts someone in the comments to say "Nice keming there." Then someone replies, "WTF is keming?" And then someone else replies with a link to my site.

So, thanks for keeping keming alive, redditors!

Wikipedia

It appears that on three occasions, different people (not me) created Wikipedia pages for keming. All three were later deleted. According to the Wikipedia deletion log the reasons were as follows.

The first time: "Not enough context to identify subject"

The second time: "Patent nonsense, meaningless, or incomprehensible: db|WP is not a dictionary"

The third time: The page was set up to redirect to the entry for kerning, but was deleted after discussion decided that "'Keming' is a joke word invented by David Friedman... When the redirect was created the target article referred to the joke, but it's since been removed due to lack of coverage in any reliable source so the redirect doesn't serve much purpose any more."

Indeed, the wikipedia page for kerning has had references to keming written in (not by me) and deleted over the years. According to the revision history, the reference was changed to clarify that "keming is not what 'improper kerning is called'; it's a joke" and then removed completely because "the Ironic Sans blog does not appear to be an authoritative source."

Who, I ask, is a more authoritative source on a word that I made up than me?

Currently, the Wikipedia entry for keming is a disambiguation page, which says "Keming may be... A satirical misspelling of kerning, referring to bad kerning which causes the letter pair 'rn' to appear as 'm'"

If you have to explain it...

Other People's Products

I occasionally hear from people telling me that they saw keming on someone else's merchandise. Sometimes people just take my definition and put it on a shirt. That bothers me. But sometimes people come up with other clever uses for keming in joke form. My favorite is the Leam to kem shirt by Able Parris.

What else?

Do you use keming to mean improper kerning? Do you ever see or hear anyone else use it? Where else is it being used that I've overlooked?

A note about coining this word.

When I wrote the keming post, I first did a Google search to see whether or not the joke had been done before. All I found were a couple references to people with the name Keming, and other proper nouns (a school called Keming, for example). But it was hard to search because the vast majority of results were actual cases of keming the word kerning! A search result would contain the word "keming" but clicking through to the page would show an article about typography scanned in from a book or magazine and put through OCR. Every instance of the word "kerning" turned up as "keming" in Google. Here's a typical example.

UPDATE: Here's another great usage. A reader just wrote to tell me that he named his whole company after keming. It's a technical design studio called Keming Labs. He says, "I really like the term and I ended up using it in my company name (I hope you don't mind). We do data visualization stuff on the web, and 'Keming Labs' sounds serious enough when we meet with clients. It's easy to tell clients who get the joke though, because they usually chuckle immediately."

]]> Design Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:25:20 -0500 6 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/11/keming_revisited.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000413.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/11/keming_revisited.html 60 Seconds in the Life of a Dog Part 42 in an ongoing series of (approximately) 60 Second Films.... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/QoFHSS00tso/60_seconds_in_the_life_of_a_do.html 411@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Part 42 in an ongoing series of (approximately) 60 Second Films.

]]> 60 Seconds Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:46:09 -0500 1 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/10/60_seconds_in_the_life_of_a_do.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000411.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/10/60_seconds_in_the_life_of_a_do.html Idea: Vampire Victim Teething Toys One of the most popular items you can buy for babies right now is Sophie, a teething toy shaped like a giraffe. There were more Sophie giraffes purchased last year in France, where Sophie originated, than there were babies born.... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/tILKFUu-BNo/idea_vampire_victim_teething_r.html 410@http://www.ironicsans.com/ One of the most popular items you can buy for babies right now is Sophie, a teething toy shaped like a giraffe. There were more Sophie giraffes purchased last year in France, where Sophie originated, than there were babies born. This market needs to be tapped. And that's why I propose a new line of teething toys shaped like characters from vampire stories.

What better thing is there for your baby to sink her new teeth into than a vampire victim?

As an example I've taken the character Jonathan Harker from Dracula and mocked up what he might look like as a teething toy:

Notice the curved arms for easy grasping, and lots of nubby bits for gnawing.

The line would start out with characters from Dracula since it's public domain, but eventually expand to licensed characters like Sookie Stackhouse, Buffy, and that girl from the popular movies about the glittery vampire.

]]> Ideas Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:06:42 -0500 8 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/09/idea_vampire_victim_teething_r.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000410.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/09/idea_vampire_victim_teething_r.html Idea: The @TwentyWords Retweeter This has been on my "Ideas to post" list for what seems like a couple years already. I keep going back and forth between "I should just post it as an idea" and "No, I should actually make it a... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/pBeClKsrDKc/idea_the_twentywords_retweeter.html 409@http://www.ironicsans.com/ This has been on my "Ideas to post" list for what seems like a couple years already. I keep going back and forth between "I should just post it as an idea" and "No, I should actually make it a real thing." And then I go back and forth between "This is a good idea" and "It's not that good" with the occasional "Maybe it's an annoying idea" thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, it's been on my list so long that I think it's time to get off the pot and just post it. So here it is:

You know how sometimes you get an automated tweet in response to something you wrote? It's often spammy, but sometimes it's something strange like @AllTheCheeses that retweets any time someone mentions cheeses. Or @thedreamstream that retweets anyone who talks about their dreams.

I came up with an idea to turn automated retweets like this into a game that's actually played on Twitter.

I registered the username @twentywords. The idea was that @twentywords would automatically retweet anyone who used one of 20 secret words. By following @twentywords, you could try to figure out what the trigger words are. And the first person to reply to @twentywords with a list of all twenty words wins. Then a new bunch of words are picked and it starts all over. @Twentywords would follow the winners, keeping a running tally of who has won.

Most people wouldn't know that @twentywords exists until they notice that it retweeted them. They'd wonder "Who is @twentywords and why is he or she retweeting that totally mundane thing I just wrote?" so they'd check out the profile. And in the profile it would explain that @twentywords is a game and explain the rules with a link to more info. It would start out slow but grow organically as more people happened to discover the game because they happened to be retweeted.

That was the idea. One problem I ran into was picking the words. If they're too common, the account would go crazy retweeting, and it wouldn't be difficult for people to scroll through the retweets to find the 20 words. And if they're too obscure, the game would be impossible.

Also, it turns out that many uncommon words in everyday life are still pretty common on Twitter. With 175 million registered user, a lot of obscure words get used a lot.

See for yourself. Think of an uncommon-but-not-too-uncommon word, and do a Twitter search to see how many people used it today. Sarcophagus? Alveoli? See what I mean?

Hmm. Maybe I've accidentally stumbled upon a different game. Is there a Twitter equivalent of Googlewhacking?

]]> Games Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:21:27 -0500 7 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/08/idea_the_twentywords_retweeter.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000409.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/08/idea_the_twentywords_retweeter.html Neil Illusions Forty years ago, in the April 1971 issue of New Scientist magazine, a new type of optical illusion was described: Neil Illusions, named for the man who discovered them, Allan Neil, of the Institute of Behavioral Research at Texas Christian... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/G31U3h-jMEQ/neil_illusions.html 408@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Forty years ago, in the April 1971 issue of New Scientist magazine, a new type of optical illusion was described: Neil Illusions, named for the man who discovered them, Allan Neil, of the Institute of Behavioral Research at Texas Christian University.

Here's how Allan Neil described this new category of illusions in the article:

These new illusions, in sharp contrast to those of the 19th century, do not violate the invariance of parity, charge conjugation or time reversal. Full scale research has not yet begun on the information-processing mechanisms which respond to the subtle factors in these illusions, but the preliminary studies have not overestimated their importance.

Here are the examples he gave:

Amazing. You can read the entire article as it appeared in the original issue online at Google Books. (The issue also has an advertisement for the Beckman DB-GT Spectrophotometer, which has the slogan, BECKMAN CAN HELP -- with spectroscopy.)

I think more research needs to be done in this field. I'm sure there are other undiscovered Neil Illusions out there. Every year the Neural Correlate Society holds a contest to find the Best New Optical Illusions. I think they should add a category for the best Neil Illusion.

]]> Science Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:10:59 -0500 11 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/08/neil_illusions.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000408.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/08/neil_illusions.html San Diego Comic Con 1988 This week is the annual San Diego Comic-Con International, the largest fandom convention in the United States. If you're heading to San Diego, there's a very slim chance that you will pass through a time warp along the way and... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/52lHWdoW6aQ/san_diego_comic_con_1988.html 406@http://www.ironicsans.com/ This week is the annual San Diego Comic-Con International, the largest fandom convention in the United States. If you're heading to San Diego, there's a very slim chance that you will pass through a time warp along the way and find yourself at the 1988 San Diego Comic Con instead of the 2011 event. But to better prepare you for that remote possibility, I am providing a few things that you may wish to review in advance.

[Note: you should know that the convention in 1988 wasn't as big as it is today, when 125,000 people are expected to show up. In 1988, attendance was around 8,000 people. So don't be shocked if the place feels deserted.]

First, here is a Progress Report newsletter [download the PDF]. These were sent out in advance of the convention to get you excited about who would be there, and let you know how to get around the brand new Omni Hotel.

Inside you'll find that some topics being considered for panel programming include "Alternative Animation Techniques," "Are Comics Too Realistic?," "The Film Noir Approach in Comics," "Japanimation's Appeal in the United States," "Martial Arts in Comics," "New Directions in Comic Strips," "The Physics of Super-heroes," "Presenting Taboo Material in Comics" and "Why Aren't Comics Fun Anymore?"

You'll also find out where the masquerade is going to be held for the first time (spoiler: the Civic Theatre) and how to register for the masquerade. Please note that if you plan any acrobatics, swordplay, or special effects on stage, it must be cleared with masquerade coordinators in advance.

Here's a sneak peak at who else is lined up to be there:

Once you've gone through the Progress Report, arm yourself with the actual Events Guide [download the PDF]


On page 16 you'll find a complete listing of all the movie screenings happening during the convention. Don't miss Condorman in the Silver Room on Thursday, or the rare 3-D screening of It Came From Outer Space on Saturday.

Here's what else is happening:

If you can, go to the 4:00 screening of the new X-Men cartoon pilot on Thursday. It never got picked up as a series, but there's a certain excitement in the air at the possibility that it just might. And you can participate in the discussion over whether Wolverine's Australian accent ruins the whole thing.

In case you don't make it to 1988, here's the pilot courtesy of YouTube:

One more thing: Be sure to visit as many booths as you can, and meet as many people as you can. Instead of asking for individual autographs, it might be fun to get as many people as possible from, say, Marvel Comics to sign one piece of acid-free board. If they're willing to draw a picture on it, even better. And if Todd McFarlane says, "I did draw a picture. I drew a spider," when you really wanted him to draw Spider-Man, just thank him graciously and try not to be disappointed.

See if you can find all these people:

[Ron Lim, Archie Goodwin, Ralph Macchio, Mark Gruenwald, Jeff Purves, Ian Akin, Tom DeFalco, Terry Kavanagh, Peter David, Todd McFarlane, Steve Saffel, and a couple more people whose names I can't make out.]

Oh, one more thing. Before you go, pick up a copy of the Dark Horse Comics preview booklet [or just download the PDF]. It showcases some titles like Flaming Carrot and Concrete. They're a relatively new publisher, but I predict big things for them. Here's what it looks like:

Bonus:Now that I think about it, as long as you may be time traveling, perhaps you should look over the Wikipedia entry on 1988 in sports before you go, just in case you have some free time. And be sure to change your 2011 cash for 1988 or earlier bills so you don't arouse suspicion.

]]> Art Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:46:55 -0500 6 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/san_diego_comic_con_1988.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000406.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/san_diego_comic_con_1988.html Inventor Portrait: Ernest Nussbaum [cross-posted from my photography blog] This is Ernest Nussbaum, inventor of the Practicello. The Practicello is a full height cello that breaks down to fit in carry-on luggage. It's not intended to be good enough to play in a concert,... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/qeeD9mznQaM/inventor_portrait_ernest_nussb.html 405@http://www.ironicsans.com/ [cross-posted from my photography blog]

This is Ernest Nussbaum, inventor of the Practicello.

The Practicello is a full height cello that breaks down to fit in carry-on luggage. It's not intended to be good enough to play in a concert, but its just meant for cellists who want to practice while they travel without needing to pay for an extra seat on the airplane to bring their instrument. And since it doesn't resonate as loudly as a cello with a full body, it's not going to annoy the people in the hotel room next door.

Here are some more photos from our shoot:

]]> Photography Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:12:52 -0500 3 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/inventor_portrait_ernest_nussb.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000405.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/inventor_portrait_ernest_nussb.html 100 Year Old Patriotic Song Revived for 4th of July This bit of fun with the public domain happened over on my other blog SundayMagazine, but I thought it was cool enough to share here. I posted an article from 1911 about a new patriotic hymn written by the Music... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/umNfvM4dOSs/100_year_old_patriotic_song_re.html 404@http://www.ironicsans.com/ This bit of fun with the public domain happened over on my other blog SundayMagazine, but I thought it was cool enough to share here.

I posted an article from 1911 about a new patriotic hymn written by the Music Director of New York City's Parks and Recreation Department (does that job still exist?). The article included sheet music and lyrics for the song:

[Click here to download PDF]

The man who wrote it was Arthur Farwell, and he had pretty high aspirations for this song, considering it more of a global than national anthem:

“It is a world-hymn rather than a patriotic hymn in the old-fashioned sense.

“I have strictly avoided all the paraphernalia of phraseology of the old sort of narrow and egotistic patriotic hymn, and doubt very much if there will ever be another successful hymn of that kind written.

“The cry to-day is world federation, and the ‘Hymn to Liberty’ is addressed to the nations of the world, especially in its first and third stanzas, in behalf of the idea of liberty for the race, as springing to birth in a new sense with the creating fo the American nation.”

I'm not very musical myself, so I couldn't imagine what the hymn sounded like. And I couldn't find any recordings or references to it anywhere else online. It's not even listed in Farwell's page at the International Music Score Library Project. It seemed to have been long forgotten.

But my readers are more savvy than I am, and now we have two versions to listen to.

First, a reader named SamECircle used Noteflight to create a midi version of just the choral lines. That was pretty cool and gave an idea of the melody.

Then another reader named Daniel Dockery made an arrangement which he posted on his site. He wrote, "No choir on hand, I’ve reset the four voices in a direct, one-to-one setting for string quartet following the traditional arrangements, so the music is the same though the instruments differ; the piano line remains unchanged."

Be sure to visit his site and give it a listen.

]]> Music Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:36:06 -0500 1 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/100_year_old_patriotic_song_re.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000404.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/07/100_year_old_patriotic_song_re.html Three Drawings of Don Quixote 1. Pablo Picasso 2. Salvador Dali 3. My wife's hair as I found it stuck to the shower wall... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/4j1BekpoLIs/three_drawings_of_don_quixote.html 403@http://www.ironicsans.com/ 1. Pablo Picasso

2. Salvador Dali

3. My wife's hair as I found it stuck to the shower wall

]]> Art Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:03:15 -0500 3 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/three_drawings_of_don_quixote.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000403.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/three_drawings_of_don_quixote.html Idea: .ugh Top Level Domain How about a TLD for websites that can only be parody, complainy, or snarky? If you want to know about Lady Gaga's next album, you can go to ladygaga.com, but if you're really sick of her and want a community... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/4rnbcn3YkIQ/idea_ugh_top_level_domain.html 402@http://www.ironicsans.com/ How about a TLD for websites that can only be parody, complainy, or snarky? If you want to know about Lady Gaga's next album, you can go to ladygaga.com, but if you're really sick of her and want a community of like-minded haters, you can visit ladygaga.ugh and get it out of your system.

I know what you're thinking: This won't work because Lady Gaga will snatch up her .ugh before anyone else does. Well, that's what's unique about the .ugh TLD. If you snatched ladygaga.com, she could take you to domain name court to get it back. But the rules of .ugh will state that you can do the opposite. Nobody can own the same trademark and .ugh domain. If they do, you can take them to domain name court to snatch the domain and put up a snarky website the way ICANN intended.

This protects brands, also, because they needn't worry about anyone confusing the .ugh parody site with their own .com site. Everyone will know that comcast.ugh isn't really Comcast's website.

I call dibs on uggs.ugh.

]]> Ideas Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:00:00 -0500 14 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/idea_ugh_top_level_domain.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000402.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/idea_ugh_top_level_domain.html Thing Three and Thing Four http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/70TlMU_PSpU/thing_three_and_thing_four.html 401@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Thing Three and Thing Four

]]> Esoteric Comic Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:55:00 -0500 3 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/thing_three_and_thing_four.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000401.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/06/thing_three_and_thing_four.html An interview in which all my secrets are revealed Luke Burrage is an international juggler. He has a pretty good video montage of himself juggling in spectacular places around the globe to prove it (embedded below). He also writes, and has a podcast of science fiction book reviews. He's... http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ironicsans/feed/~3/xJ9x4Siy5N0/an_interview_in_which_all_my_s.html 400@http://www.ironicsans.com/ Luke Burrage is an international juggler. He has a pretty good video montage of himself juggling in spectacular places around the globe to prove it (embedded below). He also writes, and has a podcast of science fiction book reviews. He's creative in multiple disciplines.

Luke contacted me about a year ago asking if he could interview me for a new project he was planning: a podcast about other people who are creative in multiple disciplines. About eight months ago, he was in New York, and we did the interview. Now that Luke has about ten of these completed, he's launched Season One of Luke's Creative Podcast.

He's just posted our interview as the second episode. Luke is a fan of my various projects, and he asks about things I didn't realize people even remembered. It's a pretty in-depth interview, and I tell all my secrets about how I work. It's a bit long, at just over an hour, so it might be for superfans only. But I think it turned out pretty good.

We talk about inventors, creativity, photography, ideas, patents, creative theft, why I write a blog, how I work on Ironic Sans, etc.

You can hear the episode on Luke's website or subscribe in iTunes.

Here is Luke's international juggling video:

]]> Interview Mon, 23 May 2011 10:47:03 -0500 1 http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/05/an_interview_in_which_all_my_s.html#comments http://www.ironicsans.com/microfeed/000400.xml http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/05/an_interview_in_which_all_my_s.html