Google Blogoscoped.

[elwen]

I sporadically check a blog called Google Blogoscoped. It's interesting enough for the stuff about Google, but it's sheer awesome for the stuff that's not. Here are two recent discoveries:

Color Pencils Reviewed
Colored pencils treated as digital (?) devices. Not enough color depth! And poor font rendering. But, full international character support! nendil, have you checked these things out? ;P

Extensis Typecaster
Romantic compatibility for typefaces, complete with short videos. I don't think I got through all (6 choose 2) variations, but I saw enough to ROFLOL. Do try all the girls with Comic Sans -- there are LotR references! :D I couldn't really tell the difference between the other two guys, though. ._.;;

Comments

[nendil.livejournal.com]

It's completely unfair that the reviewer would write an article on an entire product line based on the most basic build. If they just spend a little more for the upgraded Prismacolor brand they'd see that it's much more free of breakage bugs, features a deluxe top-open installation, and supports up to 132 colors. Furthermore they should note that the number of individual colors should not be considered a digital set but rather an analog spectrum capable of being blended at any ratio so therefore their dinky little set had not a 6-bit range but rather 24-bit range which is already more than just about any image not rendered for a feature film, to say nothing of the larger box options out there. The reviewer brushed upon this color-mixing feature vaguely but it is clear that they did not have the best understanding for their equipment in missing out on a function that is, at least, documented on the back of every Prismacolor box (not sure about Faber-Castells).

As for the usability issue - I don't see people complaining about the learning curve for applications such as Photoshop or Maya. Now if you want to talk about taking years to master...

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. The only back-of-the-box tips I remember are from the Crayola sets, which I believe said you could color by stippling instead of solid swatches.

[nendil.livejournal.com]

Well, dithering is a relatively old technology. Crayola is like the 16-color gif of colored pencils.

[ling84.livejournal.com]

LOL. :D

As far as I'm concerned, Crayola colored pencils are Paint, the retractable clicky ones are MS Photo Editor (spiffy but limited), and Prismacolor/Derwent are Photoshop.