Oh yes, and it is an all uppercase font, if that's relevant. Otherwise I'll just type the replacement font in caps. Thanks.

The main reason it doesn't render well is that it's free.
How much are you prepared to spend on something that actually works? Knowing that might help narrow things down.

hhp

DIN Cond Medium FontShop or AG Buch Condensed Berthold have the same look but may render better.

Sorry to have to correct you on this, but the reason it doesn't render well has nothing to do with it being free. It doesn't render well because it was poorly made. There are hundreds, thousands even, of free fonts that render better than Ostrich Sans.

Sincerely, the guy who made it.
T

Would you have made it better if it were not free?

Better:
Do you think there is no correlation between quality and price?

hhp

"Would you have made it better if it were not free?" seems backwards. I'm also slightly skeptical about to which extent there is a correlation between quality and price. It's certainly an implied correlation, but you have many deviations in practice. Hrant, I think finck was right to correct you when you said the main reason it doesn't render well is because it's free. I suppose in most cases one would ask money for a font which has been properly hinted and optimized, but this isn't always the case and it doesn't make your statement inherently true.

I also wouldn't necessarily say a font is poorly made when it doesn't render well on the web. Many fonts are simply not optimized for the web. People love Helvetica, but if there is one font which renders horribly on the web in a Windows environment...

There certainly are exceptions, but I don't see any grounds for doubting the strong correlation between price and quality. That said, I do have to concede that calling it "the main reason" was too dogmatic.

hhp

There certainly are exceptions, but I don't see any grounds for doubting the strong correlation between price and quality.

So, should you get MDR-resistant TB, you wouldn't' let Paul Farmer treat you? In fact, they should take away his medical license, right? So much free care means he's gotta be incompetent, in spite of the thousands saved!

And yet, and yet, you're on record as stating you prefer to check books out of the library rather than buy them. Aren't author's worthy of their royalties?

Swiss cheese logic. With a topping of froth.
There are exceptions to the rule. The rule remains.

And stooping to your level:
Are you saying libraries shouldn't exist?
"Have you stopped beating your wife?"

hhp

Charles, I'm also not following your logic.

Charles, I'm also not following your logic.

The main reason it doesn't render well is that it's free.

Basic principles of any system of logic. (1) It must be sound. It's sound if, and only if, everything provable in the system is also true. (2) It must be complete. A system is complete if, and only if, everything that is true is provable in the system.

So, either way, counterexamples have weight. I guess the Wikipedia account of Paul Farmer doesn't give any hint of how much he's given without any monetary compensation, but the expertise is surely chronicled. Mountains Beyond Mountains is worth reading, not only for how much Farmer's given without financial motivation, but how, amongst other things, he changed WHO doctrine on treating resistant TB. And AIDS. The Wikipedia entry on the book, perhaps paradoxically, gives a better hint about the man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_Beyond_Mountains

If Dr. Farmer has a net worth of only $10,000 after 40 years of work, I wouldn't be surprised.

Well, maybe Hrant's logic is that the only successful motivation for good work amongst font designers is money. Perhaps, in his system, other people can have acceptable non-financial motivations, and be successful. That didn't come through, though.

Even if that is the system: Now, Hrant, when informed that there was soon to be a new book by Rich Hendel, with a chapter by Kent Lew, remarked that he would not buy it. If he read it, he'd check it out from the library. So the author -- Hendel, in this case -- isn't going to get any payment, even if Hrant reads it. No "advances against royalties" for most academic work, you know.

QED, Hendel & Lew have done bad work, so judged by the monetary decision, before reading. Or perhaps because Hendel is a book rather than font designer, he's allowed the exception. Poor Kent.

It probably will come as no surprise that I admire Farmer more than Papazian. But I also believe there is good work done with open source fonts, and that the motivations for such are not always misplaced.

I'll read this further installment in your bitter geezer bile when I'm much more bored.

hhp

No, it was made to the best of my abilities at the time (3+ years ago). Sometimes there is a correlation between quality and price, sure. This was free because I couldn't justify charging money for it (because it is/was full of so many flaws).

Hope that helps!

Makes sense, and I wish everybody would be that honest about their early efforts.

hhp