Death
It’s way too easy to die. It’s time to eradicate diseases and let people live forever if they want to.
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Ecosystems via subscriptions
As more and more services now work only by subscription, bundles are saviours. These bundles today are the ecosystems of tomorrow.
How to make Russia a better place
When Russia hosted the World Cup this year—an event of international importance—the host cities got streets cleaned and trash thrown away, made life safer and the overall appearance neater. (Oh, and people were friendlier)
The more such events Russia hosts (or any country, for that matter), the better everything will be. It’s a pity that Ekaterinburg didn’t win the Expo 2025 bid.
Gates in libraries
There are three ways to do this.
Moscow’s Foreign Language Library. Gates, a stern security guard, librarians that don’t understand one another, no single database, RFID tags for security purposes, a ban on bringing backpacks in (!). The wide variety of books is the only thing that saves this library from obliteration.
Pigna’s library. The honesty system at its finest. Just a heartwarming librarian and no security features. They make an assumption that everyone entering isn’t there for a random reason (which is close to truth).
The Russian State Library for Youth. A total absence of any visible gates or security features. Anyone strolling by can enter and read a book. As for bringing a book home, all one has to do to register is to show an ID. Every book has an RFID tag used for theft prevention, as well as for scanning books. I was surprised at how efficient the system was when I first took some books home: I stacked the books, put them on a table along with my library card, and I could go out. No librarian or gate needed.
There’s only one way to do it right.
I can’t stand titles where almost each word begins with a capital letter
Having titles where each word except articles starts with a capital letter in English is not a necessity for correct grammar. Hereby all my titles will be sentence case.
Capitalising each word in a title slows down the time needed to understand what’s written. I’m also going to write ‘internet’ with the first letter being lower case, it’s not the 90s after all.
My editorial guidelines
British English. Funny because my pronunciation is American. I pay close attention to cultural differences (napkin/serviette & c.)
Diëresis. Yes, I spell it that way so the word is kinda autological.
Numbers in word form.
Reformed names. Qazaqstan, Eswatini.
Ligatures. I use ’em. For instance, in the word æsthetics. I do not use the massachusett (ꝏ) because it is heavier than having oo, when the entire point of ligatures is to minimise the heftiness of letters. And what if a word that starts with Oo begins a sentence?
&. I consistently use the ampersand inconsistently.
Language purity. While English is a combination of every language in the world, I am much more pedantic with Russian and Italian, where I don’t use loanwords unless they benefit the language.
Et cetera. Ah, Latin. The only logical abbreviation is “& c.” because “et” is not a word in English.
Single-letter Roman numerals in numerical lists. I use this to save space & time. X for 10, L for 50, C for 100, D for 500, M for 1000.
Four-digit numbers without comma between digit groups. It is fairly easy for the human eye to see that 1504 is one thousand five hundred & four and not some other number.
Month name ahead of days. Despite preferring British English I write December 8th, Sep 1st. There’s nothing wrong with the 4th of July, but the preferred form saves space.
Three-letter abbreviations for months and days of the week. Jan–Dec, Mon–Sun.
Titles in sentence case. Well, See, This Doesn’t Look Very Appealing, Does It?
“Internet” with the first letter lower-case. It’s not the 90s, after all.
Umlauts. I don’t use them because English isn’t German. Therefore, it’s the Mœbius band.
C with çedille. Since English is a mess of different languages and rules that contradict each other, c makes the “kuh” and the “suh” sound. Therefore wherever c sounds like s I write ç.
Constantly expanding...
How to solve a seemingly impossible problem
Don’t let the person solving it know that it’s impossible.
Ivan Youdin, my physics professor
Contextual text in articles
Almost anything can be easily revealed about any internet user. Why not use it to give authors a powerful way to contextualise what people read? People will get a bonus for giving away privacy: saving time.
For instance, instead of writing
If you have an iPhone, go to Settings ‹...›
If you’re on Android, then there is no way to solve this.
write
Since you have an iPhone, go to Settings ‹...›
The same idea can be applied for videos too.
Loyalty & lying
Lying is being loyal to the person who told you to lie, but not to the person you’re lying to.
Truth & opinion
Some strange people often say something, and then end the phrase with “but this is just my opinion”. But don’t they want their opinion to be true?! Why say something without being certain about it? Why bifurcate the reality to a subjective “everyone has their own feelings about it”? Humans are different, but not to the point that there are alternate truths and realities.
When I say something, I am certain that it is true, whether it is so or I want it to be. Obviously I won’t say anything if I know what I say isn’t true.
P. S. If there is uncertainty, just say so.
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