Blackcap Blog

Published at 14:21 on 12 March 2018

Last night I fed “people who can’t settle” into my search engine of choice. I was surprised, but only for a brief moment, when most of the responses were geared to people (mostly men) who couldn’t settle down romatically. Of course. That does apply to most men, which is 90% or more of why I cannot and never will self-identify as a gay man; their subculture is so much geared around anonymous and casual sex, which I want basically no part of.

There were basically two responses that did not fall into the sexual category: one, two. 

Interestingly, they both said basically the same thing; namely, that some of us simply have a stronger sense of purpose and ideals and higher personal standards, and this prevents us from being pleased or at least accepting of situations that most would find worth settling for. They also said that those of us who fall into that category should not water down our standards and settle. (It usually doesn’t turn out very well for us if we do.)

Well, OK. That’s basically what I had already concluded on my own. So there it is.

However, it raises an issue: About three years ago, I decided to embrace being more settled, because (a) I thought I could, and (b) being settled does have its advantages.

On that first point, it’s looking more and more like I was dead wrong: I managed by sheer luck to find a high-tech company where I could fit in… for a few years… until both the company and the job changed to the point where the magic (and totally unrepresentative) match no longer existed. Ever since then, it’s become increasingly obvious just how badly I fit into that world. I didn’t (and couldn’t) know that at the time, of course. I actually was aware of that possibility; it was one reason I decided to wait several years after landing that job before buying a home. I was waiting for that other shoe to drop. Alas, it dropped after I had guessed (incorrectly, it appears) I had waited long enough.

On the second, I still think it’s valid. Being settled does have its advantages. I’ve been able to better pursue hobbies and interests now that I have a proper workspace for them. And in general, it’s been good to be in the Salish Sea ecoregion, the place I’ve called home longer than anywhere else in my life. There’s real benefit to experiencing the passage of time in a place I’ve known for several decades. I never knew I was missing that sort of experience (which most get to have) until I moved back.

So now I have this house which it appears I will no longer be able to afford and which no longer is appropriate to my needs (the only reason I bought it is because I assumed I had viable economic opportunities in Seattle I wouldn’t have elsewhere in the general region). One insight I’ve had is to drop any reluctance and sell it sooner rather than later, even though I haven’t been here the “standard” five years. That standard, of course, is based on the standard rate of appreciation, and prices have been going up at a significantly greater pace than the standard recently. Therefore, the market lets me get away with leaving early; more than that, the market will reward me for leaving now.

Alas, it’s not so simple. (It never is.) In this case, there’s all the connections, such as the ones at Islandwood, that I’ve built in the past year or two. It would be a pity to burn all those bridges. Together with the other advantages of being in the same region for a long time, I guess that means that if I move, I shouldn’t move very far.

Published at 08:53 on 11 March 2018

That happened in this article, whose account of the famine basically jibes with my own understanding of it.

The Bengal Famine is a historical fact, one of many which make the imperialism of the capitalist nations far less distinct from the imperialism of the Soviet world when it comes to ghastly acts of oppression and mass murder than many believe it to be. This tends to be inconvenient for many capitalism fans, who find it useful to use the USSR’s many crimes as a brush to tar all of socialism with. Typically this is done by pointing out things like the Holodomor, the implicit point being that at least the capitalist West didn’t create famines for reasons of political expediency.

Well, sorry, but the capitalist West did. It’s just that the subset of history which most get taught leaves the ruling class’s own side’s greatest crimes out of the picture.

And yes, of course, Churchill indeed did a great good by fighting the Nazis—but then again, so did Stalin. Fighting Nazis shouldn’t be a blank check that gets one excused from all one’s crimes.

Published at 01:53 on 9 March 2018

I found a free font called Old Standard TT which seems to be a very faithful reproduction of a late 1800s modern serif font, so couldn’t resist giving it a try. No, it’s not up to the quality of a commercial font (for openers, it’s missing the ff, ffi, and ffl ligatures), but I’m budget sensitive and the price is right. Plus this is just a web page; its not as if I’m setting printed type.

We’ll see if this lasts. Right now, the layout smacks too much of sticking an old-fashioned font into a design which otherwise was intended to harmonize with modernist sans-serif type. I’ve been poking at it trying to change things, so I suspect the answer as to whether the new layout will last is how easy it ends up being to bend CSS to my will and make it generate a more appealing layout.

And yes, this is modern serif you are seeing, despite it today being a style of years past. Much of the serif type one sees in production books (or on web sites) these days are actually far older designs that were revived (the popular Baskerville font dates from the mid-1700s, and Garamond dates from the 1500s).

Update: It didn’t last. First, the fine aspects of Victorian Modern Serif fonts just don’t seem to map well to screen pixels. Modern screens much more closely approximate the papers and inks of 200 or more years ago, which together had difficulty reproducing the fine details that were added in the Victorian era as a sign of modernity. Second, there’s the matter of the missing ligatures. Libre Baskerville, like its original namesake, was designed to cope with less-than-ideal resolution, and it comes with a full set of ligatures. So I think I’ll use that. It has at least some of the look I was aiming for, and it’s better to pull off some of a look and succeed than to attempt all of it and fail.

Published at 13:40 on 8 March 2018

Canned garbanzo beans cost a lot less per ounce than premade hummus, so to pinch pennies I’ve been experimenting with making my own. Plus the spiciest hummus the local store sells is only jalapeño hummus and that’s just too wimpy for my tastes. This recipe is full of that habanero yumminess that will have you going back for more until smoke is pouring out of your ears.

The following recipe was adapted from several online recipes for hummus.

• 1 15oz can garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ¼ cup tahini
• ½ bulb (not ½ clove) garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• ¼ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 habanero peppers*

Blend tahini and lemon juice for 1 minute, scrape the sides and bottom of the blender or food processor, then blend for 30 seconds more.

Add olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt, and water to the whipped tahini. Blend for 30 seconds, scrape, blend for 30 seconds more (or until well-blended).

Add habanero peppers and blend until liquefied.

Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans. If using a blender, run garbanzo beans through a food mill twice or until well-mashed, place in large bowl with whipped tahini and spice mix, and stir until well-blended. If using a food processor, add garbanzo beans and process until puréed.

* Or use just 1 or even ½ if you don’t like it as hot as I do (full disclosure: I adapted this from a recipe that used only ½).

Published at 11:49 on 6 March 2018

I’m not exactly in the market for ordering fonts (strictly limited budget), but I’ve been playing around on the web sites of various foundries looking for a font that gets the late-19th century look for text that I want. I think I’ve found one: Monotype Modern.

It was the first font cut by the new Monotype corporation for their new typesetting machine, in the 1890s, so it reflected the design sentiments of the time. Plus it comes in various widths and variants, which is important if you want to do things like set headings in a condensed, expanded-spaced version of the body text (as was the fashion in the era).

But, the fonts come in a confusing number of varieties: a plain version, a “Std” version, and a “Pro” version. Some quick testing revealed that the plain versions of fonts typically lack all ligatures, the “Std” version has “fi” and “fl” only, and the “Pro” version has the full set of ligatures.

So, basically, if you’re not ordering the “Pro” version, you’re ordering some dumbed-down garbage being marketed to computer geeks who know virtually nothing about proper typography. Note that the original Monotype Modern font came with a full set of ligatures, so it’s totally honest to paint non-Pro fonts as subpar. Because they are.

And that explains why Times Roman is such a mess. The “Times New Roman” that Apple distributes via Microsoft is the plain version of the font. The “Times” they distribute is the “Std” version. The only “Pro” grade serif fonts distributed with Mac OSX are Baskerville and Hoefler Text.

It’s a pity that Apple chose to distribute what amounts to a subpar variant of Times Roman. It’s not a surprise Microsoft would choose the lowest of the low quality grades, but one tends to expect better of Apple.

The consolation is that the Hoefler Text and Baskerville fonts they ship are top-quality serif fonts well-suited to body texts. I highly doubt if Microsoft ship anything remotely comparable with Windows as a standard item.

Published at 11:43 on 4 March 2018

Some thoughts, after experimenting with the system fonts in Mac OSX 10.13, trying to achieve an effect as close as possible to the typography of the late 19th century as I can with just the stock system fonts:

• Most of the fonts are not really suited for (or even designed for) body text at all. I find a lot to like about the Didot font, but I struggled to get it to look right when formatting paragraphs with it. Turns out the Didot shipped with the Mac is a variant which was never intended for use as a text body font at all.
• Fonts that support ligatures (a basic element of well-set text) are the exception rather than the rule.
• Both Times New Roman and Times are big disappointments. The former comes to the Mac via Windows (and originally Monotype) and does not support ligatures at all. The latter is derived from the Linotype Times Roman font but is missing the “ffi” and “ffl” ligatures (which are present in the version of the font sold by Linotype). So the former looks tacky and unprofessional and the latter possibly even more so; the rendering of an “f” followed by an intra-letter space and an “fl” or “fi” ligature looks quite awful indeed.
• The only quality serif fonts I’ve found that seem really appropriate for body text are Baskerville and Hoefler Text.
• I find so-called “old style” numbers the best for text. Those are the numerals that vary in height and spacing, instead of all being the size of capital letters and monospaced like they are in most computer fonts.
• Of the two fonts I just mentioned, only Hoefler Text has old style numerals.
• One of the things I like about old books is how sharp and crisp their characters tend to appear. Until fairly recently, modern offset printing just couldn’t approach the look that only actual physical raised type pressing into paper could achieve.
• Unfortunately Hoefler Text has a very modern-press un-sharp look to it, despite having old style numbers and elegant ligatures.
• That said, Hoefler Text is still one of the better system fonts to use for body text, particularly given that it’s apparently the only system font that supports both ligatures and old style numerals.
• Baskerville has more of the classic crisp sharp look I like. I wish the version on the Mac had old style numbers.
• Another useful system font is Optima. It’s a sans-serif font that’s more readable when used as a text body font than Helvetica. It’s sometimes useful in a document to have some alternate, contrasting font to set off certain text passages from the main document body. (Just using italics is awkward, because what if you want to italicize something in the passage?)

Ultimately, I’ve sort of given up on getting that “19th century look” for now. For one thing, money is tight and I don’t want to blow it on third-party fonts (and I’m sure it would be plural; as I’d need to evaluate a bunch before choosing a few winners). For another, I don’t create printed documents all that much.