dewline | Entries tagged with personal opinion

Last week,

kestrell spoke about preferred fonts for accessibility re: websites. Also, she asked this question:

Do folks have favorite fonts?

She has her own goals in mind for the answers to that question, regarding accessibility, and she's been getting useful answers from her friendlist. For myself, selfishly, I do have a list of favourites. Many - most? - of these favourites have very little to do with such concerns. There's a lot of aesthetic considerations and a lot of personal nostalgia in play with my list. There is a certain amount of privilege - the privilege of being sighted all my life thus far - in my thinking here. This is selfish. Absolutely so.

That said, I am going to go into some detail about my own list of favoured fonts. In this entry, and probably others down the line.

I start with Space: 1999. That TV series in the mid-1970's created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson was where I first started to care about typefaces, fonts, that sort of thing. Particularly the first season. Moonbase Alpha, the main backdrop of the series, doomed to wander the universe by an ill-placed nuclear waste dump turning a large chunk of our Moon into a giant fusion rocket...that place had a particular design aesthetic. Signage across the moonbase was in a font called "Countdown". Designed by Colin Brignall, I don't know how it reached the attention of Space: 1999's set designers and graphic designers.

He also designed Superstar, the font that Milton Glaser incorporated into the classic "Bullet" logo of DC Comics. So there's two.

Back to Space: 1999. The space suits were jumpsuits with the helmets, life support hardware, and so on worn over them. The life support hardware packs - front and back - were numbered. The numerals came from "Data 70". The packs labelled "1" were usually worn by Martin Landau in character as moonbase commander John Koenig when a scene would call for him to expect to do EVA work, and had that numeral inverted. Not sure why.

(There's apparently an argument over whether Data 70 is a knock-off of another font, Westminster. If you're interested, check this essay out.)

More to follow...

Current Mood: busy

The first place that ever sold me Mac gear was the Mac Group. Back then, they were a second-story walkup in an office building off of Gladstone, near the city's traffic management centre and the O-Train tracks. I still have that machine.

They're apparently gone now. Three moves later, and the website's gone, the phone number is "this cellular number is currently unassigned" and their Facebook page has been left fallow for two years, apparently.

Last I visited them, they were in a second-story walk-up off of Nelson near the Rideau Library.

I miss them.

Current Mood: sad

Huffington Post: Postmedia Extends CEO Who Steered It Through 15 Straight Losses

Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: "Love is the Seventh Wave" - Sting

It’s been not quite a full week since the Brexit vote happened. There’s a lot of wreckage to assess and understand the nature of here. To be fair, I am not certain that I do understand any of it just yet.

There’s the demographics of it. Scotland and Northern Ireland versus England and Wales. Old versus young. The splitting of the Conservatives’ ranks, along with UKIP versus everyone else.

There’s the murder of Jo Cox.

That last item doesn’t seem to get much attention since the results of the vote broke. Not from the commercial news services, or the publicly-owned ones either. And the sick joke of it is that her killer – judging by his reply when asked his name for the court’s records – may have gotten exactly what he wanted.

That makes me angry.

As a Canadian, I am one of those people across the planet indirectly affected by the Brexit vote. Most likely, the effect will be on what there are of my retirement savings. But since I’m not a citizen of any of the components of the United Kingdom, there are a number of people who will no doubt tell me that it’s not my knitting to worry about.

The problem with that is, as I have said, that I am affected by the choices of others regardless of that fact. The same applies to the American election process underway at the point when I wrote these words. I am going to be hit by consequences. I have a stake in the outcome of these things, despite not having a lawful vote in most of them.

As a Canadian, I cannot help but look back at the two referenda on Québec independence. As a non-Québecois, I had no legal voice in the outcome, but as a Canadian, my future was going to be impacted anyway. And there were those people who – some cheerfully, some in resentful anger over past offences against them by others – told the people in my situation that ours was to shut up and let it happen to us.

That too made me angry.

That anger couldn’t be allowed to overwhelm me. Others did allow it in their own hearts. Still more channeled that anger in more productive ways, or so I think looking back. That’s part of why there’s still a mostly united Canada.

Another part is the Clarity Act. Brought in during the Chrétien administration, it set up rules for how referenda on seccession from Canada should be held: with clear Questions and a clear majority percentage to trigger the beginning of any negotation process that results from the answers to such Questions. By contrast, the political parties of the UK seem to have made the error of going with a simple majority instead. Not unlike the “Fifty plus one” stance of the Québec separatistes and those who agreed with such rules elsewhere in Canada, whatever else they thought of the separatiste project to begin with.

That the Brexit referendum is officially non-binding seems to cut no ice at all with the winning side, nor with the leaders of the Remain forces. Certainly not with key figures of the European Union who insist that “leave means leave”. The call from such people now is to bind the whole of the UK to such results. No matter the narrowness of the Leave side’s win, no matter the breakdown of the vote’s demographics, no matter the misgivings of many who did vote Leave and now find themselves shocked at the reaction and consequences.

Simply bind and damn them all.

And that too makes me angry.

And I do not know where to put that anger yet.

Current Mood: angry

A friend of mine reminded me of an anniversary this month. A sad one.

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the deaths of the "Challenger Seven".

I remember the circumstance by which I learned the news. I'd just gotten home from marketing classes at Algonquin College for the day, I was tired, and I wanted to go to my room to decompress or whatever it was we called recovering from classes back then. When I got there, I turned on the TV, and that was it.

I remember sadness, having to plough onward with my studies because those weren't going to wait on anything. Mostly, I just kept going. Kept an eye on the news as best I could in those days before the internet was a thing the general public could really use for news-tracking. My "internet" back then was the public library and the library at Woodroffe Campus. Not much else, really. Not like it was with Columbia in 2003, barely a month after my own father had died.

In January 2003, I was angrier. In large part because of the timing of it. These were still strangers to me for the most part, but I valued - still value - the work they did, and because of that and the timing, I was angrier about those deaths. Maybe being able to learn more, faster, about the whole thing added to it. I can't say for certain.

But it's been thirty years since Challenger as of tomorrow. And those of us still here after the passage of those thirty years have done a lot of living, and learning. Hopefully, a lot of the latter in particular.

But the exploration hasn't stopped either, and I am grateful for that above all. To those who've kept going, wherever you are on or off this planet, I thank you all for that.

Please. Keep going.

Current Mood: reflective, hopeful

I've noticed over this weekend that LJ has developed a tic. Or a habit. Not sure what the right word for it is, but here it is: after a certain - variable - amount of "inactive" time, LJ will kick you out and you have to log back in again. This was not always the case, and the practice as presently coded into the website is an annoyance to me.

The suspicion exists that I am not alone in either the experience or the annoyance.

Anyone else?

Current Mood: annoyed

I got a note in my inbox from Senator Plett, summed up here as "please read the actual report for yourself". Which is certainly a fair request on his part. I'm also told I can expect another one from my MP on the subject.

Frankly, thanks to a number of comments from others in their caucus over this past decade, I still see cause to worry for CBC's future no matter what's actually in the report.

More on other topics to follow.

1) Pierre Pollievre's veiled assertion that Latvia and the Czech Republic's donations to the "Victims of Communism" monument project requires Canada to put that monument exactly where he currently wants it.

Note: Pollievre's actual quote is about 2/3 into the text of that first article.

2) Wai Young's assertion that good Christians must support C-51, the "1984 is a how-to-govern guide, no matter what George Orwell intended" bill.

Current Mood: busy

Originally written for the Pen and Paper Workshop held on June 10th, 2015:

Recently, I hit a milestone.

On my MacBook Pro laptop computer, as recorded by the iPhoto software that came bundled with it when I bought that computer and faithfully updated until about three to five years ago, there were over forty-one thousand image files.

There’s been some culling of a lot of images from that pile over the twelve years since I first acquired my original digital camera. Near as I can figure, I started using it in May of 2003. Nonetheless, that accumulation continues unstopped.

This is not a cause for complaint, although it has almost certainly contributed to providing motives for such causes. I’ll get to that in a little while, as it has something to do with today’s business news.

I’ve recorded a lot of images. A lot of this is my own family’s history. Other chunks record that of the fandoms devoted to various works of popular culture, urban history, architecture, civic infrastructure, local and national politics…it’s an eclectic mixture to be sure.

One regret I have about it is not making hardcopy reproductions of those images as often as I might have. Some of the time, that was due to money issues. I only have access to a certain amount of cash at any given time, and that could be laid at my feet too. In part, at least. But we can save the political and economic arguments for another time.

Another reason for my reluctance…well, time and energy to make the decision to do the work. Again, I can take some of the blame for that.

What leads me to calling this a regret, though, was one particular item in today’s news.

On August 8th of 2015, Black’s Photography will be no more. It will join the ever-growing list of Dead Canadian Brands, as announced by Telus, its parent company. Its employees, Telus spokespeople say to us, will be found jobs within the larger Telus organization wherever possible.

The people running Telus may have every intention of delivering on that promise and of doing so in such a way as to leave none of the former Black’s staffers regretting holding Telus to its corporate word of honour. I do not know yet, one way or another, how skeptical I should be of that given word.

Some argue that this is an inevitable consequence of technological progress. I suppose in some respects it is, and that I’ve contributed to that fallout as much as anyone who’s ever bought and made steady use of a digital camera. So there’s another part of my share of collective guilt.

There’s still the matter of close to five hundred people losing their jobs. There’s still the sense of having reached out for convenience and causing harm to others. I can’t quite get around those facts.

As if I weren’t enough of a packrat as it is…

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Ontario Today - CBC Radio One

Noticing that this month, my home website on National Capital FreeNet seems...inordinately popular with web surfers in mainland China. Not sure as to why that is.

The nation next in line with the most traceable visits to my NCF home page so far this month is the Russian Federation.

Usually, it's Canada, USA and a random European country in the top three slots.

Strongly inclined to worry over this.

Current Mood: worried

The anthem of CBC Radio's As It Happens is being remixed, even as that of the Current has already been.

Author Ann Crispin has announced that she's bracing for the end of her cancer battle.

The Irish Rovers are calling it quits as a band.

Not sure what I make of all this yet...

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Curried Soul 2.0 AKA the 2013 Remix of the "As It Happens" Anthem

If there's one thing my friendlist here, the one over on Facebook, and contacts elsewhere across the Web have confirmed in my mind, it's this: comics are for everyone what wants 'em.

Or at least, they ought to be.

That includes women, people of "other" sexual identities, people from across the ethnic spectrum, across the religious spectrum, across the age ranges, et cetera.

What bugs me is that some people whom I thought knew this at least as well as I did, if not better than I do...well, it seems they don't know it very well. Or if they did, they've forgotten the fact.

Worse, it's not even a surprise. More like a nagging bout of anger at something that should've been behind us all by now.

Fortunately, other people are already calling that first bunch out on that point.

MyDearPeabody, keep on calling them out on it.

It's going to be part of how we keep growing the industry pie back to where it ought to be.

More on other stuff later.

I long feared that what's happening to "Viterra" now was intended to be inevitable from the moment the management decided that they didn't want people referring to the company as the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool anymore.

No, not happy at all.

Current Mood: cranky

Well. Another round of ear/nose/throat irritation - to put it mildly - has struck. I can still write and work the tablet, mousepad and keyboard, no problem. But talking and not-coughing are problematic. In fact, trying to talk as I normally would is a bit of a minor pain at the moment.

It's not the first time this has happened. Likely, it won't be the last either. And compared to some of the stuff some of you reading this are dealing with right now, it's pretty far down the list of medical problems to worry about. Even so...annoying.

Coping measures? I'm going with the lemon-echinacea tea with honey and lots of apple juice for the moment. Expecting that this will take about a week to play out, and wondering if I should go to writing workshop tonight as originally planned and promised.

Current Mood: irritated

I read that the other shoe re: Timeline's finally been ordered dropped upon us all.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/your-facebook-past-is-coming-back-timeline-mandatory/article2314218/

I am now considering the idea of just purging the account and starting over from scratch after the required period for data disposal on Facebook's has concluded. Does anyone have any arguments as to why I should go through with this?

To be honest, my main complaints about Timeline are about its design: it's visually cluttered in the extreme and looks as if it's highly bandwidth-dependent in a way that's hostile to dial-up users of the Internet. The privacy issues are secondary, but close behind the design issues.

When first I heard the news over the radio about Jack Layton, my reaction was exactly that: just one more thing, dammit to Hell. Just one more thing we don't need right now.

For the non-Canadians, here's the news in question:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/07/25/layton-ndp.html

Personal sidebar: my mother survived lung cancer a couple of decades ago, and my dad lost an eight-year fight with renal cell cancer. So I've got a bit of additional bias here.

Mr. Layton, here's wishing for the best outcome for you...

Current Mood: pissed off

Well, this was a fine start. A lung infection completely derailing what I'd hoped to be a long weekend, so that I could get some illustration projects moving again. Some of which I did, but not in an active sense of the phrase, despite the lung trouble.

That lung trouble's been diagnosed, prescribed for, and half the meds paid for so far. The rest will be dealt with tomorrow. But the whole matter of that prescription's left me convinced of the arguments for a national "pharmacare" plan, to help fill one of the major gaps that's been left in the medicare system over the decades. Convinced like a religious fanatic, but without the doctrine of any organized religion. Because I've got a personal stake in it, same as all of the rest of us: The stake of not wanting to die too damn soon for the wrong reasons.

Anyway: going to see if I can handle a return to the day-job tomorrow after two sick days and a personal day that had to double as a "see the doctor while you're sick" day. Wish me luck with that.

Hoping to get back on track on artistic, medical, financial, and other fronts as the next few months go by. More on that to come.

Current Mood: Recovering.

Well, that's what I'd like to be doing right about now. As it is, I'm feeling tired and achey from work and travel that you'd think wouldn't do that kind of damage to a body. And if I wanted to whine about that, I'd certainly deserve to be put down for it quickly enough.

Example 1 as to why:

bakkaphoenix has had a near-miss with a six-alarm fire on Queen Street West in Toronto today. I only managed to visit their current digs for the first time last summer whilst attending the ParadiseCon, and enjoyed the visit. Glad to see they'll be staying for a good while yet. I'll be listening to them for any kind of advisory on how I can help out those who weren't so lucky.

Example 2:

ruckawriter and

mercuryeric jointly announced the end of their run on Checkmate. It wasn't news I wanted to head off to day-job with, and I'm particularly sorry to see that Eric won't be getting a chance to move that series forward on his own as a writer. I think the Mlle. Marie two-parter that wrapped up last month was top-level evidence that Eric is worth taking a chance on.

(Yes, I'm a sucker for books where UN personnel are the good guys. Deal with it.)

Example 3: The price of anything with wheat in it's going up for everyone. Between the climate issues of the last decade or more, the push into biofuels competing for the attention of the world's viable croplands, and other issues...well, this is one of the effects. What else it's going to cause, I'm not entirely sure of despite listening in on a discussion on that subject on The Current this morning. (Scroll down to Part 3 of that page in the link for the discussion.)

Example 4: Assorted friends and friendly acquaintances of mine are dealing with all manner of medical issues that I thankfully don't have...and I wish those friends and friendly acquaintances didn't have them either.

Other examples abound in my flist/blogroll. And it's a long one.

So much for any plans to indulge in self-pity, and rightly so.

Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Peace Be Upon Us - Sheryl Crow

I am annoyed by Jim Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications, over something that he's threatening to do to the Canadian Television Fund unless CBC is further starved of funding - via CTF specifically - posthaste.

Mr. Shaw, please cease and desist in this behaviour. Shaw Communications, as far as I can tell, is doing quite nicely as it is. CBC's survival and current levels of funding does not hurt your company irreparably. Your employees are capable of keeping the corporate ship afloat without you making such noises as these. And as a Canadian citizen, a friend to assorted customers of yours, and a CBC viewer and listener, I wish that private broadcasters would kindly fall silent on the subject of the CBC. Their complaints over the fact of its continued existence annoy me. Especially when it succeeds at doing the work that the Broadcasting Act of Canada requires of it.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: CBC Radio One - Ottawa Morning