(no subject)

[learnedax]

The drive from Dorchester to Waltham is not a bad one. Even at midnight. Even in the pouring rain.

What is bad is realizing that you cannot use 93 while en route.

This time I lose.

Comments

[jducoeur]

Do you know The Secret Ninja Back Route to Dorchester? (9 to Jamaicaway to 203.) I use that pretty consistently when 93 is likely to be bad for any reason, and commend it to you -- especially given that you're down in South Waltham, it's even shorter for you than for me...

[jducoeur]

And I have to ask, given the comments you've made about *my* journal colors in the past: is your journal actually readable to you? The black on grey is incredibly exhausting to my eyes. I'm suspecting that Safari's color rendering really must be dramatically different from Firebird's, given our mutual problems with each others' color schemes...

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Nope, I use Firefox (guess its name this week!) at work and the LJ rendering is virtually identical to my Safari. To me the grey's light enough for it to be non-straining, and the only real problem I have with yours is that the red-on-blue has a disturbing throbbing quality to it.

I'm not trivially finding good sites to cite, but there is some evidence that lower contrast than black-and-white is easier to read. I prefer light-grey-on-dark-grey, actually, but when I tried that for LJ it just looked wrong.

In the end it's probably much more personal perception and preference than rendering differences (though monitor-specific color temperature could also play a role). Even so I think combining intense primary colors is liable to cause headaches for many readers.

[jducoeur]

Interesting. I find the color scheme that I'm using totally innocuous, but the black-on-grey gives me almost instant eyestrain due to insufficient contrast. Very good example of how far perceptions can vary...

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

No, I don't. I should give it a shot, as currently I'm taking both 90 and 93, which is doubly risky.

[jducoeur]

Unfortunately, while it's not hard to describe, it's actually a fairly complex route. The high concept is as I said:

Take Route 9 to the Jamaicaway.
Go south on the Jamaicaway until Route 203 splits from it.
Take 203 until it's time to turn left in Dorchester. I vaguely remember this as Washington St, but I'd have to do some research to figure out if that's correct. It's the road at the opposite end of Melville from Dorchester Ave.
Turn right onto Melville, and you're there.

The problem, of course, is that this is *very* much a back route. Following 203 requires real tenacity as it wends its way through -- there are twists and turns and rotaries and all as you go through a couple of towns.

Really, the right way to learn it is to go with somebody sometime. I should give y'all a lift to a Buttery or Melville party sometime, and I can show you the route. (Which I've been using for 20 years, so it's completely autopilot for me.) From here in north Waltham, it takes just a smidgeon longer than 93 if 93 is clear, and is much faster if 93 is jammed. This route, while complex, is very predictable, and rarely has real jams.