Shaggy Scottish grazer / SAT 9-28-24 / Intercessor for the frequently forgetful / Military leader who helped capture Detroit in 1812 / Tucker who played drums for the Velvet Underground / Speckled steeds / Rustic respites / Pancake topper / Noncompetitive races / First name for the third second-in-command / Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) / Anonymous online handle, at times

A light-on-dark color scheme, better known as dark mode, dark theme or night mode, is a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements on a dark background. It is often discussed in terms of computer user interface design and web design. Many modern websites and operating systems offer the user an optional light-on-dark display mode.

Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and claim that it can reduce eye strain. Displaying white at full brightness uses roughly six times as much power as pure black on a 2016 Google Pixel, which has an OLED display. However, conventional LED displays cannot benefit from reduced power consumption. Most modern operating systems support an optional light-on-dark color scheme. (wikipedia)

Quick write-up today, as I have an oddly full schedule, including a little crossword tournament up in Ithaca. But I often say "quick write-up" and it rarely comes to fruition, so let's see how this goes. This was a second day in a row where the marquee answers didn't seem quite up to snuff. I had a good reaction to REACTION GIF, but HIGHLAND COW ended up being oddly anticlimactic (17D: Shaggy Scottish grazer), as I got HIGHLAND easy enough, then just looked at those last three letters and thought "... is it just ... COW? Is that a thing?" It is! Anyhow, good enough answer, but the cow's got BACNE (i.e. back acne), so points off for repulsiveness (no offense to BACNE-havers, we've all been there, I presume, but ... not exactly an appealing bit of fill). And then there was SEED CAPITAL (14D: Angel's contribution), and this was the one that really killed the potentially creamy vibe of this triple-stack center. First, it's from the world of business/finance, and so the likelihood that it's going to be *scintillating* is ... low. And here's why—the self-importance. The inflated language. The businessspeakiness of it all. SEED ... CAPITAL? I had the SEED part, easy, but in my mind, the basic phrase here is "SEED money." Simple, direct, precise, common. A very in-the-language phrase. An angel (investor) provides seed money (i.e. initial funding) for any kind of business venture. But of course SEED MONEY wouldn't fit here—two letters short. So now I'm like "what are other words for 'money?' ugh, this is the last 'problem' my brain wants to be working on, now or ever: synonyms for 'money,' make it stop." I try FUNDING, but the crosses just don't work. So I just give up and work crosses. And the puzzle is so easy today that I get to CAPITAL eventually, but ... I mean, CAPITAL? La di dah, CAPITAL. It's just money, call it 'money.' This is like when everyone in business suddenly became an "entrepreneur." Oh, pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon, Monsieur Entrepreneur?" You're a businessman and you deal with money. Those are the nice plain terms. SEED CAPITAL, bah. (LOL, the entry at wikipedia is "Seed money" (vindication!), but wikipedia goes on to say, "also known as seed funding or SEED CAPITAL." Oh, money, then funding, then capital? You Don't Say!)

So 2/3 of those middle Downs were reasonably pleasing, but all the other long stuff only really gets up to the level of "OK." There's nothing that really pops or surprises in any of the corners. The grid's not bad, or ugly, it's just a little blah, and the puzzle as a whole was very, very easy, so there wasn't even the joy of the struggle today. Clues were mostly transparent. I was shocked that AGATHA was right at 1A: First name in mysteries. It's the first thing I thought of, which, on a Saturday, I assume is going to be wrong-o! Not EXACTO! (Do people really say EXACTO, "informally" or otherwise? Fonzie says "Exactamundo!"—now that's informal. Baroque, elaborate, hypersyllabic, yes, but still informal. To me X-ACTO is a knife brand, and that's all it is.). Was surprised to just glide through this whole grid, from AGATHA on down, with very little resistance. I just fell down the puzzle like a stream down the hill, inexorably pulled by gravity rather than anything that felt like real effort on my part—corner to corner in no time at all: