[MR] Invisible Madman (was OA for O&A)

[michael.kannon at quintiles.com]

You want to give a blazon program a stroke with passed SCA heraldry . . .
here ya go, but remember you asked for it.

Viscount Karl Helweg
This name was registered in January of 1985 (via the East).
The following device associated with this name was registered in January of 1987 (via the West):
Gyronny of ten purpure and ermine, a lion rampant to sinister triple-queued Or,
within an orle engrailed on the outer edge and invected on the inner edge, counterchanged.

its actually very good looking heraldry, I even painted this madness before on his shield.

It throws most heralds, so I know it will choke a program.

Gaston






"Alfredus Scurra" <guojia at earthlink.net>@atlantia.sca.org on 06/11/2001
01:07:33 PM

Please respond to guojia at earthlink.net

Sent by:  atlantia-admin at atlantia.sca.org


To:   "The Merry Rose" <atlantia at atlantia.sca.org>
cc:

Subject:  [MR] Invisible Madman (was OA for O&A)



> While we're dreaming, I think it would be doable to have a "Paint Your
Own
> Device" program, where you pick a field, then (optionally) a division or
> border, paste some charges on and color them, etc.  You could disable
> illegal color combinations, e.g., your field is red, so green is not an
> option for your sheep.  As you go, the matching blazon grows in a
sidebar.
> Then-- and here's the big payoff-- the program makes an Internet query
> against the big O&A database in the sky.

There's _way_ too much ambiguity in blazon for that to work well.

An old joke illustrates the ambiguity of English by telling of a
computer program that translates English into Russian and
back; when someone inputs "Out of sight, out of mind",
the machine spits out "Invisible madman".  (Come to think
of it, did some Vincent Price movie have that title?).

Can you heralds in the house cook up some valid blazons
that  a hypothetical (or actual, if you have one) blazon program
would misunderstand?

-- Alfredus Scurra
Per pale azure and argent, a jester's belled
hood of two ears affronty counterchanged
--- guojia at earthlink.net