The fact Comic Sans is so horrible, yet so ubiquitous is what makes this newsworthy. If it were only "kind of" bad, but overused, it would be small-conversation-at-the-water-cooler worthy, but nothing more. And also, you sound like part of the problem;-)
I'm looking at the two pages side-by-side, and on my Macbook, the fonts all look better on the Mac screenshots than the TrueType enabled Windows one. It is interesting that Microsoft sacrifices elegance for what they to believe to be "legibility", when they simply fail at both. Look at Tahoma on the PC, then on the Mac. On the Mac, not only does it look smoother, and the letters are formed more consistently (the loops in the shapes are unevenly drawn on the PC), it is also easier to read, due to the lack of jaggies present on the PC side. Same thing goes for MS Serif and San Serif.
But Arial is bad, because it is a bad impersonation of Helvetica. Also, typographers will disagree with you that Helvetica is a bad font. I've read articles describing it as the nearly perfect font.
Absolutely wrong. All uppercase letters are harder to read because our minds see blocks of text, not individual letters. When you change the fundamental shape of a word (by making it one big block of uppercase text), you make the reader stop and look at each individual letter, as opposed to seeing the word shape.
As for a citation, too many to post. I have a grad degree in Education with an emphasis in typography and cognition.
It is not a good font for more reasons than you defend. Likewise, Britney Spears is a terrible singer. Having millions of fans only proves that people are stupid, and has nothing to do with fitting needs. If people choose to use Comic Sans, or buy Britney Spears music, it is because they exercise poor judgment--simple as that.
Well one role of law is to "teach them a lesson". Why would being a juvenile so-and-so absolve anyone from abiding by the law? You know, even the name of the site is inviting litigation against them. They could have always played along and they wouldn't be going to jail.
Look at the front page of both sites . One offers direct downloading of copyrighted material, the other offers a blank search box. I could have prosecuted this case with those two sentences.
Here's the difference. On the Pirate Bay front page, there are links to TV Shows. Click that, and you are presented with about 50 tv shows to download (every episode of every series). I can download any TV show ever without ever leaving the Pirate Bay website. You may be able to find the same torrent in Google, but you can't download anything until you've left Google's site completely. That, plus the fact they do nothing to nudge you in the right direction to download copyrighted materials (like providing direct links to TV shows), makes Google far more legit than TPB ever was.
What a stupid statement. Let me flip your logic around for you--PC users are insecure.
PC users' projections about what they think about Mac users is far more telling than the actual actions of Mac users. Am I supposed to hide my MacBook when I use a public wireless access point, or should I just continue on like I do--namely, I don't give a rat's ass what you think about my computer.
I agree you have to start somewhere, but starting with the one part that needs all the other parts in place first to be successful is just bad planning. Build a good subway first, then bring the inter-city trains in (well, after US cities actually start building train stations). In any German city I can fly to the airport, grab an U or S bahn right at the airport to take me to the general area of the city I need, then I can take the S-bahn or a taxi (or walk) to get to my hotel, and I can do this at 2am.
High speed rail won't work in America for at least two reasons. First, you need centrally located train stations in all the big cities. Then you need ubiquitous public transportation, like subways and buses that originate from the train station and radiate out through key points in the city. Just going really fast from Dallas to Houston does nothing for congestion in Dallas or Houston, as most people will have to rent a car once they get to their destination anyway.
And just how much stuff have you purchased from Amazon that was broken? Better question, how many times did you use that digital camera before you decided you didn't like it, so you sent it back, but not only until after you got those once-in-a-lifetime pictures on your Greek vacation? You'd probably return a stained prom-dress, too!
I've got high standards and have been buying things on Amazon for five years. I even bought my wife's wedding ring on Amazon. I've never had the need to return anything. Once or twice would be expected, but this guy sounds like a serial returner. Maybe he should shop at Wal-mart...no questions asked.
The problem is I DID think about what I wrote, and I even previewed. The problem was I missed a key word in the summary. For example, The sky is green! I write in and say, no you stupid gits, the sky is blue, only to see the summary said the sky in not green. So thinking be damned!
Or, I could misread the summary and post something completely incorrect...and the simple fact we can't edit or remove erroneous posts is what makes slashdot one of the worst public forums on the net (ironically).
You can't count revenue you never had as lost money. Google is losing the potential income of $1.65 million a day. If they were actually losing that much a day, they'd be out of business soon.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact Comic Sans is so horrible, yet so ubiquitous is what makes this newsworthy. If it were only "kind of" bad, but overused, it would be small-conversation-at-the-water-cooler worthy, but nothing more. And also, you sound like part of the problem ;-)
Apple did take, did change a few bits, and called it "Chalkboard". It too is an awful font. What's your point?
Leave it up to a language snob to link to a media file that 95% of computers can't play.
It isn't an issue of being over-used (although that only makes me hate it more). If it were only ever used one time, it would still be a bad font.
I'm looking at the two pages side-by-side, and on my Macbook, the fonts all look better on the Mac screenshots than the TrueType enabled Windows one. It is interesting that Microsoft sacrifices elegance for what they to believe to be "legibility", when they simply fail at both. Look at Tahoma on the PC, then on the Mac. On the Mac, not only does it look smoother, and the letters are formed more consistently (the loops in the shapes are unevenly drawn on the PC), it is also easier to read, due to the lack of jaggies present on the PC side. Same thing goes for MS Serif and San Serif.
It is widely available to a wide audience of untrained graphic designers.
But Arial is bad, because it is a bad impersonation of Helvetica. Also, typographers will disagree with you that Helvetica is a bad font. I've read articles describing it as the nearly perfect font.
Absolutely wrong. All uppercase letters are harder to read because our minds see blocks of text, not individual letters. When you change the fundamental shape of a word (by making it one big block of uppercase text), you make the reader stop and look at each individual letter, as opposed to seeing the word shape.
As for a citation, too many to post. I have a grad degree in Education with an emphasis in typography and cognition.
It is not a good font for more reasons than you defend. Likewise, Britney Spears is a terrible singer. Having millions of fans only proves that people are stupid, and has nothing to do with fitting needs. If people choose to use Comic Sans, or buy Britney Spears music, it is because they exercise poor judgment--simple as that.
Well one role of law is to "teach them a lesson". Why would being a juvenile so-and-so absolve anyone from abiding by the law? You know, even the name of the site is inviting litigation against them. They could have always played along and they wouldn't be going to jail.
Look at the front page of both sites . One offers direct downloading of copyrighted material, the other offers a blank search box. I could have prosecuted this case with those two sentences.
Here's the difference. On the Pirate Bay front page, there are links to TV Shows. Click that, and you are presented with about 50 tv shows to download (every episode of every series). I can download any TV show ever without ever leaving the Pirate Bay website. You may be able to find the same torrent in Google, but you can't download anything until you've left Google's site completely. That, plus the fact they do nothing to nudge you in the right direction to download copyrighted materials (like providing direct links to TV shows), makes Google far more legit than TPB ever was.
I'm proving your point by pointing out that people who call Mac users cocky are themselves insecure?
both Apple and Mac users are cocky.
What a stupid statement. Let me flip your logic around for you--PC users are insecure.
PC users' projections about what they think about Mac users is far more telling than the actual actions of Mac users. Am I supposed to hide my MacBook when I use a public wireless access point, or should I just continue on like I do--namely, I don't give a rat's ass what you think about my computer.
OSX is a reasonable operating system whose reputation is ruined by technologically uneducated users :(
Unfounded claims such as this now qualify as "insightful" on slashdot these days? Time for a new tech site, I suppose.
I agree you have to start somewhere, but starting with the one part that needs all the other parts in place first to be successful is just bad planning. Build a good subway first, then bring the inter-city trains in (well, after US cities actually start building train stations). In any German city I can fly to the airport, grab an U or S bahn right at the airport to take me to the general area of the city I need, then I can take the S-bahn or a taxi (or walk) to get to my hotel, and I can do this at 2am.
High speed rail won't work in America for at least two reasons. First, you need centrally located train stations in all the big cities. Then you need ubiquitous public transportation, like subways and buses that originate from the train station and radiate out through key points in the city. Just going really fast from Dallas to Houston does nothing for congestion in Dallas or Houston, as most people will have to rent a car once they get to their destination anyway.
And just how much stuff have you purchased from Amazon that was broken? Better question, how many times did you use that digital camera before you decided you didn't like it, so you sent it back, but not only until after you got those once-in-a-lifetime pictures on your Greek vacation? You'd probably return a stained prom-dress, too!
Amazon/Twitter/Microsoft/Apple
Passes the news for nerds criteria, if you ask me.
This has nothing to do with DRM. I like the jump to conclusion though--kindle, suspended, must be a DRM problem.
Your post is just another reason why anti-DRM proponents gets such little respect.
I've got high standards and have been buying things on Amazon for five years. I even bought my wife's wedding ring on Amazon. I've never had the need to return anything. Once or twice would be expected, but this guy sounds like a serial returner. Maybe he should shop at Wal-mart...no questions asked.
RTFDT (read the f'in discussion thread). If you had read all the responses first, you'll noticed I caught my own mistake. Thanks though!
The problem is I DID think about what I wrote, and I even previewed. The problem was I missed a key word in the summary. For example, The sky is green! I write in and say, no you stupid gits, the sky is blue, only to see the summary said the sky in not green. So thinking be damned!
Or, I could misread the summary and post something completely incorrect...and the simple fact we can't edit or remove erroneous posts is what makes slashdot one of the worst public forums on the net (ironically).
You can't count revenue you never had as lost money. Google is losing the potential income of $1.65 million a day. If they were actually losing that much a day, they'd be out of business soon.