(Roughly) Daily

Q: What did the 8 say to the infinity symbol?
A: Get up!

Q: What typeface do fish fear most?
A: Gill Sans

A font walks into a bar. The bartender says “Hey, we don’t serve your type here.” So the font calls the Serif.

Q: What did the Infinity Symbol say to the 8?
A: Nice belt!

More– much more– of this hilarity at Typographunnies.

As we reconsider our affection for specialist humor, we might recall that it was on this date in  1499 that Switzerland became a (de facto) free state, having defeated the forces of the Hapsburg Empire in the Swabian War.

The Battle of Hard, the first major battle of the Swabian War

KOREA
52% of Korean infants aged 3-5 regularly use the Internet, spending on average 4 hours every week online.
Ref: Korean Herald (Korea)

RUSSIA
5% of Soviet officials under President Gorbachev had security service backgrounds. Under Putin the figure was 78%.
Ref: Harper’s (US)

BRITAIN
The wealthiest 20% of the British population cycles 250% further each year than the poorest 20%.
Ref: The Times (UK)

By the year 2050, 90% of British adults will be obese.
Ref: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (France)

JAPAN
Five of the top ten best-selling novels sold in Japan during 2007 started life as cell-phone stories (i.e.  digital downloads to mobile phones)
Ref: South China Morning Post (China)

UNITED STATES
In 2000, the death rate of poor people aged under-65 in the US was 60% higher than for rich people. The figure was also 100% higher than it was back in 1980.
Ref: New Scientist (UK)

AUSTRALIA
Australia has overtaken the US as the most obese nation on earth according to an Australian study. 26% of adults in Australia are now classified as obese. In the US the figure is 25%.
Ref: Financial Times (UK)

CHINA
The population of China is 1,330, 044, 605 (give or take). By the year 2050 this is expected to hit 1,424,161,948.  However, the really interesting statistic is this is that there are 130 million people aged 60+ in China at present; by 2050 it will be 400 million.
Ref: China Daily (China)

Thanks to friend Richard Watson, on whose site, Now and Next, the reader can find these and other tid-bits.

As we connect the dots, we might recall that it was on ths date in 19 BCE that Publius Vergilius Maro, better known to us as Virgil, died (in Brindisi, on his return from a trip to Greece).  Happily for posterity, he had recently removed from his will a request that the text of The Aeneid be burned after his death.

A bust of Virgil, from the entrance to his tomb in Naples

Update:  Reader FC points out that one of today’s factoids is confusingly worded:

UNITED STATES
In 2000, the death rate of poor people aged under-65 in the US was 60% higher than for rich people. The figure was also 100% higher than it was back in 1980.
Ref: New Scientist (UK)

FC asks “How can the death rate be higher (or lower) than 1?”

Apologies.  As the cited New Scientist piece made clearer that your correspondent did, it is the differential (not the death rate itself) that grew 100% from 1980 to 2000.  So in 1960, poor people under-65 in the US was 30% higher than for rich people; over 20 years that gap doubled to 60%.  The point, the New Scientist suggests (from its vantage in the UK), is that “healthcare is infamously inequitable in the US, and it appears to be getting worse.”

The journal article on which it is based is here (download full paper here).

Test your (command of the) palette– your “Hue Q”– with the FM 100 Hue Test…

As we reaccessorize, we might recall that it was on this date (the birthday of Alexander the Great) in 1519 that Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda (at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River down which he had travelled from Seville) with 270 men on 5 ships to find for Spain a secure route to and from the Spice Islands.  Almost exactly three years later, on September 6, 1522,  the remaining crew of Magellan’s voyage–only 18 men out of the original 237 men were on board– arrived in Spain aboard the last ship in the fleet, the Victoria– having circled the globe.  Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world, only to find a way to the Spice Islands; it was Juan Sebastián Elcano,  who took command after Magellan’s death in the Philippines, who decided to push westward, thereby completing the first voyage around the entire Earth.

One of Magellan’s ships circumnavigated the globe, finishing three years

after embarking, 16 months after the explorer’s death

On Monday of this week, the Church of England premiered a new web site focused on the work of Charles Darwin.  It includes a statement written Dr. Malcolm Brown, an official of the Church, that concludes:

Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science – and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well.

As we dust off our copies of C.P. Snow, we might recall that it was on this date in 1900 that Robert LeRoy Parker (alias Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (aka, The Sundance Kid) robbed the First National Bank in Winnemucca, Nevada.  While both had larcenous histories, this was their first bank job, and the beginning the period of celebrity that capped their careers.

The Wild Bunch (Sundance Kid, seated far left; Butch Cassidy, seated far right)

For the last 18 years, Jacksonville artist Richard McMahan has been creating miniature (3-10′) versions of artistic landmarks, from the very ancient to the most modern.

(more or less actual size)

1,100 of his works were recently on display at the Library of the College of Charleston.  You can see them here and here.  (And you can see them being seen here.)

As we focus our magnifiers, we might recall that it was on this date in 324 that Constantine I (aka Constantine the Great) defeated his last rival, Licinius, at the Battle of Chrysopolis, thus ending the Tetrarchy that had been born with Diocletian– and making Constantine the sole emperor of the Roman Empire, which cleared the way for his banishment of pagan sacrifice and his confiscation of pagan riches, which he used to build Christian churches.

Constantine I

Happy Birthday, Samuel “Patriotism is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel” Johnson!