Microsoft's New Font

Three years ago, I made a post titled "Microsoft New Fonts". The company was offering its consumers an opportunity to vote on a new default typeface, replacing Calibri. They put forth five options to choose between. Last I did this, I offered a graphic demonstrating each, with a description beneath. Since its been so long, I will do so again.

Bierstadt: A precise serif font suitable for grid-based typography, but meant to feel a bit more approachable and less institutional, with a "human touch". It is also the only serif font on the list

Grandview: Inspired by German road signage meant to be readable at a distance, this font is supposed to be "mechanical but elegant"

Seaford: The look for this one was inspired by armchairs, and is meant to have a gently organic and asymmetrical appearance.

Skeena: This one is described as being "quirky" with the most varied contrasts between thickness in its letters, and exceptionally high strokes

Tenorite: With exceptionally large dots, accents and punctuations, this fonts' creators said they were "craving something round, wide and crisp" and that they didn't "shy away from going large and circular".

At the time I think I felt obligated to support Grandview, because my wife is legally blind and I work with people who have disabilities. It's just the most accessible.

I never followed up on the winner. In fact, I forgot about the competition until I was using Microsoft Word recently and noticed a different default font. I don't know when the change ocurred.

The winner was Aptos. You may be offended because it wasn't listed as a competitor, and think that Microsoft must have betrayed the democratic process. But Aptos is just a rebranding of Bierstadt. Maybe the name seemed too niche, or not accomodating to all ages, as a German phrase referencing beer.

I don't think Microsoft has the culural influence anymore to decide what's considered the global standard though. Nowadays, I think most people use Google Docs as their default word processor, and they use Arial. 

I don't have much to say on this. According to my old post, Calibri was invented as a work-around for Arial, as Microsoft didn't have the rights to it. If that was the initially desired font, it makes sense that Google (actually Alphabet) would want to cling to it while Microsoft may want to distinguish themselves, now being the underdogs.

Aptos/Bierstadt may not have been my top pick, but in my initial post I did give them credit for being a serif font in a non-serif world. My all-time favourite typeface is Garamond, which shares this quality.

Anyway, congratulations Aptos. I don't think you'll be as influential as any of your predecessors, unfortunately.

Now for a garden update:

We have seven sunflower blossoms now! Our last record was eight, back in 2023. So we just need one more to tie the score, two more to beat it. As you can see, we have ample more flowers and it's still early in the year. We also have another plot with nine Kongs. Barring anything unforseen, it looks like we're on the way to a new personal best.

Unfortunately, most of them are facing the patio. Sunflowers look toward the setting sun, so this was mostly an oversight on our behalf. It looks like we have two strains growing and one is quicker to blossom than the other, so I think the ones still growing will be tall enough to peak over the edge.

We have a red tomato! Lots of green ones still on the vine, and a few zuchinis are coming in as well. Looks like pretty much everything we planted is producing this year.

Canadian Vexillology (Flag Review)

Full disclosure, this is a crosspost from Gryphon's Reviews. I wrote it for this blog, but when I finished I realized that it was technically a review, so it should go over there. However, since I passed my 1000th post on here, I don't have a set goal and so I feel less strongly about my posting criteria.

My reviews usually, I think only with this one exception, cover stories of one manner or another. It's by far the least popular thing that I do. Notoriously, my review blog has more posts than views. It's not like I get a ton of attention over here, but I thought this was offbeat and weird enough to give it the opportunity for a little bit of visibility.

I still care about giving this blog some attention, and this year is looking pretty thin, so it's worth the repost I think.

I originally wrote this in March of last year. If you want to force a sense of intention to its reappearance, you can maybe say it reflects our current time because of the changing feelings toward our flag.

Just a few years ago it was being waved by anti-vaxxers in an attempt to ape the patriotism of the US's MAGA movement. Now, after the threat of collonization by our neighbours to the South, it's being waved by people as an indication of our independence from that movement. The people that once supported MAGA prefer an American flag now, regardless of what side of the border they're on.

We're not a month out from Canada Day, where we visited a drone show with lots of Canadian symbolism. The year previous, there wasn't any patriotic imagery.

But really, I just felt like ranking flags and felt it safest to do so for the ones belonging to the country I live in. I highlight my motivation a bit more below.

Everything beneath this was written last March.

The study of flags is known as vexillology. In 2006, the North American Vexillogical Association published a book that included five rules to be kept in mind during the flag-designing process. They were:

1. Keep it simple
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use two or three basic colours
4. No lettering or seals
5. Be distinctive or related

I don't really get why the North American Vexillogical Association gets final say on what makes a good flag, but I do find that some of their points have a cross-section with my own criteria.

Today we'll be rating Canada's national, provincial, and territorial flags on a scale from 1-10. The higher the number, the better the score.

Before I get into it, I should acknowledge that everything is subjective, and different cultures may have different priorities when it comes to design. The ratings I will put forward will be based on my own thoughts, which are informed by a criteria I've developed during the time and place I happen to exist as well as some subjective preferences.

So what do I think makes a good flag? When I imagine an effective design, I think of one that uses symbols that are unique to the area or idea that it represents. Crosses, crescent moons, and stars are meaningful, recognizable symbols but when contrasted against the flags of the world, on their own they do little in distinguishing themselves. For the same reasons, I'm not a fan of tribands without additional imagery, such as France, Germany, and Italy.

Symbols should be recognizable but simple enough for a child to draw them. It should be remembered that these designs are meant to flap in the wind, so make sure it looks good in motion. I agree with NAVA that writing on flags is not the best choice, but I think they were a little restrictive with colours. I agree in simplicity, but the Pride Flag and The Seychelles Flag, for example, expressly go beyond the three colour limit and keep the rest of the design simple enough to accomodate it.

I also have some vexillogical pet peeves that we'll explore throughout this post. I've no special love of flags, but they can be interesting in how they try to express something very complex in the simplest visual way possible.

Before I begin, I want to clarify my rating scheme. For the purposes of this post, 5 is average. When ranking things on a scale of 1 to 10, I find most people consider 7 to be average because in school a passing grade can be anything between 50-65% and barely passing is bad. But in this case we're grading flags against one another and having 5 as average gives more flexibility.

Canada

Let's start off with the national flag. Like I said, I'm not especially patriotic but I think we got it right with this one. The maple leaf is unique among its contemporaries, instantly recognizable even without context, and yet simple enough that a child could draw it. Red represents the changing colours that occur in the fall, iconic to our local foliage. Clean, simple, recognizable, and applicable. We're starting off real strong.

9/10

Ontario

This is my home province, and the most populous region in Canada. Right here, I have to share a vexillogical hot take of mine. I don't like flags-on-flags. If the design is balanced enough to stay interesting but not cluttered, then it won't be able to effectively integrate another flag's design. 

The Union Jack itself is already like, three flags merged into one. It has St George's cross for England, St Andrew's white saltire for Scotland, and St Patrick's red saltire for Ireland. So it's already a little busy, and it's by far the most common to be used as a flag-on-a-flag. I know it's because of the legacy of the British Empire, but that historical context doesn't endear me to it anyway.

The shield on the flag of Ontario gives some flag-on-flag energy too, although not quite as egregiously. The top portion is St George's Cross, a little redundant since that's already included in the Union Jack, and the bottom portion is three maple leaves. I think this was one of the originally proposed designs for the national flag. It looks fine.

This flag says to me England-Scotland-Ireland-England-Canada. Too much.

Not the worst design I've ever seen, but it's built entirely out of bad habits.  

2/10

Quebec

Quebec is Canada's second most populous province. The Fleur de Lis are rooted in its French history, and having one in each quadrant, separated by a white cross feels balanced. Part of me wonders if it would be better to have a single, central Fleur de Lis with blue bands on either side to parallel the Canadian national flag. Considering Quebec's multiple attempts to separate, perhaps that would symbolize nationhood, even while existing within the Canadian framework.

But maybe they don't want to be so closely associate with the national symbol, favouring their own unique culture. Separatism is, I believe, a divisive topic within Quebec. I guess I'm just looking for an excuse to recreate the national flag's pattern in a new context, since I like it so much.

All in all, I find Quebec's symbolism unique within Canada, iconic, and balanced. Really nicely done

8/10

Nova Scotia

The blue "X" is St Andrew's Cross, and the lion at the centre is based on the Scottish crest. I do like that old style of drawing animals. I find it works a bit better on crests though, which allow for a bit more detail.

I think that regional flags get away with a bit more intricacy than national ones do. They're kind of like middle names on children. People are less likely to know about them, but that means you get to have a bit more fun.

It's a pretty simple lion, so I'll allow it. I do find it odd that so many places represent themselves with lions when they aren't part of the native climate. Canada has mountain lions, but the animal depicted here appears to be the better-known African variant. Another thing that confuses me is that on the Canadian crest, there's a lion and unicorn, and the Scottish one is the unicorn. Why would it be a unicorn there but a lion here?

Also, in the Union Jack, St Andrew's Cross is a white "X" while here it's a blue one.

If it were simply St Andrew's Cross, I would say the design here is too simple. Unfortunately, that means I'm also saying the Scottish flag is too simple. I know I said national flags should have simpler designs, but come on, just a blue X?

I'm tempted to score it lower for the confusing symbolism, but I don't have an intimate enough understanding to confidently let it impact my scoring. My ranking is purely based on visual design

5/10

New Brunswick

Top portion is a lion in that kind of medieval style, but it's squashed and stretched out, almost like an image in MS Paint that's been manipulated to fit into a frame. To be fair, when this flag was invented, stigma based on ease of access to such image manipulators wouldn't have been a factor. Still, due to the time I grew up in, this looks very awkward.

The boat beneath it is cool. Some people don't like curved lines on flags, which would make the waves a problem, but that's not an issue for me. The boat is just simplified enough to get a pass from me. No child is going to get every detail, but they can probably draw a recognizable boat based on this design.

Without the distorted lion it could have been good.

4/10

Manitoba

Way too similar to the Ontario flag. The only difference is it has a buffalo instead of the three maple leaves. Buffalos are cool, but so are maple leaves. This is really a lateral difference and isn't enough to change it from Ontario's score one way or the other. Don't have to think too hard about this one

2/10

British Columbia

The nation of Colombia spells it with an "o" after the "l", but our province of BC spells it with a "u". Just saying that up front so I don't get accused of misspelling.

Not only is half the flag the Union Jack, which I've already said is a bad habit, but they squashed it and made it even busier with a crown in the centre,

The bottom half has some cool waves and a sun, which are recognizable if generic. I'd instantly know it represented a place near water with cool sunsets, but it would take a while for me to guess it was British Columbia. Still, if the bottom half was the entire flag, it would do better.

As it stands,

3/10

Prince Edward Island

The trees look like an attempt to draw actual trees, not symbolize them, an art style that clashes with the squashed, distorted lion above them. The red trim looks kind of cool.

I guess the patch of grass looks like an island, which is topical. I don't know if the trees are supposed to be some unique variant to that area. If so, it's not intuitive. The lion might represent Scotland, as it does on the Nova Scotian flag, or it could mean England, like it does on the Canadian Crest. Eveyone wants to be represented by a lion.

If this is supposed to depict an island, they could have used a little water. It would have been cool if they showed some red earth, as that is something unique to that area.

Between the contrasting artstyles and non-intuitive symbolism, I'm going to have to rank this low. Still better than Ontario and Manitoba

3/10

Saskatchewan

The shield is simple enough that it doesn't look too much like a flag, and the lion doesn't look obviously distorted (it might be a little squashed). The red of the flower shows up well against the green, and all the colours are distinct enough from each other that everything is clear. 

Exception would be the stem of the flower against the green band, but since you see it leading up through the yellow to the blossom, it's clear enough what it's trying to show. The fact that it briefly disappears against the green band indicates that this part of the flag symbolizes plantlife. 

I get caribbean vibes for some reason. Don't think that's what they were going for.

You know what? This design didn't give me a good gut reaction, but the more I look at it and think about it, the more I like it.

6/10

Alberta

The shield gives real flag-on-flag vibes. It's hard to tell what's going on in front of the grassy hills. A lake with islands? 

Looking it up, this is based on the Coat of Arms of Alberta (all shields appear to be Coat of Arms') and apparently it's supposed to be the prairies.  The order goes: Rocky Mountains, foothills, prairies, wheat fields. In the image this is based on, the praries are yellow, while here they're grey for some reason.

The surounding flag, a "field of blue" creates a bit too much negative space in my opinion. Makes you wonder why they don't just expand the design of the shield to encompass the full flag. I suppose because it would then be merely a Coat of Arms and offer nothing unique. I think it's hard to call the "field of blue" unique though. Visually it's fine, but it really offers nothing new.

According to the article I referenced, the North American Vexillogical Association ranked this as #35 out of 72 flags across the US and Canada, beating all other Canadian flags except for Ontario and Manitoba?

Yeah, me and NAVA apparently have vastly different tastes despite a cross-section in criteria.

4/10

Newfoundland and Labrador

I like this. Playing with some basic shapes to make something that feels new and fresh. Seems the most modern of the provincial flags, which is a weird thing to say about Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't know how representitive it is of a province known for being simple, laid back and pleasant, but I still like it.

I don't quite know how I feel about the arrow being filled in yellow while the triangles flanking it are just outlines. I don't even know if that's a complaint, just an observation.

Looking it up, the gold clouring is supposed to represent confidence in the future, as is the forward pointing arrow. I don't really understand how gold communicates confidence. Maybe faith in economic prosperity?

The overall image is supposed to be reminiscent of the Union Jack. I agree with this, and even think it looks a little cleaner. I appreciate this as a nod to our ties with the UK more than just slapping a Union Jack in the corner like so many others have opted to do.

7/10

Northwest Territories

Now onto the territories. We've got the national style of a verticale triband with symetrical colours on either side of a white centre. We've got a shield in the centre which I don't love but it's better than a Union Jack and the symbols on the inside are simple enough.

5/10

Yukon

Horizontal tribands again with a white centre but the framing colours are not symmetrical. We've got another shield, but this one has a dog on it and is hovering above flowers, making it a little busier. All in all, I don't think this comes together as well as Northwest Territories.

4/10

Nunavut

Finally, we finish off with Nunavut. The symbol of the Inukshuk is simple, relevent to the territory, and instantly recognizable. I was able to tell that the star is specifically supposed to be the North Star without looking it up. The contrast of the red vs the yellow would have been a bit rough, but the black outline clears it right up. I love everything about this flag except for the low contrast between the yellow and white. The inukshuk dividing it in half helps a bit but it still looks a little awkward.

Looking it up, it says the yellow and blue were supposed to represent the bounty of the land, sea, and sky. Since those are three qualities it would be easy to assume that the white or red would represent one of them, but it's not mentioned. I would have liked this flag better if the background were fully yellow or white. Probably yellow since it has an expressed purpose

Overall it's clean, simple, unique with instantly recognizable symbolism applicable to what it represents. I just don't like the low contrast. Still a very cool flag

7/10

In the end, the only flags that made me think "Oh hey, that's pretty cool" were Canada, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Nunavut. Maybe Saskatchewan after a bit of thinking. Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island all desperately need a redo. 

Small-Scale YouTubers

In the past I've been heavily critical of algorithms and targeted advertisements on social media sites. One reason for this is that I don't trust the people running these systems to ensure they remain unbiased. The claim is that they keep track of what people are watching and then offer a selection curated to the interests of the customer. If a person's algorithm is promoting unhealthy content, the idea is that it is merely a reflection of the person's already unhealthy mindset, and the system remains a benign tool.

However, it seems impossible to prove that they haven't been tweaked to promote more commercially viable content. Indeed, my suspicion is that they likely do. It's been proven that hitting the "dislike" button on YouTube will encourage more suggestions of that kind than if you "liked" it. That in itself seems like the system is artificially weighted to promote certain emotions over others.

However, experiences I've had this year have indicated that my criticism toward these systems may have been a little over-stated. As much as I hate to admit it, it does indeed look like the rage-bait and fear-inducing content that my algorithm curates for me is indeed a reflection of what I choose to engage with. I say this because without conscious effort my suggestions have become, I would say, healthier as of late.

Earlier this year, YouTube started recommending a lot of small-scale creators. Normally, the channels it suggests have a million + subscribers, but these guys had anywhere from a few hundred to... zero. Also, the length of the videos would be significantly longer than most of the content I used to get.

I subscribed to a handful of these people, because I liked the small-scale feeling they gave. So many videos seem over-produced, and short-form media can feel like it's eroding your attention span.

But why would the algorithm decide that I had gained a preference for long-term content with lower viewership? I have a theory. Just before these suggestions started popping up, I had written my 1000th blog post. If you don't recall, this was an overview of each year I'd covered since I started it. This means that I read 999 of my own entries in a row.

This blog is hosted by Blogger which is owned by Google, which also owns YouTube. And what kind of content do I make here? Long-form thoughts with low viewership (averaging like, 15 views per post at the moment. A little over 600 in its hayday. My Gryphood blog actually gets more traffic). So my theory is that Google saw a stark change in behaviour from me in favour of myself, and so with its other branches started to promote creators that make similar content.

(small note that Google is just a search engine owned by Alphabet, which owns Blogger and Youtube, but I'm using the name Google beccause it's more recognizable)

This is the end of the post, but I'll just slip in a brief update on our garden. I know I did that with my last update, but there have been a couple developments.

We already have three sunflower blossoms! There are a few others that appear to be on their way as well. It seems really early, but we planted several strains and I suppose one of them must have been an early bloomer.

Unfortunately I have to give a disappointing update about one of the notable flowers that I highlighted in my previous post. The one that we didn't plant, but which sprung up just to the side of the Kongs. It had grown a second stem after getting its top leaves torn off, but it looks like it's been put down in a more permanent way. Yesterday afternoon, we went out to the garden to find just a little green stump at the place it used to be. We'd seen it just that morning, so whatever happened must have occured just before we discovered its fate.

No evidence of animals scratching or digging, and the main body of the plant was fully vanished. I had thought that it had grown to the point where it was no longer perceivable as food. It's a little peculiar.

Because it has shown such resilience, recovering from what I believed to be a fatal wound, a small part of me holds out hold that it will somehow sprout leaves and grow a third stem. But I don't think it will.

At least we still have the flower with the loop in it's neck, and the one that recovered from having its stem snapped.

Garden Update and Crow Magician

 The other day we got the first harvest from our garden

That's a green bell pepper and a bunch of snow peas. I wasn't quite sure when to harvest the pepper. I've heard that the orange, red, and yellow ones are just matured versions of the same crop, but eventually I didn't want to keep risking it to the insects. So far just the one has come in, but that's a lot better than nothing and the season is still young.

We've also managed to harvest some parsley and arugula. There's a lot of green tomatoes on the vine. Our zuchinis are healthy but they haven't produced anything yet.

The sunflowers are looking very promising.

I think our record is like, eight blossoms. At this rate we will far surpass that. I think that of the nine kongs that sprouted from the ten seeds we planted, each of them is still living. They don't seem much larger than the regular ones, though.

We have a few weird sunflowers that I'm rooting for. One of them has a loop in its neck.

I've not seen anything quite like it. For a while, a lot of the flowers were having trouble supporting their own weight, so I staked up the ones that were really struggling. I found this peculiar plant and tried to correct its posture, but in doing so I accidentally split a seam in its stalk. Seeing that I'd do it more harm than good by forcing it, I just tied it to a piece of bamboo and decided to see what it would do. Right now it isn't the largest of its peers, but it's still showing a lot of zest for life.

Not far from it, there was a flower that was broken and laying on the ground. I propped it up, its stem connected by a sliver. The next day its leaves were pointing to the sky. Now, weeks later it appears to have mostly healed.

In an even more extreme example, we found a regular sunflower growing just off from the Kongs. We know it wasn't one of them, because it grew outside the shelter we initially built for them, and it happened after we transplanted them. Maybe a seed came loose from a previous years' crop.

Anyway, one day it's top leaves were fully decapitated. Its bottom leaves were still healthy though, and here it is now.

It may be hard to see, but it actually grew a second stem from its bottom leaves! The first new set were crumpled looking, but the new ones are normal. Don't know if this setback will prevent it from blossoming, but I'm really impressed by the effort!

Also, I've tried my hand at painting again. I've only done one, so it's not quite worth a Gallery blog post. But I took photos of it in graduated sequence, which is kind of cool.

It's The Magician tarot card, but as a crow guy! I replaced the table with a stump, mostly because I didn't trust myself to angle the table in a way that it wouldn't look weird. The fact that a stump is more crow-like was a happy side effect. For a similar reason, I have the sword standing up, piercing the wood. I do like the way it causes the eye to follow a height gradient from the staff to the scepter in the Crow Magician's talons.

One of my biggest pet peeves in the tarot is that Cups and Pentacles are both gold in colour. For this, I made each of them distinct. Reddish-brown for the Wand and element of fire. Gold for the Pentacle and earth. Silver-blue for the Cup and water, and a green-handled Sword to repesent air. I know that the blade of the Sword is actually just a lighter silver-blue than the Cup, but who's ever heard of a green-bladed sword? Also, green isn't a primary or the colour of air so it's a stretch, but at least each symbol looks different, which is mostly what I cared about.

My cat Kieran bit my ankle at one point, which is why there's a black smudge in the first three images. I managed to cover it up with some foliage, thankfully.

The figure is actually based on an Australian crow. I had an image in my mind of eye whites against dark feathers. I thought that if this were true of European or North American crows, it would be fine because it would either be where I live, or where the tarot originated. But both those locations have black-eyed crows, and the ones I imagined are from Australia. Oh well, I still wanted the light-dark colour contrast.