jan15

Katie, in his second post I think he said he tried a new text in a new file, creating it in Romantic and changing to Times or Arial, and that gave him the blanks.

And he wants mirroring of text objects to change Left-Aligned to Right-Aligned, and vice versa. That does sound nice. Or top/bottom if a horizontal mirror line, I guess.

It looks like Times and Arial use double-byte character codes, and Romantic, Technic, and SansSerif use single-byte. If the change to rectangles were to happen when you go to the other way, there'd be some things I could suggest, but I can't think of any way it could happen going from single-byte to double-byte. Maybe it's a glitch in your installation. Or I guess it could be a VW bug, but it seems hard for something like that to slip by unnoticed.

I think Katie means tab-stop codes in the text string. I can't replicate the problem you described, trying several other fonts, but Postscript fonts don't even show up in my list of fonts in VW, and Romantic is a TTF on my system. Changing to rectangles usually means that those rectangles represent codes for which the first font had characters but the second one doesn't, as for example if you typed in a foreign language and then changed to a font that doesn't have a code page for that language. But I don't know why that would happen with Romantic. My Romantic.ttf has only an English code page.

Simon, that really is Petri. It's 'nice-Petri' -- his new, emerging, kinder/gentler personality. It first appeared on Aug 11, when he apologized for an insulting post. Remember that? You were skeptical, but I said we should encourage it, which is what we've done with this thread -- giving him lots of attention, as a reward, to nurture that new side of him. And it's working! It was touch-and-go for a while, but now he's babbling like a happy drunk. Isn't that better than old-Petri with his vitriol and bravado? Here are the last of the test answers: Answer: Ignatius - in his journal, about the rally he's planning. Answer: Ignatius - in his journal, about the incident with Patrolman Mancuso. Answer: Petri - #74625 - 02/17/07 08:19 AM This wasn't on the hand-outs, but forum regulars know that Christiaan is often the target of Petri's tantrums, and he says they're a sign that Petri needs cuddling. Also, Ignatius would know that Seraph is a higher rank than Archangel, and that Seraphim is the plural of Seraph.

Answer: Petri - #74133 - 02/09/07 10:30 AM This quote is the centerpiece of Petri's oeuvre. It's his manifesto -- a concise yet all-revealing verbal portrait of his struggle and his passion. It captures, in a single flawless paragraph, everything he was trying to tell us in all his other posts. He came close to the same level of self-revelation yesterday with: But although it is simpler than #27, it only shows us Petri triumphant. It doesn't immerse us in his kampf -- his daily suffering through long years of being forced to breathe the same fetid air as the inferior races, and the simultaneous loathing and pity he feels for them. As a contrast, let's look at an example of Ignatius writing about his greatness and the problems it causes for people who behold it:

It is now! (Jesuits use it, but I think you're the first in this sense. Context will indicate the different meaning, as in "more of your Ignatian bluster," or "you Ignatian gas-bag.") Good work on your very insightful essay. Petri, your essay was very... interesting. And different! What about the test? Can you give us the correct answer to question #27? And tell us how you arrived at that answer.

Definitely not, Islandmon. We should keep all the nonsense in the PetriCad thread, as I said in the post you replied to. Carry on.

Cross-post to the PetriCad humor thread As Petri pointed out, this thread should be only for VectorScript and IFC discussion. Since neither his post nor my reply have anything to say on that topic, I made my reply in the PetriCad thread, to which VectorGeek transferred his post a week ago. If anyone would like to continue the VS/IFC discussion, perhaps they should pick it up at the last relevant post:

Bravo, PetriFried! A very perceptive analysis. I can see you're going to do well on the final exam. I guess Petri is sleeping again, so I'll just post a few more of the answers to the test. Maybe he can give us the answer to the next question when he wakes up. Answer: Ignatius - explaining to his mother why he didn't get the job. Ignatius' sense of despair as a true genius in a world full of dunces is felt by Petri also: and #24 wasn't on the list of Ignatius quotes; so it would have been very difficult to get this one right. It's one of the 5 that I got wrong myself, even though I wrote the test. There may be just a slight clue in the word 'anachronism.' I don't think Petri has ever used that word in the forum, even though his writing style is, alas! anachronistic. But maybe he'll use it in the future. His vocabulary is increasing even as we speak. Note his use of the word 'obsessed' right after my mention of 'obsessive-compulsive disorder': Petri, like Ignatius, keeps a running commentary to himself or to some imaginary audience on the faults of people around him. Answer: Petri - #83906 - 08/11/07 04:08 AM Petri's fantasy of being Mr. Spock was referred to in several of the hand-outs, so noone should have gotten this question wrong. Star Trek first appeared on TV just after the time frame in which A Confederacy of Dunces was set. Ignatius would certainly have said all the other things about himself, but he probably wouldn't have described himself as "pointy-eared," since he always wore a green hunting cap with the flaps pulled down over his ears. Answer: Ignatius - in his journal, about his boss. This was in the list of Ignatius quotes. The first sentence could easily have been Petri: but the full quote doesn't sound like him because it talks about physical superiority as well, not just mental. All we know about Petri's physical power is that he's able to render someone unconscious by pinching a nerve on their neck.

Good idea, Gideon. I can see a few points already where she resembles Petri, and also his progenitor Ignatius. 1. She promises to ignore people, 2. uses archaic formal language: 3. the other person is always defective, 4. to an extreme degree: 5. talks to herself: 6. with a dramatic flair: But no ethnic slurs. No insults against a whole class of people to counter a point made by one member of that class. She's made an excellent start in only 3 posts, but it doesn't seem right to put her in the same league with Petri until she's delivered at least one class-action insult.

Really, Mike! How could you? A private message? That's unforgivable. That poor, sweet, innocent girl. And the terrible things you said to her - talking about 'price differential' and 'cost alternative.' And 'compulsory dongle insurance,' for God's sake! Oh, we know what that means, you pervert. That nice boy Digby should give you a thrashing. The poor girl has already been raped and ripped off, and now this. She should report you to the police. You're as unrepentant as that Ozcad lady that she had to bawl out on the phone.

Another cross-post from VectorScript objects and IFC (Petri's post there and my reply to it really should be in this thread. All recent posts there refer back to a post that VectorGeek moved here, and they're all part of the discussion of the 'Petri' style of humor and of my and other users' attempts to learn it.) I didn't mean me. I meant that VG is the alter ego of a forum user who's too polite to parody someone else's style and comments. I'm not polite. I've been parodying you at least since February. If I had thought of the name 'VectorGeek,' I would've just called you that, instead of 'old curmudgeon.' I'm sorry I didn't clarify that earlier.

I see. Oh dear. You're not. Pete R: What do you think? Am I getting the hang of Petri's sharper, less sympathetic style of humor? The Reasonable Man quote, by the way, is #73550 - 02/01/07 01:12 AM. Note how sharply I pounced on that error and told him he must be profoundly ignorant to have said a thing like that. Ignatius J Reilly is a character in the novel A Confederacy of Dunces. I thought I had mentioned that earlier, but I guess it slipped my mind. We're reviewing the answers to a test, comparing and contrasting that character with the character 'Petri' in VectorWorks Forum. We're at question #24. Can you give us the correct answer?

Answer: Ignatius - aloud, reacting to Myrna's letter. Not on the hand-outs, but the emphatic "Oh, my God!" identifies it as spoken rather than written, so it couldn't have been in the forum. When writing, Ignatius uses the same sardonic interjections as Petri: "Oh, dear." "I see." "How sad." "Well." Answer: Petri - from the current thread - #84062 - 08/15/07 08:13 AM Answer: Petri - #67877 - 12/11/06 01:50 AM Ignatius uses the phrase "profound ignorance" just as often as Petri does. There really aren't any clues as to which of them said this. The quote wasn't in any of the lists of quotes, so it was very difficult. I myself got this one wrong, and would never have known the correct answer without the search engine.

(It's not a case of 'too much time on my hands.' In fact, I really can't afford all the time I'm putting into this nonsense. It's just my obsessive-compulsive disorder, combined with the discovery that a character in my favorite novel is alive and blustering. Imagine meeting someone who talks and acts just like Don Quixote, complete with a suit of armor and a squire riding on a donkey. Wouldn't you drop everything and watch him, try to get him to joust with something?) Answer: Petri - #74624 - 02/17/07 06:14 AM This one wasn't in the lists. I had marked it as Ignatius until I saw that Simon thought it was Petri, which made me check all my answers. I found I'd gotten 5 of them wrong. Answer: Petri - #83329 - 07/31/07 07:15 AM It's in the third list of Petri quotes. Without that, it would be very hard to tell. Ignatius also thinks of himself as a very advanced being, 'a life form which we simply are unable to comprehend' (as the real Mr. Spock would say.) Answer: Petri - #79312 - 05/12/07 05:35 AM Both Ignatius and Petri see themselves as persecuted heroes whom the authorities want to silence because of the threat posed by their great intellectual power. So it could be either one. It wasn't on any of the lists, and there's absolutely nothing to indicate which character it came from. This was one of the 5 that I got wrong.

Answer: Petri - #76310 - 03/12/07 01:53 PM It was in the second list of Petri quotes, but it sounds like a lot of the things Ignatius said to Patrolman Mancuso. I shouldn't have left off the first part of the quote, "How wonderful!" That sounds like Ignatius too Answer: Ignatius - to his mother, in the bar, after the incident with Patrolman Mancuso. Answer: Ignatius - in his letter to Abelman's Dry Goods Answer: Ignatius - in his reply to Myrna's letter. Answer: Petri - #83087 - 07/26/07 04:59 AM This was on the second list. It sounds just like Ignatius, but it's Petri. Never just ordinary mental deficiency with either of them, always extreme.

Answer: Petri - #83557 - 08/04/07 05:02 AM It sounds exactly like Ignatius, always talking about other people's ignorance, and always speaking as though everyone else agrees with his bizarre views on that. But in this case it's Petri. This one wasn't in the hand-outs.

Answer: Ignatius - in his letter to Abelman's Dry Goods. It was in the list of Ignatius quotes, but otherwise I'm sure everyone would have assumed it was Petri. To both Petri and Ignatius, someone who disagrees is never simply wrong, but always has no mental faculties whatsoever.

Answer: Ignatius - to the bartender, after the incident with Patrolman Mancuso. It was on the list of Ignatius quotes, and the word "conversation" suggests that it was spoken, not written. On the forum, Petri would probably have said "discussion."

Answer: Petri - #76316 - 03/13/07 02:17 PM Very easy. It was on the first list of quotes, and then we talked about it again later and I said it sounded exactly like Ignatius. It's what inspired me to make up a list of Ignatius quotes.

Answer: Ignatius - in his reply to Myrna's letter. Another easy question, from the list of Ignatius quotes. It uses the adjective "tawdry," which somehow doesn't sound as much like Petri. And why would he be talking about folk-singers? But the quote is similar to Petri in one way - it's attacking one person by insulting an entire class of people, as Petri does in quotes # 5, 7, and 19, and many other instances that aren't on the test. It's a class-action insult.

Answer: Petri - #83087 - 07/26/07 04:59 AM Easy question. We talked about this one a lot. Ignatius also insults whole populations as an attack on one person, but he's opposed to modern technology, so he probably wouldn't try to insult a country by calling it a 'technological backwater.'

Answer: Ignatius - in his letter to Abelman's Dry Goods. This one was in the list of Ignatius quotes. It sounds like Petri, either speaking for the whole forum or maybe using the royal "we," but in fact it's Ignatius pretending to speak for the company where he works as a file clerk. Compare Ignatius' "we do not wish to be bothered" in this quote with Petri's "I have no interest" in quote #2, and also "tedious complaints" with "stupid comments":

Answer: Petri - #74137 - 02/09/07 12:00 PM This quote wasn't in any of the hand-outs, but there's a small clue in the expression "has no bounds." Ignatius, an American, would have said "knows no bounds," or "has no limit." "Dear me" is just as typical of Ignatius as it is of Petri, and Ignatius would be just as likely as Petri to suggest that a person's entire nation is defective, as a way of indicating that he disagrees with something that person said.