archy

Lorem ipsum
One of my favorite ways to look for new things is to see who’s linking to archy, on the theory that if they like what I like, I might like what they like. That’s how I found this. Exceive links to me and to the Lorem Ipsum Generator.

You’ve probably run across Lorem ipsum at some point in your life, maybe without even noticing it. It’s the standard dummy text used in printing layout. It usually begins "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur…” Lots of desktop publishing applications use it. The Blogger templates use it. I always thought it was faux Latin. I was wrong.

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.

[…]

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC.

The unnamed, and apparently unemployed, author of the lorem ipsum site has still more trivia and the full text and translation of the original Cicero passages. He or she also has designed a cool Lorem Ipsum Generator that will churn out endless pages of authentic looking faux Latin text useful for graphic design, stage props, or party favors (assuming you have those kinds of parties).

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."

This kind of site is why I love the Internet.