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A typographical character is simply a printed symbol—this includes letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. The ? is called a question mark; ( and ) are called parentheses; and ; is known as the semicolon. But you know that already, and I suspect you’re beginning to wonder how one could possibly wring drops of “fascinating” from the dry towel of typography. And that’s fair. But did you know the division sign has a name? What about the mysterious origins of the paragraph sign? Where did the % sign come from? ¿Why on Earth do Spanish-speakers put those upside-down question marks at the beginning of their sentences? Read on!

10 The Pilcrow—¶

The pilcrow, also less elegantly called the “paragraph mark,” serves a number of purposes, most of which involve denoting the presence or location of a paragraph in one way or another. Most commonly, it’s used in word processing programs to indicate a “carriage return” “control character;” that is to say, a non-permanent mark showing where a paragraph ends. There is disagreement over the origin of the name; The Oxford English Dictionary, for one, likes to think it comes from a string of corruptions of the word “paragraph.” I prefer to side with the Oxford Universal Dictionary, which suggests that the sign itself looks a lot like a featherless crow—a “pulled crow.” The symbol itself derives from the letter C—you can still see it in there—which stood for the Latin “capitulum,” or “chapter.” The two lines that ended up vertically crossing the C were a sort of editorial note from the writer.

The pilcrow was used in the Middle Ages, in an earlier form, as a way of marking a new train of thought before the paragraph became the standard way of accomplishing this. Now, among its myriad uses are in academic writing (when citing from an HTML page), legal texts (when citing a specific paragraph), and in proofreading (an indication that a paragraph should be split in two).

9 The Ampersand—&

The ampersand is a logogram used to mean “and.” The symbol itself is based on a shorthand version of the Latin word for “and”—et—and in certain fonts, you can still clearly see an ‘e’ and a ‘t’ linked together (Adobe Caslon, for instance). The word ampersand has a somewhat unusual origin—it’s a corruption of the hard-to-parse, multilingual (English and Latin) phrase “& per se and,” which means “& by itself is ‘and.’” Confused? Don’t worry—that’s only natural. All it means is: “The symbol &, all by its little self, simply means and.” And where did this phrase come from? Well, in the early 1800s, & was considered the 27th letter of the English alphabet, and since saying “X, Y, Z, and” would be confusing, “and per se and” was said instead. It doesn’t take a major stretch of the imagination to fathom how this could quickly turn into ampersand, which it did by around 1837.

Because people like to make up urban legends based on everything, including stodgy ol’ typographical marks, there’s a vicious rumor floating around that French physicist and mathematician André-Marie Ampère used the mark so much that it eventually got called “Ampere’s and.” Don’t believe it for a second. In the end we’re left with a pretty little symbol that has more than a few variants.

8 Interrobang—!?, ?!, or ‽

What?! You’ve never heard of the interrobang!? Really? Well, now you have, so all is forgiven. An interrobang is described as a “nonstandard punctuation mark” (it’s part of the punctuation counterculture), used to end sentences where you really want both the exclamation point and the question mark. While the use of both marks side by side had been prevalent for some time, it wasn’t until 1962 when an advertising executive named Martin K. Speckter decided that enough was enough—no longer would he withstand the tyranny of two separate punctuation marks when one would suffice. He asked readers to suggest names—rejecting such fine ideas as rhet, exclarotive, and exclamaquest—and ultimately settled upon interrobang, a combination of the Latin root “interro” (think “interrogate”), and “bang,” which is printer’s slang for the exclamation mark. The word is used to describe both the two side by side (!? or ?!), or the combined symbol ?.

7 At Sign—@

What we know as @ has a lot of different monikers—including “at sign,” “at symbol,” “ampersat,” and “apetail”—but is unusual in that it doesn’t have a widely-accepted name in English. In Spanish, it is known as an arroba, and in French the arobase. @ has two primary usages—its original one, used in commerce to mean “at the rate of,” and more recently, “directed at” (primarily in email and in social media like Twitter). It has been claimed (by Italian professor Giorgio Stabile) that the symbol is actually over 500 years old, to represent an “amphora”—a unit of capacity used in commerce. It first made its way onto a typewriter as early as 1885, and has since found its way into our hearts.

A couple of fun facts:

- The Spanish arroba was a unit of weight equivalent to 25 pounds.
- The names for @ in other languages often derive from the idea that it looks like an animal. To wit: apenstaartje (Dutch for “monkey’s tail); papacy (Greek for “little duck); dalphaengi (Korean for “snail”); sobachka (Russian for “little dog”).

6 Guillemets—« »

Guillemets are what the French use instead of quotation marks. In addition to the physical differences, the usage differs as well—generally, guillemets open and close entire conversations or exchanges, rather than individual utterances. Amusingly, the guillemet is named after a French printer named Guillaume Le Bé from the 16th century; “Guillemet” is a diminutive of “Guillaume.” One can only assume that French people call our quotation marks “Willies,” “li’l Bills,” or “Mini Williams.”

5 Obelus—÷

The Obelus, more commonly known as “the division sign” for reasons I can’t fathom, comes from an Ancient Greek word for a sharpened stick or other similar pointy object. It shares its roots with the word “obelisk.” The obelus was once used to denote sections of writing that were considered incorrect or suspicious; in other words, it would have been perfect for Wikipedia editors. It was first used to mean “division” in 1659 by Swiss mathematician Johann Rahn. While still used frequently in the US and in Britain, it is not commonly used to mean division in most of the rest of the world.

4 Inverted ? and !—¿ and ¡

In Spanish, when a sentence ends with a question mark or an exclamation point, it also starts with an inverted one. ¿Porque? Well, I’ll tell you porque. In 1754, the Spanish Royal Academy decided that the Spanish language had a dire problem: when you start reading a sentence, you often have no way of telling if it’s a question or not until you get to the very end.

Consider the sentence vas a ir a la tienda? (Are you going to go to the store?). Up until you get to the question mark, you are totally in the dark—is it a question, or simply a declarative sentence stating “you are going to go to the store”? In English, we have ways of indicating that a question is coming, so that proper inflection can be used, as well as to help with comprehension. In Spanish, you used to need contextual clues to help you out before the Royal Academy had its way. They also decided that the exclamation point would be lonely, so they advocated for its inverted use as well.

Though the language was slow to adopt this new convention, it is now a fully integrated part of the language. A few interesting usage notes:

- Short, unambiguous questions are often written without the inverted mark—Quien eres?
- In digital communication, the inverted mark is frequently left off (emails, instant messaging, texts).
- Some authors refuse to use inverted marks.
- Writers can get playful with the marks, including starting a sentence with a ¡ and ending it with a ?.
- ¿ can be used in the middle of a sentence if the whole sentence is not a question, but rather the final clause.
- Note that ¿ and ¡ are positioned differently than ? and !; they hang below the line.

3 Ditto mark

File this under “things we use all the time but don’t know their name.” Ditto marks are those quotation-looking-guys you use to save your tired wrist from a few more seconds of writing, indicating that what’s directly above should be repeated. Though one might suspect (“one” being “me” before I researched it) that the word ditto may have been related to the Latin root “di” (meaning “two”, as in when you say “ditto” you mean “me too!”), it in fact derives from an early (c. 1620) form of the Italian word for “to say.” Originally, it was used to avoid needless repetition when writing a series of dates in the same month.

A “ditto mark” is a type of “iteration mark.” Other languages have their own, notably Chinese, Japanese, and Ancient Egyptian. It’s tough to fathom why Ancient Egyptian scribes might have needed a way to cut down on chiseling elaborate drawings into rock.

2 Percent Sign—%

Take a look at the percent sign. Look at each of the three individual marks—a circle, a line, a circle. Remind you of anything? Does it, perhaps, remind you of a certain number, with the digits rearranged and realigned? A very important number? Maybe . . . the number 100?

The % sign, of course, means that the preceding number should be understood as being divided by one hundred—”per cent.” The slash mark used to be straight across, with zeroes above and beneath, but it gradually became slanted—leading to what D.E. Smith, in 1925, called the “solidus form” of the percent sign. The solidus, aka slash, virgule, fraction bar, and other names, is this sign: /.

Because there is disagreement about everything, there is disagreement over whether there should be a space between the number and the % sign, over whether it should be per cent or percent, and when you should use the % symbol and when you should instead write out the word.

1 Upper Case and Lower Case letters

Once I learned the origins of the terms “upper case” and “lower case,” it seemed so obvious. I mused: does everyone know this but me? What else are my friends and family keeping from me? Instead, though, I decided to convince myself that legions of Listversers were in the dark like me, too embarrassed to say anything. Take comfort, fellow readers, for you may remain anonymous in your ignorance.

Now then: in the early days of printing, when each letter was set individually, the letters were kept in cases. The capital letters were kept in—you guessed it—the “upper case,” less convenient to the printer because of how relatively few capital letters are used, while the lower case letters were kept in the more accessible—wait for it—”lower case.” It’s as simple as that, really. This usage of the terms dates back to 1588.

Fun facts about cases:
- The use of two cases in a written language is called “bicameral script.” Languages with only one case are called “unicase.”
- So what were lower-case letters called before they used cases at all? Well, we have other words to describe them—Upper-case letters are called majuscules (and, of course, capitals), and lower-case letters are called minuscule. Note the spelling difference with the word miniscule.

The post 10 Fascinating Typographical Origins appeared first on Listverse.

El mayor archivo de sonidos de animales ya está disponible gratis en Internet [noticia]

Es una tarjeta de felicitación de la agencia de marketing Havas Worlwide que muestra de manera muy ingeniosa los nombres de distintos lugares de París (vía I Believe in Advertising).

esta es la imagen mundial del “ok, me hice un pan, pero no sé si hacerme otro más tarde”

El gran misterio del mundo, el funcionamiento de las llaves y sus raras dentaduras que están creadas para abrir las chapas y seguros de las puertas (o candados) se desvela en un simple gif animado. Muchos ni nos imaginamos como es el sistema, que pasa luego que introduces la llave al agujero negro, la giras y la puerta se abre, viéndolo bien es un mecanismo sencillo escondido en una intrincada dentadura

Misterio resuelto

México hace muchos, pero muchos años tuvo una ‘Rebecca Black’ que le cantaba al Viernes…era Lucerito.

Si sólo lees los libros que todos los demás están leyendo, sólo puedes pensar lo que todos están pensando.

– @Haruki_tweets

# Enlace Permanente

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en Sin vuelta de hoja, un blog de MásMóvil donde colaboramos semanalmente con el objetivo de contar cosas sensatas y relajantes relacionadas con la tecnología y la ciencia.

¿Por qué siempre hay un aparato electrónico en las tiendas cuyo precio sobrepasa ampliamente el de todos los demás? ¿O un modelo de automóvil súper-equipado en el concesionario, a precios astronómicos? ¿O un vino que parece tan solo digno de los dioses, más por su precio que por otra cosa?

La respuesta es sencilla: es un truco psicológico que se utiliza como técnica de venta, para inflar artificialmente el precio de los productos más baratos del mismo tipo.

La explicación que dan los psicólogos, economistas y vendedores con experiencia es que cuando vemos una gama de productos expuesta tendemos a calcular el precio promedio para comparar sobre uno de ellos que tenga (supuestamente) una relación precio/prestaciones razonable: ni demasiado caro, ni demasiado barato. A partir de ahí razonamos y elegimos según nuestras necesidades y presupuesto. Ante tres televisores similares de 400, 500 y 750 euros partimos mentalmente del «promedio» de unos 550 euros para decidirnos por algo más barato (el de 500) si el producto «nos da un poco igual» o algo más potente aunque un poco más caro (el de 750) si el presupuesto lo permite.

Pero supongamos que en el «juego» entra un televisor increíble, más grande y potente de 3.000 euros. Ahora la gama son 400, 500, 750 y 3.000 euros. Aunque no lo calculemos, el promedio pasa a ser de unos 1.100 euros. Ahora el de 750 incluso parece barato, mientras que los de 400 y 500 quedan tan lejos del promedio que parecen muy malas opciones. Lo curioso del caso es que normalmente ni podemos aspirar al de 3.000 euros, ni nos lo habíamos planteado, ni seguramente sea una buena compra. Pero, curiosamente, saber de su existencia ha cambiado automáticamente nuestro cálculo mental sobre todos los demás: el que antes la mejor opción de la gama pasa a ser algo intermedio o incluso «el mínimo olímpico».

El truco para ahorrar es sencillo: si se sospecha que esta técnica está «en juego» simplemente basta con ignorar el producto de mayor precio y razonar como si no existiera.

Naturalmente, si alguien compra el televisor de 3.000 euros la tienda se frotará las manos: era un producto trampa, que no esperaban que nadie comprara, del que tal vez incluso ni tengan más de una unidad en el almacén y probablemente con un margen de beneficio espectacular.

En algunas tiendas, por ejemplo, muestran junto a los televisores convencionales de 40 o 42 pulgadas una bestia de la tecnología de 108 pulgadas y 60.000 euros. A su lado, cualquier televisor de 800 euros parece un auténtico chollo, y los de 400 o 500 euros, que son probablemente mejores opciones por precio/prestaciones, quedan desplazados fuera del campo de interés de mucha gente debido a este efecto.

{Foto (CC) Danny Choo @ Flickr}

# Enlace Permanente

¿Qué es lo que hace falta para ser Papa?

This line of dresses by Hussein Chalayan debuted at Paris Fashion Week and it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Just one tug a the neck and they transform into entirely different dresses. This is how all clothing should work—and someday, in the far distant future, I imagine that we’ll just need one set of clothes that morphs to fit any occasion.

See more pictures and a video after the break…

(Errolson Hugh via io9)

J.P. Metsavainio es un astrónomo finlandés que aún la observación científica de lejanas galaxias y nebulosas con la representación artística de esos mismos paisajes estelares. La plasmación de sus creaciones se da en dos formatos: el venerable gif animado y el vídeo, aunque ambos se originan a partir de la misma técnica.

Visualizar una lejana galaxia en tres dimensiones es muy complicado, en tanto sólo disponemos de un punto de vista –el nuestro-, así que el astrónomo ha desarrollado una técnica propia. Según explica en su página web: “Utilizo la “regla del pulgar” para las estrellas: las más brillantes están más cerca, pero utilizo la distancia real si ésta es conocida. Muchas figuras 3-D pueden deducirse sólo con mirar atentamente a las estructura de la nebulosa”.

Nebulosa del Velo

Restos de una supernova que explotó hace unos 8.000 años. Dista del Sistema Solar entre 1.400 y 2.600 años luz.

Nebulosa Melotte 15

Situada a 7.500 años-luz de distancia, hacia la constelación de Casiopea, la imagen abarca unos 30 años-luz.

Nebulosa de la Laguna

Situada en la constelación de Sagitario a unos 5.000 años-luz de la Tierra. Su zona más brillante se conoce como El reloj de arena.

Cluster Globular NGC 6752

IC 410

IC 1396

Nebulosa del Pelícano

Nebulosa de emisión con unos 10 años luz de extensión, situada a 2.000 años luz de distancia.

Más animaciones y vídeos en Astroanarchy.Visto en BuzzFeed.

Abundando:

-El GIF ha muerto… ¡larga vida al GIF!

A finales de la década de los 60, en Detroit, un misterioso autor y cantante de ascendencia mexicana llamado Rodríguez salía a la luz. A pesar de que su primer álbum, ‘Cold Fact’, fue bien recibido por la crítica, cayó rápidamente en el olvido, y sobre él comenzaron a correr numerosas leyendas urbanas, entre ellas que se había suicidado.

Varias décadas después, dos intrépidos seguidores decidieron investigar que había ocurrido realmente con aquel misterioso cantante, cuyas conmovedoras y proféticas canciones fueron comparadas incluso con las de Bob Dylan.

“‘Searching for Sugar man’ narra la historia de un hombre que no sabía que era famoso. Realizó un disco en los años 70 que era una obra maestra, absolutamente fantástico. No vendió nada en Estados Unidos, literalmente nada. Algo así como seis copias, es decir, nada de nada. Hizo otro intento, con idéntico resultado y, luego, ¿que pasó? Dejó de producir música y se puso a trabajar en la construcción. Nunca llega a saber que en Sudáfrica, en África del Sur, él, Rodríguez, es más famoso que los Rolling Stones. Se convierte en uno de los artistas más famosos de la historia sin que él sepa nada de esto”, señala el director del documental.

Utilizando material de archivo y un buen puñado de canciones, el director Malik Bedjelloul investiga el destino de este hombre. El documental ha sido premiado este año en Sundance.

Rodríguez, de 69 años, tiene ahora la esperanza de que tras el documental su música vuelva a despertar interés del público.

“Bueno, un músico siempre está tocando. Yo lo hago. Ensayo mucho, me reuno con otros músicos y hablamos sobre música. Hacemos planes sobre el futuro. Yo sigo haciendo música, pero tras el documental estamos recibiendo mucha más atención, y eso es emocionante y bueno para mi carrera musical”, señala el cantante Sixto Rodríguez

El documental ya ha sido estrenado en Irlanda, Inglaterra y Estados Unidos y llegará a otros países como Suecia a finales de agosto. La banda sonora de la película y los discos de Rodríguez están disponibles en iTunes.

El documental ganó el Oscar.

Liga directa: youtube.com

¡Hazme el chingado favor!

Cortesía de Rudy

Cuando los diputados de Nuevo León anunciaron con bombo y platillo un nuevo buzón de quejas y sugerencias y posaron muy sonrientes para una foto que incluyo aplausos nos imaginamos que inagurarian algun complejo modulo con capacidad en linea para acercarse a la ciudadanía pero no, solo se trato de una mampara de plástico de $500 pesos que probablemente les costo al presupuesto 10 veces más.

Cortesía de GAD

saveroomminibar:

‘Pokemayans’ by Monarobot on Tumblr.

ACUL:. En el vídeo anterior sale Penélope Cruz, pero no hablan de su digievolución jojojojojojo

jodimos cabros

Eh ahi la explicacion pal pelo parao

Ever wished you could answer a phone call with you gloves, not having to take the phone out of your pocket. Well, then let me rock your world. Check out the Bluetooth Talking Glove.

The thought of having to charge one more thing, especially my gloves, is making me shiver. But it sure is a good conversation piece.

Me parto la caja (registradora)

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