• 13 Posts
  • 151 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

help-circle








  • I read through the website, and it feels… odd.

    Is this font’s only purpose to be variable-width tunable?

    The website has this interesting showcase:

    “[Student fluency] is measured in Words Correct Per Minute… Each student read out loud a passage set in a control of Times New Roman, then four of the Lexend Series — Deca, Exa, Giga, and Mega.”

    They even give example text for the viewer in both fonts. Of course, Times New Roman was blown out of the water, and the viewer can feel it.

    But… this is apples to oranges. Of course the viewer can feel it, Times New Roman is a freakin’ serif, and there are a quinquagintillion sans serifs for small digital text, for good reason! Then what does this font have over other sans fonts? I couldn’t find the “Stanford study” or any other comparisons, but if I were to surmise a guess:

    “Variable font technology allows for continuous selection of the Lexend Series to find the specific setting for an individual student.”

    It’s to be able to adapt for a student reader’s preferences.

    I dunno, the site’s framing of “changing the way the world reads” feels disingenuous – it’s a nice sans tho.







  • I’m not sure I understand the question

    If you’re looking for a “something is two opposites at once until met” then that’s anywhere any unsureness exists. Lesson plans are decent and lacking until taught to students. Visual art is pretty and dismal until witnessed by another beholder. Speeches are rousing and dogshit til spoken at the mic.

    If you’re looking for a “something that’s explained oversimplifiedly then a lot of people say they get it (and are wrong)” then that’s like a subset of all misconceptions.

    • Monads in programming. Lots of people say they “get it” after a simplified explanation, but actually don’t get it (judging by blog posts that recite a simplified explanation, but actually don’t get it).
    • Tariffs. Lots of people learn middle school mercantilism (zero sum wealth) then guess that the economy is still import export balance, and that if we make people exporting to us more expensive then we get more of the zero sum pie. (Obviously wrong, and a basic macroeconomic lesson on consumer welfare in a system with a world price is useful)
    • A lot of physics terms tbh. “I get momentum, that’s when it’s hard to stop when you’re fast.” Often they mean something closer to inertia. “I get the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It’s when seeing something changes it!” It’s closer to uncertainty in the measurement of tiny things because of the physical implication of what we measure it using. (e.g. by reading a photon off of something, we know we’re kinda inaccurate cuz the photon was discharged)

  • Yeah… it’s hard.

    The status quo, even if its dredged from a lake, is so comfortably uncomfortable. You resolve to change, but do futilities. You resolve to change, but your leg is caught and you return by week two (aka the New Years’ Resolutions number).

    And to leap out and be instantly different is to play as something that doesn’t have the safe façade of being a system gear. Then you’re an oxbow lake, rather than in the river, and you wonder if everyone else is “floating by” already while you erode the soil that kept you streamlined down the main.

    And then comes the “Should I have stayed? Was I being arrogant, spoilt enough to give up what I had?”

    Idk what the moral of my comment is. I don’t want to say “I’ll discover it in a few years” either (,>ࡇ<,). Hopefully the mystery box is truer to my self than the alternative