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I'm not commenting on this story and here's why (it's a copy of my feedback to that web site): "I have not yet read this article because it's too difficult to

I'm not commenting on this story and here's why (it's a copy of my feedback to that web site): "I have not yet read this article because it's too difficult to read. Even the text I'm entering into this comment box is almost illegible. I have to doublely check to see what I've written. Presumably the reason you've chosen a gray text which to me on my smartphone looks to have no more than 20% saturation together with a fine spindle like font is that it looks artistic on your hi-res, high dynamic range monitor but it's essentially illegible on my smartphone (1080x1920px). I'm not the only one who is complaining, many have whinged about very feint essentially illegible text on the web - it's a common complaint yet illegible websites like yours still persist. Presumably, I could copy and paste the text into a text editor to read it but then I'd lose the images. It's messy and I shouldn't have to do it. That said, the images of the slide rule are quite readable. BTW, I'm not some casual narky reader who's being critical for the sake of it. I am a regular slide rule user. In fact, I'm looking at my two slide rules on my desk now - one's a Hemmi Darmstadt No 130 and the other is a Faber Castell No 2/83 N. The Hemmi was from my student days (before calculators), and the F/Castell is about 60 years old and belonged to my father who was an engineer. Both rules are still highly usable."

willcipriano 5y ago
Are you running a dark mode plugin or something? It works fine for me.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Absolutely not, this phone is stock standard Huawei Honor (GR5) 2017 It's completely untweaked (unlike most of my rooted phones). In fact, I use this phone as a workhorse because the screen is very good for a cheap phone. (Even if we hate Huawei, we have to admit the quality of its stuff is pretty good.) It'd be interesting to know what you are using. As soon as I post this I'll fire up the PC and see how it looks there. I'll let you know.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Update: See my reply to dahardt. Reckon the problem's (mostly) solved. Thanks for your comment.
dahart 5y ago
You might mention which device & browser. I don’t see any issues at all on an iPhone nor desktop. Could it be a bug in your setup, and not something the site has much control over?
- hilbert42 5y ago
  See reply to willipriano. Browser Chrome. As I said, I'll try my PC and get back. At this point, all I can say is that everything else I've looked at on HN in the last several is perfect. ...Thinking, if OK with you this could be a typeface (font substitution) problem. If so, it ought to show up on the PC as the typefaces are mostly different.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- hilbert42 5y ago
  OK, I'm now on the PC. My main PC with the hi-res monitor is being refurbished so this 2nd PC will have to do, it only has an old Dell E228WFP monitor (1680x1050) attached. The browser is now Firefox. This is a Windows PC with the browser font set to its default size. The webpage is now readable but it's still low in intensity (contrast) and the MS ClearType is having considerable difficulty in keeping certain characters sharp—in fact it's hardly working—the 'i' 'l' and 'm' look annoyingly fuzzy. When I increase the font (CTRL +) several sizes in the browser it improves out of sight and the text becomes completely and easily readable. It's a shame I can't post some screen shots to show how significantly different that typeface is under different viewing environments/conditions. It only proves the point that web designers shouldn't just take what they see on their own monitors and assume it's the same as everyone else sees it. As mentioned, I'm not alone in complaining about low contrast grayish typefaces, here's the first other complaints I've just found: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ https://www.contrastrebellion.com/#page2 https://www.contrastrebellion.com/#page2 Incidentally, an interesting observation is that the character pi, π, in the webpage is perfectly viewable on the smartphone and has good contrast. Clearly it's from a different typeface set, it also proves that the text's typeface is the culprit in that it doesn't view well on all displays. I'll now go back to the smartphone and figure out what typeface the phone is displaying the text in. Thanks for your comment.
khedoros1 5y ago
On both my desktop (Linux+Firefox @1440p) and phone (Android+Firefox @2160x1080), the text is black on a white background, in a reasonably-legible font, and at a reasonable size. Trying it in Chrome doesn't look significantly different on either device.
- buescher 5y ago
  It doesn't work on my K&E or my Pickett either.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    As I've said to several other posters, I reckon it's a font substitution problem - some fonts display much better than others in certain environments. BTW, an interesting observation, when I first posted the comment it was up-voted, it's now been down-voted to just below where it started. I think this proves the point that not everyone is viewing that page with equal ease.

willcipriano 5y ago

Are you running a dark mode plugin or something? It works fine for me.

hilbert42 5y ago
Absolutely not, this phone is stock standard Huawei Honor (GR5) 2017 It's completely untweaked (unlike most of my rooted phones). In fact, I use this phone as a workhorse because the screen is very good for a cheap phone. (Even if we hate Huawei, we have to admit the quality of its stuff is pretty good.) It'd be interesting to know what you are using. As soon as I post this I'll fire up the PC and see how it looks there. I'll let you know.
hilbert42 5y ago
Update: See my reply to dahardt. Reckon the problem's (mostly) solved. Thanks for your comment.

dahart 5y ago

You might mention which device & browser. I don’t see any issues at all on an iPhone nor desktop. Could it be a bug in your setup, and not something the site has much control over?

hilbert42 5y ago
See reply to willipriano. Browser Chrome. As I said, I'll try my PC and get back. At this point, all I can say is that everything else I've looked at on HN in the last several is perfect. ...Thinking, if OK with you this could be a typeface (font substitution) problem. If so, it ought to show up on the PC as the typefaces are mostly different.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hilbert42 5y ago
OK, I'm now on the PC. My main PC with the hi-res monitor is being refurbished so this 2nd PC will have to do, it only has an old Dell E228WFP monitor (1680x1050) attached. The browser is now Firefox. This is a Windows PC with the browser font set to its default size. The webpage is now readable but it's still low in intensity (contrast) and the MS ClearType is having considerable difficulty in keeping certain characters sharp—in fact it's hardly working—the 'i' 'l' and 'm' look annoyingly fuzzy. When I increase the font (CTRL +) several sizes in the browser it improves out of sight and the text becomes completely and easily readable. It's a shame I can't post some screen shots to show how significantly different that typeface is under different viewing environments/conditions. It only proves the point that web designers shouldn't just take what they see on their own monitors and assume it's the same as everyone else sees it. As mentioned, I'm not alone in complaining about low contrast grayish typefaces, here's the first other complaints I've just found: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/how-the-web-became-unreadable/ https://www.contrastrebellion.com/#page2 https://www.contrastrebellion.com/#page2 Incidentally, an interesting observation is that the character pi, π, in the webpage is perfectly viewable on the smartphone and has good contrast. Clearly it's from a different typeface set, it also proves that the text's typeface is the culprit in that it doesn't view well on all displays. I'll now go back to the smartphone and figure out what typeface the phone is displaying the text in. Thanks for your comment.

khedoros1 5y ago

On both my desktop (Linux+Firefox @1440p) and phone (Android+Firefox @2160x1080), the text is black on a white background, in a reasonably-legible font, and at a reasonable size. Trying it in Chrome doesn't look significantly different on either device.

buescher 5y ago
It doesn't work on my K&E or my Pickett either.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  As I've said to several other posters, I reckon it's a font substitution problem - some fonts display much better than others in certain environments. BTW, an interesting observation, when I first posted the comment it was up-voted, it's now been down-voted to just below where it started. I think this proves the point that not everyone is viewing that page with equal ease.