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My attempts at compartmentalization have failed. There is only one inbox. (diveintomark.org)
31 points by mapleoin on March 30, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 20 comments


This is the last straw. Fashionable designers seem to prefer fonts that make my eyes itchy. Does anyone know how to disable downloadable fonts in Firefox?

I've tried setting gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled to false, but they're still getting downloaded and used.

EDIT: A browser restart seemed to be necessary - flushing the cache and a full page refresh wasn't sufficient. It looks like that about:config option does work after all.



What OS (and Firefox version) are you using?

It would be a shame to blame the font or the browser if it's your platforms font rendering that's broken.


On Windows XP and firefox 3.5.7 the font is painful to read.


It's also terrible on Chrome/Linux.


It looks fine on my Chrome/Linux but that doesn't really say much because Linux fonts are so configurable.

I'd guess anyone following the Windows school of font hinting will have problems in this brave new world of web fonts because they'll only look good if someone with the requisite skills has spent a great deal of time hinting them for the pixel sizes used.

If, like another commenter, you see non-core fonts as "thin" (or "spindly" etc.) then this is probably the cause.

On Apple machines, or the way I set up Ubuntu machines (which the default seems to get closer to as time goes by) they basically ignore that hinting information, even if present and just pretend they're printing on a high pixel density device and let anti-aliasing sort it out.


Actually, this font is better than the previous one on Mark's blog.


Not on my screen. The letters are so thin that they are difficult to read. I am glad the Readability bookmarklet do exist.


Anyone aware of what he talked about on his blog that got him in trouble with his work? (Which is what I think he's saying)



That's the second thing he mentions, but the first is something he said on his personal blog that might have affected his work and that he got in trouble at work for, at least that's how I'm reading it.


First sentence of the post:

Fresh from being chastised for expressing my personal opinion, on my personal blog and other strictly personal venues, about matters that may, or may not, ever intersect the realm of the impersonal a.k.a. corporate, I take a detour into the strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz. how to talk to my own children about the dangers of drugs that I myself have taken — both medicinally and recreationally — and the many others that I have not, only to receive emails and IMs via impersonal a.k.a. corporate media from strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers asking if everything is OK over there in personal-land.

"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" ??

"strictly, perhaps overly, personal, viz...." ??

"impersonal a.k.a. corporate" - a SECOND time ??

"strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers" ??

This tone of speech encapsulates everything that I hate about self-important psuedo-intellectuals discussing literary "theory" in the English departments of universities.

It's verbose, long-winded, and intentionally difficult to read - all in an attempt to sound intelligent and deep, while actually covering up a paucity of any original thought.

After that one "sentence", I stopped reading.

Clear writing is relatively easy, and expresses a respect for one's audience.

Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's audience.


It doesn't express contempt for one's audience, it expresses contempt for the aforementioned "strangers-but-strictly-speaking-coworkers", and it does it very well in my opinion. It's a literary device; it's not an entry in a technical manual.


> Long winded bull shit (like the above) expresses contempt for one's audience.

You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then, who basically invented Mark's style there.


> You'd better never read David Foster Wallace, then

Sure I have.

I don't think much of his writing either.


It probably depends on the audience.

I love his writing. Reminds me of Neil Gaiman a bit (whom I like as well). And part of what I like is exactly what you complain against here.

To each his own, I guess.


I found the style of writing rather manic and humorous myself.


It's just a run-on sentence, dude.


Not actually a run-on, which refers to an ungrammatical sentence. The quoted sentence appears to be grammatically correct.


Huh, you're right. It is definitely grammatically correct, now that I look at it. It's unquestionably rambling, though, and (I should hope) an example of bad style.




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