| For the longest
time, whenever I saw one of those "don't stick your head into the
rotating blade" warning signs with an illustration of a stick-figure
person doing exactly that, I've wanted to make a web gallery of them. I'm interested in them partly because they're just funny. A cartoonish picture of a stick-figure person falling off of a ladder is just plain humorous. I'm also interested in them because they're a visual form of anticryptography, the science of conveying information without assuming any prior knowledge. A good stick-figure warning sign should be immediately recognizeable in its message, even if the viewer does not understand the language of the sign's text. I finally decided to make this gallery happen, so I bought a Palm Zire 71, which has a built-in camera. Its pictures don't look as good as a decent digital camera, but I'm not likely to carry around one of those everywhere I go. |