Don’t read this if you don’t want to get mad

Avi Selk, on the Washington Post

The major reason to use two spaces, the researchers wrote, was to make the reading process smoother, not faster.

I have to say I agree with Khoi Vinh on this one. This article got me mad, and the whole idea is so ridiculous to me that I had to link to it.

Why not three spaces after each dot? Why not only use m-dashes to separate sentences? Why not capitalise the whole first word of every sentence? There is a fine line between comfort and style, and for me this line is called design.

If two spaces after a dot made the reading experience slightly better for some, it appears like systematic typos to me, or as pompous provocation from the writer. This doesn’t improve my reading experience at all, on the contrary, it distracts me and I end up ranting about it.