Incompetent Time Traveling Haters:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/ AVvXsEhjyQSSFWSMOHFw5yvcQKzyk0ZM-
pirq4X3qt4NNJ8a3WnkPTMuniTJ3aRp7qZWuOEfc- E1y10wjkSOGxG5GEbBlG5T0VEoposrqa8sC0qSNJTp2dZ7e1fXFwacAgWSo0VGiy4KZHNr-9_u2jq8C4gpd1ZbSaskmUDyL_z2uYECK2kaS4z_bemIitfM0bc/s766/Meme%20-%20sax%20haters.png
From:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/05/memes-that-made-me- laugh-313.html
Lynn
On 5/26/2026 1:03 AM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
Incompetent Time Traveling Haters:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyQSSFWSMOHFw5yvcQKzyk0ZM-pirq4X3qt4NNJ8a3WnkPTMuniTJ3aRp7qZWuOEfc- E1y10wjkSOGxG5GEbBlG5T0VEoposrqa8sC0qSNJTp2dZ7e1fXFwacAgWSo0VGiy4KZHNr-9_u2jq8C4gpd1ZbSaskmUDyL_z2uYECK2kaS4z_bemIitfM0bc/s766/Meme%20-%20sax%20haters.png
From:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2026/05/memes-that-made-me-laugh-313.html
Lynn
Nice! Are we sure our own James Nicoll is unrelated?
pt
In fact, there is a quote, which I haven't been able to find again,
where someone says that typography began close to perfection, and
the changes since have all been in the direction of compromising
quality in order to fit more words on less paper.
This reminds me of something that crossed my mind recently...
Nicolas Jenson designed one of the first, but not the first, Roman
typeface - as opposed to blackletter.
His typeface was the basis for many much beloved typefaces, such as the
Doves type, Centaur, Morris' Golden type, Cloister, and Eusebius.
Although the typeface used by Aldus in his edition of _De Aetna_ is closer
to how most present-day Old Style typefaces appear, Jenson's type is often thought of as having come close to perfection.
In fact, there is a quote, which I haven't been able to find again, where someone says that typography began close to perfection, and the changes
since have all been in the direction of compromising quality in order to
fit more words on less paper.
And in an SF context, this makes me think...
Could an alternate timeline have existed, wherein after Sweyenhem and Pannartz, Roman type continued on for centuries with various bumbling attempts in one direction or another - more readable than blackletter,
yes, but still ugly and ungainly, with no one ever doing it quite right.
Although eventually, after hundreds of years, decent Roman typefaces were finally achieved.
Someone frustrated at the unreadability of so many old books... gets a
hold of a time machine, and brings back the perfected forms of the Latin alphabet, as finally achieved in the year 3,000, to a point close to the inception of printing...
Was Nicolas Jenson a time traveller? Or just the beneficiary of
information handed to him by one...
John Savard
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:
The current glyphs we use all go back to handwritten forms, and
the shapes a scribe can write quickly aren't necessarily the shapes you
can read quickly.
Ithkuil was optimized for speed and has its own writing system.
"Words are thus written in a highly abbreviated manner".
On 5/26/2026 10:24 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:
The current glyphs we use all go back to handwritten forms, and
the shapes a scribe can write quickly aren't necessarily the shapes you
can read quickly.
ÿÿ Ithkuil was optimized for speed and has its own writing system.
ÿÿ "Words are thus written in a highly abbreviated manner".
That's new to me. Its an entire conlang. Sapir-Whorf anyone?
I was thinking of one-for-one replacements for our current
letters - effectively a new font. I wonder if there have been
any studies showing how fast different icons can be interpreted.
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any
vowels."
I was told that they are used in earlier-level
school textbooks to teach children to read.
On Tue, 26 May 2026 21:25:25 -0400, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any vowels."
On 5/28/2026 12:46 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2026 21:25:25 -0400, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any
vowels."
Its been observed that vowels must come from the north - Finnish has
a vast oversupply of them, while as you head south and west, they
become scarcer, till you arrive at Hebrew and Arabic, where they are
entirely gone.
On 2026-05-28, Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/28/2026 12:46 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2026 21:25:25 -0400, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any
vowels."
Its been observed that vowels must come from the north - Finnish has
a vast oversupply of them, while as you head south and west, they
become scarcer, till you arrive at Hebrew and Arabic, where they are
entirely gone.
It has been observed that someone has confused ancient Hebrew writing with modern spoken Hebrew? (Modern Hebrew writing has vowels, they just aren't written with letters, instead using special "vowel points".)
On 2026-05-28, Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/28/2026 12:46 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2026 21:25:25 -0400, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any
vowels."
Its been observed that vowels must come from the north - Finnish has
a vast oversupply of them, while as you head south and west, they
become scarcer, till you arrive at Hebrew and Arabic, where they are
entirely gone.
It has been observed that someone has confused ancient Hebrew writing with modern spoken Hebrew? (Modern Hebrew writing has vowels, they just aren't written with letters, instead using special "vowel points".)
On 2026-05-28, Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:with
On 5/28/2026 12:46 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2026 21:25:25 -0400, Cryptoengineer wrote:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to read
(with practice).
"Nobody knows what the Israelis are saying. They don't even have any
vowels."
Its been observed that vowels must come from the north - Finnish has
a vast oversupply of them, while as you head south and west, they
become scarcer, till you arrive at Hebrew and Arabic, where they are
entirely gone.
It has been observed that someone has confused ancient Hebrew writing
modern spoken Hebrew? (Modern Hebrew writing has vowels, they justaren't
written with letters, instead using special "vowel points".)
Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:
I've often wondered if there is a set of shapes that we could
substitute for our current letters, which would be faster to
read (with practice).
One also could use images, like an image of a bone for the word
"bone". In fact, Unicode already has such images (?), and some
chatbots already use them in their answers, like, adding that
image to a heading of a section about bones . . .
| Sysop: | Tetrazocine |
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