PSA: in case you were wondering . . .

[truepenny]

This question has cropped up a couple times in comments, so I figured I should put an answer where everyone can see it:

The text on this blog is set at 16 point. That's on purpose. My old enormous CRT monitor recently bit the dust and has been replaced with a gorgeous Dell flat panel, which has a much higher native resolution than the CRT ever dreamed of. At that resolution, I need a font this big in order to be able to read it without knotting my spine into a cunning spiral macramé. (Ocular albinism: it isn't really about farsighted or nearsighted; it's never being able to get the focus sharp enough.*)

In other words, this blog is optimized for me to read it comfortably. The rest of you are just along for the ride.

---
*Mind you, this is purely a hypothesis based on what seems to be the difference between my eyesight and other people's. I've never NOT had this pair of eyes. It's only in (frequently implicit) comparison--as for example people wondering why the font on this blog is so large--that I notice a problem.

Comments

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I just use the text zoom on mine, rather than changing the actual font settings. Whenever anyone looks at my monitor the ogle over the text size, heh.

[scribblemoose]

I have a similar problem with the monitors at work, which seem to put everything in perpetual blur, but I found that changing the dpi size helped a lot - if you're using Windows, go to display properties (right click on desktop) > settings tab, click on 'advanced' and fiddle about with the 'dpi setting' until you get something more comfortable for you. [You can also/alternatively change the default font size via the 'appearance' tab.]

Hope this helps, if you didn't already know about it. :)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Folks can always add "?style=mine" to the end of the URL to make it look like their own journal (which presumably they like to read).

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Or set their defaults to always show friends posts in their own style.

Which is what I've done -- long enough ago that I don't remember how to do it.

[renatus.livejournal.com]

There's even a handy firefox plugin to append ?style=mine automatically!

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

It is called Stylish: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108)

[ckd]

That's not even necessary any more, at least for Paid/Permanent accounts; there's a new preference to always show LJ pages in your style. (As soon as I heard about it, I turned it on.)

My style is designed to look reasonable in a desktop browser, but with tweaks so that it works well in the Palm and iPhone/iPod touch browsers as well.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

That's a good tip, ckd, but where is it located? How does one turn it on?

[ckd]

It's on the Viewing Options page, and it's called "View all journals and communities in your own style".

Check the box and then click on the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

::reads up on ocular albinism::

Hunh. Innneresting.

I noticed the change in your font size, of course, but figured A: you'd had a reason and B: that reason was your business.

[redbird]

Makes sense. (The other person I know with ocular albinism has theirs quite a bit smaller, but they're using a CRT.)

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Sometimes widdling with the font smoothing settings helps a bit - when I switched to a flat panel my eye strain got somewhat better, because I was no longer dealing with screen refreshing, but the fonts looked blurry until I screwed around a bit. The new default MS Word font is almost as pain-inducing as the new toolbar thingy, because it's supposedly optimized for flat screens. Flat screens and perfect vision maybe.

Anyway in XP the setting is under display properties/appearance/effects...I use the True Type smoothing and it makes it a tiny bit more comfortable.

[elaine-brennan.livejournal.com]

Big is good -- I can keep my shoulders back where there's supposed to be as opposed to hunching them forward so I can get close enough to the screen to read ...

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I first read "oracular albinism." Which, you know, is kind of great.

[rhia-hilldancer.livejournal.com]

i, for one, like it better this way, but that might be because i am extremely nearsighted.

[0ccam.livejournal.com]

It's fine. I read you in my flist. So it's MY style.

[busaikko]

I love your journal: it's the only one I can read without putting my nose on the screen or fiddling with settings. You've even got just the right amount of contrast with your blue background and your type. *Extremely* easy on the eyes.

[april-art.livejournal.com]

Gah... why do people worry about larger type??? They can just set it smaller if they have such a hard time with it... In the meantime, just leave some things alone for those of use who aren't super-eagle-eyed! (I don't go around asking them why their type is so damned miniscule!!!)

[zodiacal-light.livejournal.com]

I hope I didn't offend you by asking! My sincerest apologies if I did. I was honestly just trying to make sure I hadn't somehow screwed up my own computer settings.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, not a bit. Don't worry.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

I'd like to point out this website, for suppressing background images and making text black on a white background:
https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

I also find Control+ (or Control- or Command +- on Macs) to be incredibly useful.