mortiz080

Symbols are supposed to be easy.    The idea, after all, is that a symbol works across languages and let you glance at it, immediately understand what it means, in order to rapidly understand what's going on.   In general, it's good to be able to know what the symbols mean (in case you really need to take action).  It's good to know that this means  biohazard:    But in my experience, I see all KINDS of symbols that I don't understand.  So, here are a few symbols I've found in my travels this past week.  Can you tell me what they mean?  I don't know if they're important or not... which kind of defeats the purpose!   1.  This blue cross (it really IS blue) with a stick and a snake that I found on an inside wall:  What does it mean?  Where would you normally see this?  How important is this to me?  Here's a photo I found in a building:   2.  Here's another symbol--a box with arrow....

The naming of parts...   ... can be tricky, but figuring out WHAT the parts of different things are called is an important SearchResearch skill.   Let's jump right into it (especially since this post is a couple of days late--see at the end for details)...  1.  What's this part of the numeral 1 called?  (That is, the thing sticking like a flange off the front.  Here I've circled it with a yellow dotted oval.)          Short answer:  It's call an arm , but you could be forgiven for calling it a serif, an ear,  or a leg, since they're all close in meaning.   Here's what I did to search for this.  My go-to method for looking for the names of parts-of-things is to do an image search with the context term "diagram" -- like this:       [ typography parts of a numeral diagram ]  I admit that I rapidly went through a bunch of queries kind of like this:       [ typogr...

I was looking at some type samples the other day...  ... and I ended up with a bunch of questions that seem like basic typography, but I didn't know the answers!   Can you help figure these out?   (They seem simple, but might be more complicated that you'd think.)   1.  What's this part of the numeral 1 called? (That is, the thing sticking like a flange off the front.  Here I've circled it with a yellow dotted oval.)          2.  What this line that connects these two characters called?  3.  You often see elaborate / decorative characters in type.  Collectively, what are these kinds of characters called?  (This is handy to know if you want to search for them.)  4.  Every so often I want to use a character that I KNOW exists, but I don't know the name, so it's hard to find and I'm reduced to manual search.  Here are a couple of such characters.  What are they?  More i...

How to find vague concepts?  Searching for something as vague or open-ended as this week's Challenge can be tough.  How can we find examples of science fiction being used to invalidate patents?    Was this image from 2001 used to nullify an iPad patent?  As you remember, I wrote about " prior art " that was first shown in the film  2001: a space odyssey.   (See the artwork for the movie above.  Is that astronaut holding an iPad?)   This led to two Challenges--#1 is a specific question about a specific prior art, and #2 is the more general question.  1.  Is it true that there was a lawsuit about iPad technology that claimed the movie  2001: a space odyssey  as prior art?   This led to two Challenges--#1 is a specific question about a specific prior art, and #2 is the more general question.  My first query worked surprisingly well.  I just did:       [ prior art 2001 iPad ]...