• Babbage and Dark Mode

    From Ian@21:1/5 to All on Fri Feb 21 10:40:14 2025
    Babbage explored (in the paper & ink era!) many of the issues raised in
    the Dark Mode thread. There is a book of mathematical tables in the
    Science Museum in London, which he had printed with varying type
    colours on varying paper colours. His objective was to see what
    combination was most reliably readable. I don't remember his
    conclusion, and unfortunately I haven't been able to find an image
    online.
    --
    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address **************

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Anton Shepelev@21:1/5 to All on Sat Feb 22 18:04:44 2025
    Ian:

    Babbage explored (in the paper & ink era!) many of the
    issues raised in the Dark Mode thread. There is a book of
    mathematical tables in the Science Museum in London, which
    he had printed with varying type colours on varying paper
    colours. His objective was to see what combination was
    most reliably readable. I don't remember his conclusion,
    and unfortunately I haven't been able to find an image
    online.

    At least we know what to look for:

    Specimen of logarithmic tables
    printed with different coloured inks
    on variously coloured papers

    recently (1988) published in issue 3, volume 10,
    of /Annals of the History of Computing/.

    See also:

    Babbage's Guidelines for the Design of Mathematical Notations:
    <https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dirk/dutzSchlimm2021-AM-babbage_guidelines.pdf>

    --
    () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
    /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Salvador Mirzo@21:1/5 to Anton Shepelev on Sun Feb 23 23:29:01 2025
    Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:

    Ian:

    Babbage explored (in the paper & ink era!) many of the
    issues raised in the Dark Mode thread. There is a book of
    mathematical tables in the Science Museum in London, which
    he had printed with varying type colours on varying paper
    colours. His objective was to see what combination was
    most reliably readable. I don't remember his conclusion,
    and unfortunately I haven't been able to find an image
    online.

    At least we know what to look for:

    Specimen of logarithmic tables
    printed with different coloured inks
    on variously coloured papers

    recently (1988) published in issue 3, volume 10,
    of /Annals of the History of Computing/.

    See also:

    Babbage's Guidelines for the Design of Mathematical Notations:
    <https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dirk/dutzSchlimm2021-AM-babbage_guidelines.pdf>

    Thank you so much for the references! I had no idea about this.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Anton Shepelev@21:1/5 to All on Tue Feb 25 14:50:45 2025
    Ian:

    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address **************

    How long till AI becomes cheap enough for spammers to employ
    it for unmunging such riddles?

    --
    () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
    /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Salvador Mirzo@21:1/5 to Anton Shepelev on Tue Feb 25 15:47:38 2025
    Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:

    Ian:

    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address **************

    How long till AI becomes cheap enough for spammers to employ
    it for unmunging such riddles?

    I couldn't figure out the riddle in question here. I'd take my hat to
    any intelligence that can.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Salvador Mirzo on Wed Feb 26 07:59:42 2025
    Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
    Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:
    Ian:

    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address **************

    How long till AI becomes cheap enough for spammers to employ
    it for unmunging such riddles?

    I couldn't figure out the riddle in question here. I'd take my hat to
    any intelligence that can.

    Their email has two 'u' characters, so I think you're meant to read
    that as a 'w' (this might be more obvious with some fonts than
    others). Then in the riddle to "make w single" means to "make w a
    single character", so "uu" becomes "w".

    The w-ified domain resolves and has an MX record so it can receive
    email (seen with command: "dig [domain] mx"), unlike the original.
    So that's my guess.

    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Salvador Mirzo@21:1/5 to Computer Nerd Kev on Thu Feb 27 05:43:46 2025
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

    Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
    Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:
    Ian:

    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address ************** >>>
    How long till AI becomes cheap enough for spammers to employ
    it for unmunging such riddles?

    I couldn't figure out the riddle in question here. I'd take my hat to
    any intelligence that can.

    Their email has two 'u' characters, so I think you're meant to read
    that as a 'w' (this might be more obvious with some fonts than
    others). Then in the riddle to "make w single" means to "make w a
    single character", so "uu" becomes "w".

    The w-ified domain resolves and has an MX record so it can receive
    email (seen with command: "dig [domain] mx"), unlike the original.
    So that's my guess.

    You're brilliant! If you are a computer program, I take not just my hat
    to you, but would be happy to buy you a cup of coffee, if you could care
    about it. :)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Salvador Mirzo on Fri Feb 28 07:31:36 2025
    Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
    Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
    Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@gmail.moc> writes:
    Ian:
    *********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address ************** >>>>
    How long till AI becomes cheap enough for spammers to employ
    it for unmunging such riddles?

    I couldn't figure out the riddle in question here. I'd take my hat to
    any intelligence that can.

    Their email has two 'u' characters, so I think you're meant to read
    that as a 'w' (this might be more obvious with some fonts than
    others). Then in the riddle to "make w single" means to "make w a
    single character", so "uu" becomes "w".

    The w-ified domain resolves and has an MX record so it can receive
    email (seen with command: "dig [domain] mx"), unlike the original.
    So that's my guess.

    You're brilliant!

    As Sn!pe pointed out, make a riddle open-ended enough and everyone
    can sound smart coming up with their own (different) answer to it!

    If you are a computer program, I take not just my hat to you, but
    would be happy to buy you a cup of coffee, if you could care
    about it. :)

    Meer flesh and blood so far as I know. Yet really I believe
    computers have been more intelligent than me since the start, in
    specific ways. They'd be pretty useless things if they weren't.

    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)