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I have gone down a mini rabbit hole. Unlike many rabbit holes, I can map out how I got here. I perused Adactio's blog, saw a link to a blog about writing, and clicked on an article that looked interesting. Then I read a piece of advice about writing more, saw a link to another site, then clicked on another article that looked interesting. I went through three different sites to find the article I found, all the while not seeking any piece of information in particular. Like all things, internet rabbit hole exploration can be fun and teach you a thing or two. Like all things too, moderation is advised.

I've learned that most of the things that English speakers are taught about grammar are pure opinion and have no effect on the language. Starting a sentence with a conjunction, ending a sentence with a preposition, splitting an infinitive, or using a double negative are things that early British writers decided didn't meet their tastes at the time when the language was just beginning to be accepted as a literary language. They don't have any basis in linguistics or comprehension; they're based on morals and classism. For example, they thought double negatives are illogical because, mathematically, the words would cancel out, so people who used double negatives must be less logical. But there are plenty of languages where these features are used or even required, e.g. Spanish makes use of double negation a lot.

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Mars is only going to get colder and darker for the next 10 weeks as winter deepens.

Wow, this little experiment became important enough to put the entire mission on hold. Sad that this is the beginning of its end, but if this impressive performance was the bare minimum, I imagine NASA will look into sending more advanced designs on future missions. I can't wait to see the next version.

science tech space
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Epic changed its mind about keeping Fortnite off of Xbox Cloud Gaming.

I think Apple's policies are indefensible and hugely anti-competitive, so on one hand, I like that this sort of sticks it to them. But on the other hand, they'll use this as justification for how they're not anti-competitive despite being based on technology Microsoft has nearly a decade of experience in and spent millions of dollars building. This isn't a solution for every developer and forces them to rely on a different platform holder anyway.

I also don't like that this was an exception made just for Epic. Microsoft says they want to do this more, but starting with Epic feels very backroom deal. I'm hopeful, though, that Microsoft will expand this policy to all free-to-play games. Allowing consumers to stream these free-to-play games is very consumer friendly and gets them in the door to see how good Game Pass is.

gaming
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There’s a huge outcry on Twitter: the most important public forum is in grave danger, and so are free speech and civil society. Yet nobody seems to understand that evil Musk buying Twitter is not the problem here. The problem – obviously! – is the fact that the most important public forum, the source of free speech, and the beacon of civil society happens to be a centralized privately-owned closed platform.

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