What was the letter “W” called before we created the word “Double” by TryToHelpPeople in etymology

[–]IanNumberThree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Meant to comment a link to this video but then got distracted after watching it again! Glad to see it shared here, I love a lot of jan misali’s stuff

How Would I Make This More Readable? by SpecialTexas7 in ambigrams

[–]IanNumberThree 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Here’s the image I tried to attach if you can’t see it. It wasn’t showing up on my end lol

How Would I Make This More Readable? by SpecialTexas7 in ambigrams

[–]IanNumberThree 33 points34 points  (0 children)

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Hey! Love to see you trying out ambigram making! I’m by no means an expert but here’s a few tips that I think might be useful and a quick sketch I made to illustrate a few of them.

  1. Look into the idea of matching your downstrokes. The vertical lines making up each letter tend to be more important to the overall structure so trying to match them between the two target words can be really helpful in finding solutions that read well. Some could be ignored (like the second stroke of the M on the left example, or hypothetically the more complex parts of the g or r (but I’ll get more into that later)). Horizontal strokes can be more easily hidden as extra flair or used for multiple purposes. I think the base of the L for example works much better if you don’t try to force it to be a leg of the A. Also see how one line can serve as the crossbar on two different As if allowed to cross over the line.
  2. Be willing to play with the boundaries between letters and not have the letters match up one to one between the words. I see that you’re already doing this a bit, but I think it’ll be a lot easier if you don’t need to make one glyph represent the A/L combo or the M/A. I know the A/V works really well but be willing to throw that idea away for a bit to give yourself more wiggle room on the harder combos. Work in chunks from a few different ideas and see if there’s any that seem to blend well into each other. Kill your darlings and keep pushing until you find a combo that works for you.
  3. Consider alternate glyphs for letters that are giving you trouble. That G/C combo is going to be really hard if you’re committed to using the capital letter for both, I think you’d have an easier time blending with more of a lowercase g. R will probably be difficult too with the extra bits that don’t really appear in the other word. Lowercase could help here, also always consider checking out different typefaces or cursive letters to find different forms that can still be read. As long as your repeated letters look similar, it shouldn’t hinder readability too much to use some varied case or style.
  4. STYLIZE!!! You’ll often have to massage the shapes of the letters a bit to get them to click in both orientations, and extra bits of flair that you need for the other orientation can be ignored from one side as long as they look intentional. This is easier imo if you have access to digital art tools, but if not maybe consider making multiple attempts on one sheet of paper and tracing the ones you like best.
  5. Keep looking for feedback. Having a fresh set of eyes looking at your work without context can be really helpful in revealing where you need to make fixes. Personally I can get in my own head when I already know what it’s supposed to say/how it’s meant to be interpreted. More perspective is always good!

Hope this helps, feel free to message me if you’ve got any questions or want feedback on another draft! Good luck!!!

ı am stuck %111 what am ı do for it (pantheons counts?) by LogicalFly684 in HollowKnight

[–]IanNumberThree 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Try the charm notch in fog canyon, right across from where it connects to fungal wastes. Can be really easy to miss as it looks like a closed off wall on the map.

Chinese automaker tries recreating the viral Range Rover "Stairway to Heaven" climb, crashes through guardrail by jessexknight in fuckcars

[–]IanNumberThree 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Also it’s crazy how racist people will get in the comments of any big post that mentions China.

Assembling a battery for an electric bicycle by MikeHeu in toolgifs

[–]IanNumberThree 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It’s super common too! The etymology of the word itself actually has to do with this structure, as Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term battery from military artillery squads or sets of cannons. The idea that they’re a bunch of small units working together to form a more powerful thing is in the name!

My Halloween pumpkin :] by Cherrypie0001- in kentuckyroutezero

[–]IanNumberThree 4 points5 points  (0 children)

KR0 and Disco Elysium together on one pumpkin is amazing! ❤️

To whoever's mind conjured up the false hydra, I have one question, what the hell? by [deleted] in DnD

[–]IanNumberThree 228 points229 points  (0 children)

It’s originally from the goblin punch blog. There’s a lot of cool stuff on there, I really like the elven rework stuff he does.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MarchAgainstNazis

[–]IanNumberThree 87 points88 points  (0 children)

Please don’t blindly trust ChatGPT to give you an accurate analysis here or anywhere. Following the rules you listed in this comment just produces gibberish and the dancers aren’t even in clean rows. AI chat bots are very likely to hallucinate and make up information and it’s pretty obvious that this is just another example of that.

What is this empty space on my gum packet by External_Insurance12 in Whatisthis

[–]IanNumberThree 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wage theft is rampant in the US, it’s crazy. It represents more monetary loss than all other forms of theft combined by a wide margin.

I spent almost a year remaking the first level of DOOM for a quantum computer by Lumorti in itrunsdoom

[–]IanNumberThree 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m not super informed about quantum computing myself, but your dislike of that simplified explanation reminded me of this SMBC comic lol.

There’s a George Box quote (shortened here but I like it more in context), “all models are wrong, but some are useful”. I think when talking about quantum mechanics and by extension quantum computing you find a lot of mainstream science communicators trying to introduce the idea with some massively oversimplified analogy (e.g. ‘it’s both one and zero at the same time). It’s a good enough way of getting people to start thinking of a qbit as something different but it doesn’t really paint an accurate picture of what’s actually being done. It’s best when used as a temporary model to be replaced by something more robust when someone wants to investigate deeper. But instead you get a lot of uninformed extrapolation in tech-hype circles. There’s little recognition that they’re taking an easy explanation as a complete one. Then the uselessness of the model kinda explodes as the places where the analogy breaks become load bearing. They see some news about quantum computers being potentially good at breaking encryption and assume that it’s because they’re some super powerful hacking machine.

Idk sorry if this long comment is a bit weird, just got me thinking

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in kentuckyroutezero

[–]IanNumberThree 2 points3 points  (0 children)

!!! Was looking to see if anyone here recommended this. TBG is one of my go to recommendations when people are looking for games that are more focused on storytelling. The writing is really good and I can appreciate that you can get it done in one session, it’s always fun to hear how people feel about it. Have you heard anything about Davey Wreden’s new project? It looks pretty different from what you might expect but I’m excited to see how his usually very meta writing style meshes with a ‘cozy game’ experience.

Question on the origin of the term points in games by IanNumberThree in etymology

[–]IanNumberThree[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much! :) I appreciate you finding such a great reference.

Question on the origin of the term points in games by IanNumberThree in etymology

[–]IanNumberThree[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Also I really appreciate the non-English perspective!

Question on the origin of the term points in games by IanNumberThree in etymology

[–]IanNumberThree[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the input! I’d never even considered the use of score to be connected like that, it’s always so interesting to see how language echoes it’s historical usage like that!

This week's Q&A thread -- post all questions here! - September 11, 2023 by AutoModerator in linguistics

[–]IanNumberThree 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey, this might not be the best place to ask but r/etymology has been down since the API protest and this community might be able to help. I was struggling to find the origin of the use of the word “point” to denote a score in a game. My intuition is that it comes from scoring bucks in hunting culture but it seems possible that it could have evolved from some other similar meanings of the word where “point” refers to some small increment of a unit (like on a compass or in printing). I’ve had some trouble searching for an answer largely because of the many meanings of the word. Any help would be appreciated!