fighting with fonts
Fonts are something I've been battling with for about 30 years. Maybe slightly longer.
Based on customer reviews I've read, some who buy the Garmin Drive 53 think it's too small as a 5" screen. I know it's not because I use it myself. Bear in mind I also own a DriveSmart 76 that has a 7" screen.
The perceived smallness of the 53 isn't because of physical size. It's the font.
I'll talk about Windows 11 in a moment which is its own can of worms, but if you compare the 53 to the old nuvi 50 from the early 2010s, you would be shocked at how much more legible the 50 is.
That 50, even though a 5" and a matte screen, has legibility that outdoes 7" screens and all smartphones. Yes, all of them.
Why? Bright, daylight readable screen, and the font used. I don't know the name of the font, but it's the near-equivalent of the most legible font ever used in Microsoft Windows, Verdana.
It takes a 7" navigator to almost equal the legibility of the 5" nuvi 50. Yes, I said almost. The 50 is absolutely top dog.
You'll be left scratching your head as to why a 5" outdoes a 7" screen, because people think a physically larger screen means better legibility. Nope. If the font is done wrong, you're not going to be able to read that display no matter what.
The 50's font is big, wide, and ideal for automotive use. In addition, the top left arrow and distance indicator is white with thick black outline against a dark green field. And the map acts the same way with its route arrow. That's perfection.
With Garmin's modern UI for the Drive/DriveSmart, gone is that wonderful Verdana-like font, replaced with a more difficult-to-read skinny Arial type. The font size also got smaller, and that nice black font outline is gone from the top left field as well.
Garmin could, if they wanted to, add in a simple option to the Drive/DriveSmart UI settings to increase or decrease font size. Or better yet, add in the ability to change size and/or BOLD the font. That's never happened, and I doubt it ever will, because that would just make too much sense.
UI designers don't seem to realize that everybody hates skinny fonts with glyphs that smash into each other.
Remember how in Windows you used to be able to change the menu font size and bold (or even italicize) it if you wanted to? And remember how that DID NOT affect the font sizes in programs? That's been gone for years. All you have now in Windows 11 from Accessibility > Text Size is one slider to increase/decrease the global system font. Can you change that font? Nope! Can you bold that font? Nope! You get a slider bar that affects the system font that you can't change system wide, which includes programs. This means increasing the font size increases it everywhere, including places you don't want the font size increased. Lovely, eh? That's modern UI hell.
Modern UI hell is also in all smartphones. It absolutely does not matter how large your phone screen is, nor how high of a resolution it has. Your font is going to be skinny garbage that looks like a family-sized bucket of ass no matter what. Can you change the font? Yes. Your other choices will be other skinny font garbage. Regardless of what you pick, it will be nothing more than different flavors of ass.
"Glyphs that smash into each other" is exactly what happens when the font is too skinny. The skinniness refers to both line thickness and glyph width. Verdana or its Linux equivalent DejaVu Sans does not have this problem whatsoever. Glyphs are wide, dots over lowercase letters i and j are easily seen, bold truly means bold, and the font is good. Take away the glyph width and go skinny, and the font is bad, style be damned.
What glyph smashing does is make a font appear to "vibrate". You could have perfect 20/20 vision and that crap will still happen with a glyph-smasher font, effectively ruining usability.
"But 'crispness' of a font counts!", you may argue. Nope.
Using a watch as an example, some men purposely buy Seiko diver watches because the hour indices are big dots or thick sticks, the hands are thick, and one of the two hands will be an arrow, depending on model. Legibility is guaranteed, and you will never confuse one hand with the other. If the watch had skinny hands, that's a no-go because legibility is ruined. At certain times of the day, the hands would "blur" together.
It doesn't get any more "crispy" for appearance than an analog watch dial, and if THAT has issues with skinny hands screwing up legibility, what makes you think a skinny glyph-smasher font would be any better on an electronic display? I'll answer that for you. It's not.
"Get your eyes checked" is not a valid argument.
The reason I know this isn't a valid argument is because I've seen proper user interfaces that use the correct fonts, and know that the trash offered today is vastly inferior.
Some devices, such as the old Garmin nuvi 50, got it right the first time.
With my phone, I've had my fights with it. I found a way to bold the fonts on the home screen, and wow, that wasn't easy. What I have isn't great, but at least it's than the awful skinny font trash look it had by default. Fortunately, my texting app does have its own individual font settings. Being that's what I read most, at least that's taken care of.
When it comes to the operating system I use, Linux saved the day.
Were I using Windows 11, I would have to buy a physically larger monitor (probably a 27" display size) just to compensate for the lack of font customization in modern Windows.
Since I'm using Linux, I was able to keep using my existing 24" monitor. All that was required were a few minor font size tweaks here and there that Windows USED to have, but were taken away.
It's probably possible to tweak Windows 11 to get the font settings/sizes I'd want with registry edits. But that's not really a solution, is it?
It used to be true that to tweak Linux font settings, you had to manually edit complicated configuration files, but that's no longer the case since it's all in the GUI. Now it's Windows where you have to do complicated registry edits to get the fonts how you want whereas you didn't have to do that before.
Funny how the script flipped like that.
so i finally baked something
The more I think about this, the more embarrassing it is, but it is one of those "better late than never" things.
For the first time ever in my life, I baked something.
This is almost as embarrassing as admitting I didn't fry anything in a pan nor so much as cracked a single egg until my forties. But at least I've been frying eggs along with other foods for years, so I actually do know how to cook.
However, it took until the fifth decade of my life before I finally opened an oven to actually do some real baking with one.
What did I bake? Cookies.
No, I didn't make the dough. I acquired the ready-to-bake type.
Only one part of the process can ruin the batch, and only because a specific instruction is not mentioned on the package.
Step 1. Get a baking sheet. It does not need to be lubricated with cooking spray.
Step 2. Break apart the dough like the package says, putting each piece 2 inches apart from each other on the sheet.
Step 3. Preheat oven to 350F.
Step 4. When oven is heated, put the cookies in, bake for 10 minutes.
Step 5. After 10 minutes, turn the oven off, open oven door, wait 10 minutes for the cookies to firm up. THIS RIGHT HERE is where most people get cookies wrong. After baking, the batch is still soft. The rookie mistake is thinking you need to bake longer. No. Baking longer will burn the batch and ruin it. All you have to do is just wait another 10 minutes after baking, and the cookies will firm up properly on their own.
And that's it, done. Take the cookies out and eat.
The reason it is embarrassing to admit it took me so long to finally bake something is because of how stupidly easy these things are to make. This is basically no more difficult than heating something in a microwave. The only difference is that baking takes longer because you have to preheat the oven and the overall baking process is slower.
How much time does it take to do all this? About a half-hour. Preheat + bake + cooling all put together takes about that long.
Is any money saved by doing this?
Yes, absolutely. Fresh baked cookies cost less than prepackaged crap, and way less than bakery cookies.
And, obviously, fresh baked cookies taste best.
The entire reason I decided to bake a batch of cookies is because nobody in my local area can make a genuinely good tasting cookie. It doesn't matter if the cookies are prepackaged, baked in a grocery store, or baked in some upscale highfalutin bakery. Everyone around here gets it wrong.
In other words, frustration was the reason I finally decided to bake something. Since everybody around here does cookies wrong, the only way to get it right was to do it myself.
Did my cookies come out correctly? Yes. Did they taste good? Also a yes. They were about as good as I could get for a ready-to-bake batch.
The Big Question however was this: Were they better than the garbage sold locally?
Yes. I finally got a cookie that tasted right.
I will at some point go the mile and actually make the dough myself. But for now, at least I know I can buy ready-to-bake, chuck it in the oven and get something decent. Job done.
guitar prices are weird right now
There's a specific price range for electric guitars right now that's just weird.
What makes the price range weird is that some guitars within it outclass guitars above them, even within the same brand.
I'm trying to make sense of this.
For that Squier Affinity Telecaster I just bought, I've given it a closer look. The neck is tightly fit into the pocket as it should be with no huge gaps. Frets were installed very well. Selector switch is solid and tight. Nut is cut correctly, doesn't stick out from either side of the neck and doesn't have sharp edges either. Whoever is doing quality control at the China factory that made it is doing an excellent job.
Yes, I said China and not Indonesia. A factory change has happened, and it's a recent thing for the Affinity Telecaster. The bump up in build quality is noticeable in a good way.
It's weird that the guitar is as good as it is, given its price point. But I think I've at least partially figured out why, and will explain that in a moment.
That Affinity is the first Squier I've ever bought that outclasses a Classic Vibe. In appearance? No. In functionality.
Technically, yes, the Affinity is a "lesser" guitar because it has ceramic magnet pickups and not alnico. The CV also looks better because of the pine body (which absolutely takes to butterscotch blonde better) and tinted neck.
However, Affinity is the better player's guitar. The satin urethane neck finish feels better, the belly cut in rear of the body is more comfortable, and six-saddle setup is obviously better than the barrel style the CV uses.
And then there's the price. With Classic Vibe, there's a sting with buying that. With the Affinity, not-so much.
Affinity falls between $250-$350; this is the weird price range I'm talking about.
I thought it was just a Squier thing with Affinity falling within this oddball price range. No. As it turns out, other brands are doing the same thing Squier is. See Ibanez AZES31, Jackson Dinky JS20 DKQ, and Epiphone SG Tribute Plus. Just like Squier, they are all punching well above their price tags considering what you get. Also just like Squier, those guitars are the better players compared to models just above them within the same brand.
My guess as to why this is happening is that it's an answer to low-ball priced guitars on Amazon such as Grote, Firefly and Leo Jaymz. Those guitars are better than Squier Sonic series, but not better than Affinity, at least for the Telecaster.
I'm also guessing the reason $250-$350 guitars are such awesome player instruments is because they have to be. They have to outclass the "Amazon guitars".
Do they? Yes.
Again, it's a weird price range for guitars, but I'm glad it's there.
i bought a squier affinity telecaster
I thought I was done with Squier, and even implied as much. I also thought I was all-in with Yamaha.
Well, that went all out the window. Both my Yamaha Pacifica PAC112VM and TRBX174EW bass are out, and a new Squier Affinity Telecaster is in.
The one I bought has your standard Telecaster look. Butterscotch blonde with black pick guard. I made a video when I first got it. Since that time, I've taken off the stickers and changed the strings to my preferred set.
I wasn't going to buy the Affinity and had my eye on a Squier Sonic Telecaster, but when I got to the guitar store, I couldn't find it anywhere even though the web site said it was in stock. This most likely meant it was there, but hadn't been unpacked yet and put out on the floor. Since the Affinity was already there and about the same price as the Sonic as it was on clearance, I played that, and it was definitely good enough, so that's what I went with.
What convinced me to get the Tele was my second vintage '89 Squier II Stratocaster. The first is my very first electric guitar that I still own, so I don't play that one too much. I break out the second '89 after not having used it in a while, start playing, and damn, it sounds good. Really good.
Then I go to play the Pacifica again, and... it's just not the same. Even though the PAC112VM is truly a good guitar, I realized something. I'm trying to make this thing sound like a Fender, and that's never going to happen, so it's gotta go.
I also watched a few past videos of mine where I was playing a Squier Telecaster or other guitar brands in Tele shapes, and thought yeah, that's a sound I want back again. Two sounds, specifically. The overwound bridge-only and the bridge+neck tones.
There is a way to get all the Strat and Tele tones out of one guitar, and that's the Squier Paranormal Custom Nashville Stratocaster. It has the Tele pickup set, a middle pickup, and a push-pull to get the bridge+neck traditional Tele middle sound. Fender also has one with the Fender Player Plus Nashville Telecaster, and yes, the push-pull is there. And if you're wondering why the Squier is called a Strat and the Fender is called a Tele, it's because the Squier has a double-cutaway body and a Strat headstock, and the Fender has a single cutaway with the Tele headstock. There are also other differences, but once you see the body and headstock shapes are different, then it makes sense why those two guitars have different model names.
I didn't need a Nashville since I already have a Strat I like, so a separate Telecaster works for me. I'm not opposed to getting a Nashville style Squier or Fender in the future, but just not now.
Two things I've learned
First, I gotta stop buying basses.
I go through this cycle every few years that really needs to stop. I think yeah, I need a bass, so I buy one. At first, I love it. Thumb some basslines here, pick a little there, cool. This lasts for a few weeks to a month, then the bass gets put on a stand, stays there, collects dust and doesn't get played for months.
At some point I pick it up again, dust it off, play it again, and I hate it. But I don't part with the bass just yet, figuring I'll give it another chance. That lasts for a week, then back on the stand it goes.
A few more months pass, I pick the bass up again, and I'm still hating it. I ask myself why I even own the thing, and can't come up with a good answer. That's when I get rid of it.
Add to this that I've never owned a bass with a body shape I truly liked. I've tried the P shape, J shape, Jaguar shape, and other shapes. None have ever been truly comfortable.
And there's another thing to add into the mix. If the bass isn't 34" standard scale, I don't want it. I tried the short scale thing before. Didn't like it. In bass world, 34" is the only thing I like.
Maybe in the future I'll give a go with a Stingray shape, as that's one of the few shapes I've not tried. I've also never experimented with the giant humbucker with the huge pole pieces with one of those either. Even so, I'm not going to actively seek out a bass any time soon.
Second, I gotta stop trying to fool myself into thinking I'll like anything other than Fender tones.
At this point in my guitar playing life, I've tried every popular pickup configuration there is. SS (Telecaster, Jazzmaster, Jaguar), SSS (Stratocaster), S/H (Telecaster Custom single-coil + humbucker), HH (Les Paul, Thinline Telecaster, and others), HSS.
The few pickup configurations I've not tried aren't ones I'm interested in, such as a one-pickup configuration like the Esquire and HHH like a "Black Beauty" Les Paul Custom, be it by Gibson or Epiphone.
And I suppose you could also throw in a few outliers, such as mini humbuckers like what the Epiphone Firebird has. That is obviously HH, but the pickups sound different compared to standard size humbuckers. Not better nor worse, just different. Then there's gold foil pickups. Just from the demos I've heard, I'm fairly certain I'd never get along with those. The foil absolutely isn't just for show, as it does have a very distinct tonal character, but not a character I like.
Fender tone is what I like, which to me is a single-coil equipped solid-body Strat, Tele, Jazz or Jag.
Every time I stray away from Fender tone, it doesn't last. I always go back to the single-coil solid-body Fender sound.
It's fair to say I really did give other pickup layouts and other guitar brands a genuinely good try. I tried Schecter, Yamaha, Ibanez, Epiphone and a few other brands. But then I pick up a Strat or Tele, plug in, play and say yep, that's the sound I want, and I get it from Squier.
Even though I'm very settled in to what guitar tone I know I like, I will keep my mind open. For now, I'm a Telecaster owner once again.
i stopped using traffic reporting
Fewer than two weeks ago, I bought a Garmin Drive 53, and purposely got the EX model that does not have traffic reporting.
Over the weekend is when I really put the 53 to the test, and drove somewhere I wasn't familiar with that I knew typically had heavy traffic to see how I'd feel about navigation without the traffic reporting feature.
I was slightly nervous before going on that trip. The thought of driving without traffic reporting felt weird since I'd been using it for so long. But then I thought okay, I bought this thing, let's do this. If I encounter traffic, I'll just deal with it, and off I went.
Nothing bad happened other than a few traffic slowdowns in places where I expected them to be.
I thought having no traffic reporting was going to be a point of stress, but it ended up being a relief.
Since the 53EX doesn't have traffic reporting, it was one less thing to worry about. I knew there wasn't going to be any rerouting unless I missed a turn (which actually did happen, but I got back on track without a problem). I also knew there wouldn't be traffic warning sound alerts either, so I wasn't listening for any.
What I came to realize is traffic reporting adds complication to a drive rather than makes it easier. Even on drives where I'd encounter no traffic, the thought was still in my mind while driving that if the screen alerts me of some traffic event, give it attention. Was that a stress point? Yes. Maybe not a big one, but still, stress is stress.
Another complication is that while traffic reporting is integrated with navigation, it operates separately. Now I have to worry about two things working instead of just one, and that's annoying.
On the rare occasion GPS has an off day, no troubleshooting is really required. If it doesn't work, it just doesn't work. All you can really do there is turn the screen off, wait a few minutes, turn back on, reacquire GPS signal, and that's pretty much it. As cliche as this sounds, turning if off and then back on actually does work the vast majority of the time.
If traffic reporting starts glitching up however, troubleshooting that isn't as simple. Glitchy traffic reporting can and does mess up routing, regardless of whether a Garmin or phone app is used. But at least on the Garmin you can easily turn traffic reporting 100% off via Settings > Traffic while still keeping navigation running. And that's the only real troubleshooting you can do. I can't even really call that troubleshooting, because while it sounds the same as fixing a GPS signal issue, it's not because turning traffic off didn't really fix the glitch.
Yes, this does mean that on the Garmin DriveSmart 66, 76, or 86, it is easy to turn off all the traffic reporting, should it act up.
The 53EX is just a navigator, and since it doesn't have traffic reporting, there isn't any enable/disable option for it. This is good, because it eliminated any temptation to turn traffic reporting on. Were I using my DS76, the temptation would have been there. With the option to enable reporting not there, there's no temptation, and another stress point was eliminated.
Part of my reason for getting the 53 was to see if I could get along with no-traffic navigation or not.
From the drive I did over the weekend, I found out that yes, I can.
A lesson I learned is that when you bring tech into a car, don't add in any unnecessary complications.