Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 December 18

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December 18

Help with printing a document.

On the forum on The Thing fansite, Outpost 31, someone has created a DVD insert booklet [1] for the The Thing DVD. In the instructions for printing it off they said to "print the odd pages first (1,3,5), then turn those same sheets over and print the even pages (2,4,6) on the backs". So if I messed around with the settings on my printer so I can print on both side of the page, will that help ? 80.254.146.140 (talk) 12:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That site won't load for me. In general, if your printer supports double-sided printing (most do, but some don't), then yes, you can probably fiddle the settings to print the whole thing in one go. The instructions seem to be phrased for folks without the ability to print on both sides. If you find the pages don't look right, try again but tell the printer to flip on the other axis of the sheets. The default is probably to flip on the short axis. Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Another option is just to give up on the idea of two-sided prints, and print one-sided instead. If they placed the page numbers on alternating corners, that will be a bit ugly, but, on the other hand, if you have thin paper, a double-sided print may not look good, due to seeing the print from the far side thru the paper. Single-sided printing is certainly harder to mess up, too. StuRat (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That's not really an option if the end result is meant to be folded together to make a booklet, which is what's wanted here. Printing single sided will make the booklet form out of order. It pretty much has to be double-sided so that when you fold the printed pages in half, you'll get something you can flip through. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, reordering 6 pages is no problem. I am assuming one printed page number per physical document page. If they did something weird like putting pages 1 and 6 on the same physical page, then you'd need to break out the scissors. StuRat (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing "weird" about it; it's supposed to fold together into a booklet. Y'know, like the booklets you get with DVDs. It's right there in the question. Matt Deres (talk) 01:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Not all booklets are constructed in that way. I can't say if all DVD booklets are, as I don't buy them (I used to rent from Netflix, which didn't send the booklets, but get everything online these days). StuRat (talk) 05:26, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I eventually managed to download that PDF file. It's a whopping 59 MB ! It does look like the right half of page 2 goes with the left half of page 3, and right half of page 4 goes with the left half of page 5. Conversely, the right half of page 5 goes with the left half of page 4. The right half of page 3 could go with the left half of page 2, which is apparently what they intended, even though there's no direct relationship in the contents. I'm guessing page 6 is meant to be the front and back covers, and page 1 is meant to be the inside "centerfold" (although it doesn't fold out). StuRat (talk) 05:26, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

furniture marked "D.G. Conrad, Parker Kans"

I have a cabinet with this marking. The stripper said it was made to be taken apart for transport on a covered wagon. He also said it was made between 1810 and 1850. This is a Christmas gift for my mother and any historical information on this furniture would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:28FF:1EF0:0:0:0:37 (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The city of Parker, Kansas was not built until 1888. [2] Rmhermen (talk) 17:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps that's the name and location of one of the owners, not the manufacturer. StuRat (talk) 19:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Or possibly the name of the retailer? Alansplodge (talk) 00:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, but it would be unusual for a retailer to put their name and location on something decades after is was made. StuRat (talk) 00:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Not at all: I've seen it done on used furniture before. A lot of the used furniture stores back at the turn of the century here in Winnipeg did the exact thing: I own an 1885 icebox that has a label on it from well into the electric refrigerator era. It could be that the original owners homesteaded in the area before the town was founded, and the item ended up in the town after they died. Obviously speculation, but not implausible. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 01:58, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

How do you know it's an 1885 icebox ? I imagine they continued to be sold for quite some time after electrical refrigerators were introduced, as the electrification of rural areas took decades to accomplish. StuRat (talk) 05:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The manufacturer changed the design of the front panels and latches every year (I guess for marketing purposes) and this design was manufactured in 1885. At any rate, the manufacturer went out of business in 1896 and the second-hand store responsible for the label opened in 1924. -NellieBlyMobile (talk) 01:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow, they had yearly model releases back then ? "Don't be so unfashionable as to be stuck with last year's ice box, buy a new one today !". StuRat (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Optical illusion in "Final Fantasy" logo

When I just glance at this sideways, before I completely resolve it, I see an illusion of — what exactly? I'm not sure. I'm sort of thinking maybe Greek columns or something? It's hard to pin down because it goes away as soon as I get a good look at it.

Anyone know whether this is intentional, and if so what it's intended to evoke? --Trovatore (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Massive vertical columns tend to invoke stability, so it's an odd choice for a video game, more like what I'd expect from a bank or insurance company. StuRat (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can tell you that that specific logo did not come into use until later in the series. The box art and opening credits for FF1-3 (American) use a very different font, with big descenders and heavy kerning on the T. It looks like the English logo on the Japanese versions changed around ver. 3 or 4 in Japan, but then you get into the arcane details of FF numbering schemes in different regions. Anyway, by the time VII rolled around, the numbering became unified, and the tall, thin letters work well with the roman numeral I. As for intentionality, I'd assume a decent amount of time and effort went into the re-worked logo. In addition to the classical architecture occurring in many of the games, Stu's commend about stability is actually reasonable, given that the series was already well-established and long-running when the new logo came out. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

As I scan my eyes acrost it the letters in my more peripheral vision resemble shadowed human figures, but not when I hold focu on one letter without moving my eyes. Perhaps that would be paredolia. μηδείς (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, maybe that was it, the human figures thing. Still not sure. --Trovatore (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The human nervous system displays peak vision Evoked potential at certain flicker and spatial frequencies such as near 15-20Hz. The Monospaced font illustrated has a horizontal spatial frequency component that can overstimulate in this way when the eye scans across it, like a bar code reader. DreadRed (talk) 09:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Back when I typesat we called them fixed-width fonts. I do also see a dark blur between the letters which is an effect different from pareidolia. μηδείς (talk) 01:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)