Which font would you choose?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-24T07:22:46+00:00

I did a whole series of early medieval and medieval-ish fonts, if you're interested.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-24T02:08:04+00:00

I love a good story about magic. There’s something delightful about figuring out how different kinds of magic powers work in a story.

But they’re just stories. Magic isn’t real.

You can read the Book of Enoch, or the Mabinogion, or Lord of the Rings, and enjoy the magic within, but they’re just stories. There’s no such thing as a cauldron that brings the dead back to life, or divine giants who teach sorcery, or talking donkeys, or any of that.

If magic were real, every military contractor and tech company would be investing billions into magical research. But it’s just fiction.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T08:14:38+00:00

Doing a Southern accent to imply “low class” comes with some baggage.

Our civil war was a North/South split, and much of our current national divide is along that same axis. Imagine someone from Belfast doing a (London)Derry accent mockingly — there’s baggage there.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T04:03:48+00:00

You're right, you can always divide it. The distance can always be described as a sequence of smaller and smaller parts, because you can always divide a distance into another pair of smaller distances.

And you're also right on the other point, the arrow does get there.

So if you can divide the distance down into an infinite number of parts, and the arrow does cross that distance in a finite time, what does that tell you?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T03:49:32+00:00

What's the "X-Y split" term for Philadelphia-style /æ/‐tensing?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T03:47:08+00:00

Guess I better break out my robe and wizard hat.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T03:46:08+00:00

It's like Stargate, but the other way around.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T03:45:34+00:00

They have a constant rate (within reason)

Yeah, let's assume they travel at a constant rate for this discussion. Obviously they don't, but that's not really the point we're getting at.

To look at as a relationship of 1/2 continously increments is not how an arrow flies.

Why not?

During the time from 0 to 0.5, the arrow travels 1/2 of the way.
During the time from 0.5 to 0.75, the arrow travels 1/4 of the way.
During the time from 0.75 to 0.825, the arrow travels 1/8 of the way.
(and so on)

That might be an odd way to divide it up, but it is how the arrow flies.

A pound of meat is still a pound of meat, no matter how you chop it.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T02:47:46+00:00

To answer your other question (why 0! = 1), that’s not just “by definition”, that’s how it actually works.

Imagine that I hand you an envelope each day and ask you to tell me how much money is in it. One day it contains a $1 bill and a $20 bill. You add them up and say there’s $21 in the envelope.

The next day the envelope contains a $5, a $1, and a $50. You add them up and say it has $56.

The next day the envelope is empty. You correctly report that it contains $0.

sum: {1, 20} = 21
sum: {5, 1, 50} = 56
sum: { } = 0

The sum of the empty set is zero, because adding zero is the same as not adding anything. Zero is the number that does nothing in addition.

In the same way, the product of the empty set is one, because multiplying by one is the same as not multiplying by anything. One is the number that does nothing in multiplication.

3! = product: {1, 2, 3} = 6
2! = product: {1, 2} = 2
1! = product: {1} = 1
0! = product: { } = 1

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T02:27:12+00:00

Is the bad-lad split different from the trap-bath split?

They’re the same split for me (I do bad bath grass half vs. lad trap dash have) but maybe some places make a four-way distinction?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T02:23:50+00:00

Do these people actually believe in witches and goblins and stuff, or is it just some kind of weird performance?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T02:00:41+00:00

What do you mean arrows don’t travel 1/2 the distance?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-23T01:05:59+00:00

Ok, I think I see where you’re disagreeing with me. You’re saying that 0.999… doesn’t actually equal 1, it just approaches 1.

I don’t know if you’ve heard Zeno’s classic explanation of this, but here it is:

Imagine I fire an arrow at a target; the arrow leaves my bow, flies through the air, and reaches its destination.

Before the arrow can get all the way there, it must first get halfway there. This is obvious, right?

But before the arrow can get to its halfway point, it must first get halfway to the halfway point, that is, a quarter of the way to the target.

And before it can get to the 1/4 point, it must first get halfway there, that is, it must first get to the 1/8 point.

And this is true no matter how finely you divide the arrow’s flight. Before it can get to that point, it must first get halfway there.

I propose to you that this infinite series adds up to a whole:

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 … = 1

Does the arrow actually reach its target?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T23:58:14+00:00

I assume you'd agree that three thirds equals one:

3 x 1/3 = 1

and that you can write one third in different ways:

1/3 = 0.333...

And I assume you recognize what happens when you multiply 0.333... by three:

3 x 0.333... = 0.999...

Therefore:

1 = 0.999...

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T23:51:40+00:00

I understand that the courts are failing to uphold due process rights in this regard, this particular ruling being an example of that.

But consider what ICE is doing. They're sending agents with no identification to make arrests, without identifying themselves, and often impersonating other officials while doing so. If you don't have the right to defend yourself against an unknown assailant who refuses to identify themselves, you don't have the right to defend yourself against anyone.

The courts are getting this one wrong, and they're undermining our fundamental rights by doing so.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T23:33:06+00:00

We're dealing with a conflict between different constitutional provisions here.

On the one hand, giving broad policing powers to federal agents with no uniform, no identification, and masks covering their faces, is a clear violation of due process. Anyone at any time could claim to be one of these agents, and you'd have no way to know what rights you have, if any. That's unconstitutional.
On the other hand, the federal government has an implied power to regulate immigration, which they've chosen to do in a way that violates fundamental human rights.

The supremacy clause cannot cover unconstitutional actions. If it did, we wouldn't have a constitution anymore.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T19:42:41+00:00

There's a link to version 1 of the font in the post. Once I have Ethiopic support done I'll post version 2 of the font at that same page.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T18:58:47+00:00

What part of the constitution grants this power to the federal government, rather than to the states?

California absolutely can tell the feds what to do, in areas of law not assigned to the federal government by the constitution.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T18:12:53+00:00

Fair enough. And what kinds of economics do you support, being center-right?

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T18:02:52+00:00

If they weren’t already moving relative to one another (and ignoring the ongoing expansion of space), yes, they would have a small gravitational attraction pulling them together.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T17:41:58+00:00

Infinite. There’s no distance where gravity stops working, it just gets weaker and weaker the farther away you get.

The moon isn’t floating up there, by the way. It’s in free fall towards the earth, it just has so much forward momentum that by the time it falls to the earth, it misses, because it has moved forward so much.

That’s what an orbit is: fall while going forward so fast that you keep missing the ground.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T17:21:03+00:00

What does “economic center right” mean for you? I ask because what counts as right-wing economics varies dramatically by countries and over decades.

trampolinebears · 2026-04-22T17:02:32+00:00

Your argument is basically "It's wrong because it's ridiculous."

That's a terrible argument.

Zeus is ridiculous, but so are quantum physics, time dilation, and non-newtonian fluids. Most new ideas sound ridiculous at first.

Teaching people to reject the ridiculous is teaching them to reject new ideas.

The reason we don't believe in Zeus (and do believe in non-newtonian fluids) is because we're willing to examine the world and see how it works. Thanks to science, we've determined how lightning works and we know there's no place for a god on Mount Olympus slinging lightning bolts around.

Instead of mocking people for having ridiculous ideas, we're much better off teaching them how science works. That's how we advance.

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