@auriali

happy valentines day @perrin

Hoping this to be the last post I make about Blaze. Simply put, it has gone too far and I want to put this to bed.

To be clear, yes, Blaze is flawed in many ways. Being a Wix site means a lack of control over what data the website collects and how it’s used. The privacy policy leaves a lot to be desired. The marketing of the site is poor, tone-deaf at points and possibly AI generated. Yes, the logo is stolen (see my previous post). Support is non-existent. The site doesn’t use end-to-end encryption.

However, that does not justify what has happened over the last few days. Spamming and attacking the site to take it down is bullying. Even worse is how a lot of the conversation has shifted from trying to point out problems and light-hearted memes to just being mean. From what I can gleam, the owner of Blaze isn’t the greatest person, sure. But that doesn’t justify being rude back. Be better than that. We as a community need to be able to recognise when to apply the brakes to stop people getting hurt or upset. I hope we all want wasteof to feel inviting to everyone so it can grow. This doesn’t just apply to Blaze, but to a lot of the recent conversations I’ve watched spiral into full-blown arguments. Not discounting myself here, I’ve felt frustrated with myself over how I spoke regarding Blaze. If I knew my post about their logo would cause such a stir, I probably wouldn’t have posted it, same with that meme I posted on TNC.

That’s most of what I have to say, back to goofiness.

Yes, it’s all fair to bring up real things that deserve critique and scrutiny. Also, light-hearted memes are all fine and dandy too, I’d say. But don’t wanna see this devolve into bullying or harassment, no one wins there.

I found their app icon (see the top left image) on 2 websites that are registered before theirs. One of the sites dates back to 2019 and has blog posts prior to the launch of the app too. Can’t confirm, but I suspect it’s either stolen from somewhere or it’s a template of some kind (which also sucks honestly, make your own logo y’know?).

The hate for Comic Sans amongst designers is somewhat confused inside the design community and outside of it too. In my opinion, the issue is not with the font itself, it’s how people use it. You’ve likely seen Comic Sans in places it really doesn’t fit, like this tombstone:

However, that doesn’t mean Comic Sans itself is bad - there are real uses for this font. Firstly, it works great for comics - hence the name Comic Sans. Also, Comic Sans has been proven to be easier to read for those with dyslexia. Since the font has irregular spacing and doesn’t have that many repeating letter shapes, it makes it easier for dyslexics to read. The point is, Comic Sans can be genuinely helpful and used well. A charity called Dyslexia Scotland made a campaign centred around Comic Sans in an effort to create a font that is more professional but still takes the principle design cues that make the font accessible for dyslexics. You should check it out, the design shows how Comic Sans can be used well in design (also here’s a little design from the site to show what I mean): https://www.nothingcomicaboutdyslexia.com/

TL;DR - The hate for Comic Sans is not so much to do with the font itself, but rather how many people use it in inappropriate places (due to Comic Sans being preinstalled on a ton of systems). It’s a lesson on why a basic understanding of font pairing can really improve how well your written words are perceived.

Few things I wanna mention about @thenewcreators that don’t fit for the account itself. Sorry if this post is long!

First off, we hit 1000 all time plays for podcast recently, thank you for all the support, especially as we emerge from our hiatus!

Secondly, I need to talk about some of the apps people use to listen to the podcast. You may notice Samsung Podcasts, which yes, does exist. But it’s even more obscure than I could guess. Okay, so, I have no clue how we’re there, Micah nor me have added the podcast there to my knowledge, so I presume there’s some kind of scraper? Who knows, anyway, Samsung Podcasts can only be accessed on Samsung phones via Samsung Free - which is Samsung’s answer to Google Discover. There’s not even a sharing option from what I can find lol.

Also, shoutout to all of you listening on Clementine, you’re real ones lmao. If you’re comfortable, I’d be curious to hear what you use to listen to TNC or if you're one of these Samsung Podcasts users!

hey guys thought i’d share an update on my animation!

The flag of Wales goes so hard for no reason and it's awesome. I love to think that when other countries sat down to design their flags they were being all classy about it, like England would be going "Crumpets! I have the perfect flag idea! A red and white cross!" while America was like "Let's slap 50 fricking stars on this bad boy, freedom baby!" or Scotland would be like "Aye let's make a cross that's white and blue and call it the Saltire, that'd be bonnie" and meanwhile Wales is like "HELL YEAH LETS PUT A FRICKING DRAGON ON THE FLAG, CYMRU!!!!"

They’ve invented Narnia for transgender people, IKEA’s marketing department is on fire

Did a little refresh of the SCP Foundation’s logo for fun

I've never asked before here weirdly enough, but now is a better time than never. So, for you, what makes a design appealing? This can be anything, a logo, UI, branding system, whatever. What do you value outside of obvious stuff like functionality and ease of use? Good design is in principle invisible, you shouldn't notice it, but I'm still curious what kind of designs and whatnot have stood out to you for not just being good but something that was able to catch your attention because of how it is designed.

I sometimes think about how it’s very likely my own art and work is being fed into multiple generative AI bots that are touted to replace me and everyone who pursue the arts by making a machine that is trained to specifically mimic me and every other artist on Earth by taking people’s work without payment or credit whatsoever while the companies building these AI modals are becoming more powerful than governments while also being some of the most profitable companies in history off the back of human creativity, curiosity and intelligence. Black Mirror couldn’t write this.

we did it wasteof

Cool ranking, here’s mine (best to worst) based off of my years of trying different browsers. I’ve tried all of these browsers at least once on my current machine which runs Windows 11:

1. Firefox - The only browser that is to my knowledge entirely open source (while Chromium is open source, Google Chrome isn’t) and owned by a non-profit. It’s very versatile and has a lot of customisation without being overly complicated. Has been my default for years now. There are also great alternatives that use Firefox as a base like the Tor Browser and LibreWolf

2. Brave - I’ll be honest and say I still am not the biggest fan of Brave overall, the crypto features are annoying and I wish there were off by default tbh. However it performs well and isn’t that much of a hassle. Good choice if you need a Chromium browser without as much spying.

3. Vivaldi - If you want to tweak everything about your browser this is for you. Has some good privacy features. However performance is slightly worse than other Chrome clones and its a takes a bit to get your head around.

4. Opera & Opera GX - Used to use the normal browser back in the day, but moved away with all the annoying gimmicky features. GX’s UI is too much for me. Plus trust is hard when they call a proxy a “free VPN”.

5. Google Chrome - RAM hog, simple and gets the job done but at the expense of your data and privacy. Google having a monopoly on browsing when its a advertising giant is kinda scary.

6. Microsoft Edge - bloated and annoying.

it’s time to play everyone’s favourite game: which microblogging site is which?!