Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 September 12

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September 12

pole of inaccessibility of the United States

Where is the point of pole of inaccessibility of the United States? mean the location farthest from coastline to sea or ocean, or land border? Of course, United States portions of Great lakes are included as part of terrotory.

I guess it is near Topeka, Kansas, but I uncertain the correctness of the answer.Hmht45tgree3d (talk) 18:29, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Note: not about continental of North America, I said the country of the United States.

Lebanon,_Kansas is the geographic center of the U.S., is that what you are looking for? RudolfRed (talk) 19:57, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

According to pole of inaccessibility, land borders (i.e. between US and Canada) are not considered (I think); so "pole of inaccessibility of the United States" might be undefinable. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 21:58, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The pole of inaccessibility is mathematically defined for any simply connected bounded area of a metric space, although there may be several equally inaccessible points. Basically, it is the centre of the largest circle you can draw that remains within the given area. Presumably, what is of interest is the area formed by the 48 contiguous US states. Given a dataset of its border, it is a conceptually simple calculation to find the pole to any desired precision only limited by the precision of the dataset. Doing this in a reasonable amount of time requires some sophistication.  --Lambiam 06:20, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The article you linked says the North America one is in South Dakota, so would that make it the U.S. one also? RudolfRed (talk) 23:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

One would expect it to come out different. A visual estimate based on File:USA orthographic.svg, excluding islands off the ocean coasts but including the Great Lakes, brings me close to Wichita, Kansas, about halfway between Pembina, North Dakota and McAllen, Texas.  --Lambiam 06:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I can sure there are a place within state of Kansas. Hmht45tgree3d (talk) 18:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Fonts on sign for date

1892 sign; thanks to Lambiam for finding it

Can anyone identify the fonts or any other dating information on this sign? For details, see Commons:Category talk:Instructions for using electric lights. Thank you! HLHJ (talk) 20:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Per [1], the Hotel del Coronado was equipped with signs of the same wording when it opened in 1888, and though there is no picture, it's plausible that it is the sign pictured here, and not the other one in the category, which is a reproduction, or the one from that reddit thread. Apparently there's an original sign preserved in the hotel's lobby: [2]. [3] This guy on twitter claims that the design is in fact from the hotel. It seems likely that this sign in any case would have been in a hotel, as the sign implies the lights are directly controllable by the reader (most other public places don't like people messing with their lights) and it contains a disclaimer on the quality of sleep. Pinguinn 🐧 02:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The earliest reference to this specific sign that I could find in Newspapers.com (pay site) is from August 1969. It doesn't reference the Coronado hotel, but later references do. Nothing said about fonts. But the large letters appear to be something like simulated handwriting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The ubiquity of signs with the same lettering^[4] shows this is unlikely to have been a design by the Hotel del Coronado. Many are surrounded by a frame with corner ornaments, and some have additional attention-drawing imagery such as a pair of maidens holding cornucopias, so they were not all produced in a single print run, but the text block is invariant, except for a tiny detail: several have a conspicuous dot inside the D, both in version with and without ornamentation. At least one sign is reported to be "An original 1892 Edison Electric Light sign used in hotels, railroad stations and other public places to help with the transition from match-lit indoor gas lights to electric light bulbs operated by a rotating switch on the wall."^[5] Presumably a considerable number were printed during several years. Were people in these days really such suckers that they were acquiesced by the reassurance that "The use of Electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health"? Were they gaslighting them?  --Lambiam 05:58, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

If by "suckers" you mean that the use of Electricity for lighting is in some way harmful to health, I say citation needed. See also fan death. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 22:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

See Electrical fire. 10:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Electric lights significantly disturb the soundness of my sleep. I have to turn them off. ←WP:OR (our information on light and sleep is sort of short of decent WP:MEDRS). HLHJ (talk) 03:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode on that general theme? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have explicitly said here that signs with this text were first installed in the 1870s and early 1880s;[6] reproductions (some re-typeset) were still being printed in the 1970s or later. I suspect the original signs were supplied by the electric-light-installer (like those "Intel inside" stickers); a competitor would be unlikely to brand the light "Edison". If a museum dates one to 1892, I think that's enough to say that this design is public domain. Minor variations like a missing D-dot and printer's ornaments seem insufficient to make a new copyright (even the kerning looks identical).

Given the date, is it possible that the sign might have been engraved? An engraved text (distinguishable from a movable-type print by running a fingernail over it; if the letters on the engraving plate were cut into the surface, on the print they'd stand proud) was then considered more upmarket than movable-type printing (read "more expensive"), which fits with the rest of the product marketing. If so, this could make distinguishing the font a bit of a futile exercise. But I mainly wanted a date for copyright; thank you all! HLHJ (talk) 03:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

HLHJ, fascinating example! I hugely recommend submitting this to Fonts In Use, a website which showcases interesting examples of font uses. Its editors are unbelievably knowledgeable about historic typefaces. I don't believe this is handlettering, as the same characters look identical. This looks very characteristic of late nineteenth century typography, a period when "fancy" ornamented types were made in huge numbers, often in a kind of Art Nouveau style. However, it's not a period I know much about and I don't recognise these fonts. Blythwood (talk) 05:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Blythwood! That is a nice site, and it looks like exactly the right place for this sort of question. I've got the info I need, but if anyone wants to post one of our images there, I'm sure the result would be really interesting. HLHJ (talk) 00:39, 16 September 2021 (UTC)