Archive for the ‘Orthography’ Category

Mall of America & LEGO Bricks!

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Why is “Google” written in Legos today?

googlelego

It’s to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick! The Lego brick used today was patented on January 28th, 1958. Legos are the greatest toy in the history of mankind and the kid in me was fortunate enough to visit the Lego Imagination Center at the Mall of America this past weekend and see just a few of the 19 billion LEGO pieces that are produced every year. I just wish I had a store like this near my house when I was growing up.

More on Legos at Wired.

As for the Mall of America, with over 520 stores, it is still only the second or third largest enclosed mall in the United States in terms of retail space (depending on how you measure the space) but it is largest in terms of total enclosed floor area. The amusement park in the middle of the mall takes up a good part of the floor space.

I was surprised to find out that the mall requires no heating beyond what the skylights and electric lights provide and air conditioners are run year round to keep the air comfortable. In the US, the King of Prussia mall in Philedelphia is 1st in terms of retail space (largest US malls). Globally, the Mall of America is only 20th in retail space. I was expecting the mall to stay open later than 10 PM on the weekend though.

Here are some pictures of my visit:
legologo

legobins

legoshoe redlegowarrior legodisplay

hugelegofigure

More pictures here:

Mall of America, 2008-01-25

Posted in Minnesota, Orthography, Toys | No Comments »

the little pillow

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

little pillowIt goes by many names: the number sign, the musical sharp, the hash and the pound sign (not to be confused with the British currency symbol, £). This week I learned that a Spanish name for it is almohadilla, which means “little pillow.” The theory is that the little pillows with tassels on the corners resemble the # sign.

The symbol’s traditional commercial use in the U.S. was such that when it followed a number, it was to be read as “pounds,” as in 5# of sugar, and when it preceded a number, it was to be read as ‘number’, as in #2 pencil. Internationally, the most common English name for it is the hash mark and # is also commonly used as a comment sign in many computer shell scripts and programming code.

That’s probably the most useful bit of trivia I learned this week.

See the wikipedia entry for more of its uses and names in other languages.

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While I’m on the topic of orthography, if you aren’t running Windows Vista or Office 2007/2008, you can still download and use Microsoft’s new ClearType Font Collection (or C-fonts, since most of them start with C) by installing the free 2007 PowerPoint Viewer. The fonts are: Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel and Segoe UI. They are highly regarded for their excellent on-screen readability as well as in print. Here’s a sample of what they look like:


Calibri
Cambria
Candara
Consolas
Constantia
Corbel
Images from: http://www.ascendercorp.com/ctfonts.htm Click to see them full size and not compressed by my page’s narrow formatting.

The biggest problem with the new fonts is that some are noticeably smaller than Microsoft’s existing fonts like Arial, Times New Roman and Comic Sans so you or your web developer have to increase the font size to compensate. This problem has been noted by the NeoSmart Files where they have suggested a way for web developers to work around the issue.

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So what’s the big deal about computer fonts you ask? Bad fonts were blamed in 2002 when British air traffic controllers sent a plane into the wrong airspace and cause controllers to have difficulty distinguishing between airport codes.

Posted in Orthography, The Web | 1 Comment »