Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Random beauty

I have just noticed something quite bizarre and incredible, while reading a blog entry with a compressed Archives list down one side. The entry itself is this one about anti-vaccination idiocy, on Respectful Insolence.

To simplify matters, I will attempt to recreate what I noticed here. It's simply the names of the months (with years, but they don't matter so I'll leave them out):


  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
It's a wave!

Quite, I'll assume, by accident, the names of the months, in order and with one or two exceptions, vary in length by a small but steady pattern from month to month. The effect will undoubtedly be different with a fixed-width font where each letter occupies the same screen/paper real-estate, but the numbers are, starting with January:

  • 7
  • 8
  • 5
  • 5
  • 4
  • 4
  • 6
  • 9
  • 7
  • 8
  • 8
It would be better if October was a longer name, and January longer (or February shorter), but with a bit of pattern-seeking human visual perception, we have a nice little wave pattern.

How about that?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Too much time on your hands??? Or not enough sleep??
V

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