Taking nothing away from the article itself, this bit rubbed me the wrong way:
> A simple little mental test is just to quickly imagine a European scene from that era. Now: was the sun shining? Of course not.
It strikes me like one of those "follow the ball" scenes in which a multitude of other things happen, but you're not paying attention because you're focusing on the ball. The state of the sun didn't matter for the details I was imagining. If I had been asked "Now: was it nighttime?" the answer would have been the same: no, of course not. I wasn't thinking about the sky.
> A simple little mental test is just to quickly imagine a European scene from that era. Now: was the sun shining? Of course not.
It strikes me like one of those "follow the ball" scenes in which a multitude of other things happen, but you're not paying attention because you're focusing on the ball. The state of the sun didn't matter for the details I was imagining. If I had been asked "Now: was it nighttime?" the answer would have been the same: no, of course not. I wasn't thinking about the sky.