Linked List: January 26, 2023

Thursday, 26 January 2023

1982 TV News Report on Arcade Video Games ★

This brief report was remarkably well-done. I love everything about it, including their choice of games: Pac-Man and Defender. Includes a great shot of Midway’s Pac-Man factory floor in Chicago, where they were manufacturing 350 cabinets a day.

U.S. State Department Is Phasing Out Times New Roman, Adopting Calibri ★

John Hudson and Annabelle Timsit, reporting last week for The Washington Post:

In a cable sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed the department to use a larger sans-serif font in high-level internal documents, and gave the department’s domestic and overseas offices until Feb. 6 to “adopt Calibri as the standard font for all requested papers.”

“The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,” read the subject line.

It is correct for the State Department to have a house style for documents. I’m not sure what font they should use, but it wasn’t Times, and it shouldn’t be Calibri. Off the top of my head, I’d suggest Caslon — a sturdy, serious typeface that looked good 250 years ago, looks good now, and should look good 250 years from now.

Facebook Reinstates Trump’s Accounts ★

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta:

Like any other Facebook or Instagram user, Mr. Trump is subject to our Community Standards. In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offenses — penalties which will apply to other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest under our updated protocol. In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.

So no matter what Trump does, the longest they’ll suspend him is another two years? This is whistling past the graveyard. Trump wasn’t suspended because he posted something, say, racist or untruthful or hateful. It’s not about Trump and his supporters being on the political right. The man tried to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States while serving as President of the United States. He still insists he was correct to do so, and quite obviously intends to try again. If there were only one person in the world suspended from Facebook’s platforms, it should be Donald Trump. No one is more dangerous. No one is more deserving of being outcast as a pariah.