Comment on Disney’s Loki faces backlash over reported use of generative AI / A Loki season 2 poster has been linked to a stock image on Shutterstock that seemingly breaks the platform’s licensing rules regard...

• barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Do an image search. IIII is often used on clock faces because visual symmetry.

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  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Wow I’d never seen that before. Also just curious on the reasoning, why would they use IIII for symmetry but not do anything about VI, VII and so on? Is it more to do with the width of the number when written down maybe?

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    • code@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I was taught that dividing the numbers naturally into thirds:

      I  II III IIII (all I) 
      V  VI VII VIII (all start with V) 
      IX X  XI  XII  (all contain X) 
      

      Visually looks more “balanced” than having an extra V

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    • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      VI would be IIIIII which is severely over-wide. The balance is really against VIII and XII, you don’t want one leg of that triangle to have a limp and IIII makes IV just a bid wider and chunkier to provide that balance. “Symmetry” was probably a poor choice of word this isn’t a mathematical thing but perceptual, those three points being equal visual weight evoke an equilateral triangle standing on its side which says “yep this won’t tip over, ever”, because, well, things shaped such don’t.

      The IVPPITER explanation definitely also makes sense but it doesn’t explain why people continued to do it after standardisation on IV in arithmetic and the fall of Roman paganism.

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    • rooster_butt@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      When Roman numerals were in use by the Roman Empire, the name of the Romans’ supreme deity, Jupiter, was spelled as IVPPITER in Latin. There was a feeling that using the start of Jupiter’s name on a clock dial, and it being upside down where it fell, would be disrespectful to the deity, so IIII was introduced instead.

      newgateworld.com/…/should-it-be-iiii-or-iv-on-a-c…

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      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        That’s really cool info

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• ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  YOU don’t see that on a clock. Your experience isn’t universal. IIII was often used for 4. There were no reduction rules when Roman numerals were in use. The idea of IV being THE way to write 4 is a reflection of modern education.

  Also, the idea the human clocks have IV whereas a computer trained on human images might write it as IIII when no training images are like that is weird.

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  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve already conceded, jeez.

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    • ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Just ranting at the void. The fact that it hit a topic related the one I replied to is purely coincidental.

      Come to think of it, it’s pretty vain of you to think just because I started a post replying to your post with a big capital ‘YOU’ that I was talking about you. Get over yourself.

      I kid, it was nothing personal.

      I just wanted to point out that this is an example of anomaly hunting where one spots something is off and tries to work out how it is evidence of something. in a lot of cases, the anomaly is not in fact anomalous. In other cases, it is an anomaly, but doesn’t lead to the conclusion jumped to. This was both.

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• topinambour_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  IV is used exclusively as 4 (except for clocks as someone else already commented) since the 15th century. Ancient Romans used both writing, IIII and IV.

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  • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Interesting, are there instances of other numerals having variants or was 4 a unique situation?

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    • SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      conversation about Loki

      other numerals having variants

      Well played.

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      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I thought the exact thing when I typed it haha

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I have even seen, although incredibly rarely, IIV to mean 3. It’s the same number of characters as III so there’s no reason not really to do it.

    I think it might have been done because it was more consistent with IV equalling 4.

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