[Foundation-l] What is on the back of the logo?

[Andrew Gray]

2008/7/23 Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>:

> This would also be great.  Note that a question harder than "what goes on
> the back?" is "what do the top and bottom of the sphere look like?", which
> is a question to work out with a talented spherical-puzzle designer.   (for
> the top, it would be nice to have an estimate of the # of unfinished pieces,
> or a tentative design, but since the original point was to indicate the
> unfinished nature of the projects, a true 3D model would also be unfinished)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia-logo.png

Um, let's see. There's a completed central belt of four tiles by three
rows - this is presumably mirrored on the back, so twelve.

On the lower part, I make one blank row of four, mirrored on the other
side, total eight. There is a row below this we can only just see,
which is more obvious on the top side - again, eight, somewhat
distorted. (Remember, the globe is tilted towards us, so we don't see
the south pole clearly)

At the very bottom, we could just have one (circular) tile with eight
segments on the rim. Alternately, two D-shaped pieces (half-octagons),
or four very small ones.

The top is easier because it's unfinished, so we can just shade the
blank bits a neutral grey on our sphere (or leave them out, or make
them translucent). I make it maybe two blanks - though a row of four
might be better - to continue the line with Japanese on it, and
nothing above.

Total, leaving aside the caps, thirty or so. Forty if we fill in the
missing tiles. Can we rustle up thirty more visually different
characters? I'm sure we can... anyone have a handy list of what
writing systems we've used so far?

For the cap, well, a single odd piece would be nice. Something based
on the WMF logo, perhaps, or a real oddball like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ICS_Whiskey.svg (though "V" might
be an even more appropriate one, given the standard meaning - "I
require assistance"...)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
 andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk