Readit Newshttps://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2021/109668/109668.pdf
It's not a big difference, but apparently TNR was the worst of the fonts tested for OCR.
But anyway, there was no "signaling" about the change to Calibri. No-one ever tried to make a political issue out of it the way Rubio is now.
If you say that it doesn’t matter whether changing the font had a large practical impact, because it’s a gesture in the right direction or helps build a culture of accessibility, I would classify that as signaling.
You can try to avoid the discourse, but if you're American then you're in it. This administration is destroying the country for many reasons: profit, hatred of democracy, racism, control. And FWIW, it's the current administration foaming at the mouth about a font change, not the last one.
In this case, the decision is solely because the last guy did something and they can't let anything from the last administration stand.
Let's say, in an alternate universe where Rubio's department genuinely thought there were cost or coordination issues with Calibri. They could have reversed the decision and cited that. But no: Making a font that is more compatible with screen reader technology is woke. Their words, not mine.
Again, I say this not to nitpick or to dispute that it's kinda silly, but to emphasize that this is a provocation you shouldn't and don't need to rise to. The State Department's font choices do not matter, and it will not hurt anyone nor create a bad permission structure if they use Times New Roman. The only possible way this story could become even a tiny bit consequential is if Democrats take the bait and radicalize against serifs.
Rubio, however, specifically pointed out the symbolic (and malicious) gesture of his whole switch back to Times New Roman.
The left didn't react pettily. Please stop thinking the left are the right are the same when the facts show they are not. The left's change was for a demonstrative benefit. The right is doing it so fuck over people. You think these are the same.
How pitiful do you have to be as Secretary of State to get into minutiae about fonts, anyway?
So actually yes I am generally in favour of archaic methods for making food because our biochemistry and the environment has had a lot longer to find equilibrium with non-synthetic solutions.
That isn't to say that we should throw away science and give up 200 years of progress on hygiene, but I also don't believe that packing chickens into their own feces then pumping them with antibiotics and washing them in chlorine is all that great either.
Maybe this solves for food scarcity and I'm all for that being available to other people but I'm perfectly willing to pay a premium on alternatives methods that eschew the use of synthetic products in my food chain.
Even if you like modern organic farming, it's carefully regulated to control the risks and environmental costs of using crap. The US National Organic Program (https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/5006.pdf), for example, requires 90-120 days between the application of raw manure and harvest; only properly pasteurized manure can be used in the months before harvest.
There are charts which show the cratering of nutritional content of fresh produce over time so maybe not all goods and services of the past were total crap.
What's important about it isn't that it happened, or what we think about it. What's important is how many people didn't think it was a mistake - and wouldn't when it happens again.
It reveals a major blindspot.
There were people who argued that the shooting was the students' fault, certainly. But the students knew at the time that they were antagonizing people, and felt that it was worth the risk, predicting (correctly: https://emersoncollegepolling.com/50-years-after-kent-state-...) that future generations would see why their cause was worth fighting for. The only lesson I can see to take away from that is that violence is not the last word, and you should (as students at the time did) keep protesting even if people get shot for it.
I suppose there's also the lesson that de-escalation is an important tactical skill. But that's not controversial at all. Many recent National Guard deployments have been extremely conflicted (I'm still mad about them!), but both guard members and protestors have done a solid job at not needlessly antagonizing each other.