Writers can learn a lot from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, an absolutely fascinating book that I cannot finish — Largely because I’m a hermit, I was only recently introduced to Neal Stephenson, who has been writing award-winning science-fiction novels and speculative fiction since I was in diapers. About a year ago, a friend recommended Stephenson’s Snow Crash. …

His Shawshank Redemption novella was my favorite of his so far, but it was still worse than the movie — I get it, these are fighting words. How dare I dislike this national treasure! No movie is better than the book! But while I won’t say that I’ll die on this hill, I will say that I’ve given up looking for reasons to like Stephen King’s books. You can say…

You Won’t Want to Miss Out on this ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY — Are you tired of hearing about “climate change”? Do you see through the liberal hoax that they call “global warming”? Have I got a deal for you! So-called “climate experts” and other liberal elites have been warning us for years about rising sea levels, super storms, and wildfires. …

How is William the Conqueror also behind this eccentricity in the English language? — I lived in Taiwan for nearly a year. I knew no Chinese when I went and learned disappointingly little while I was there, having associated mainly with other expats from America and Canada. My lack of progress was sad and I was embarrassed by it — I used to joke…

The initial-stress derivation rule that you have been using without knowing it — “When I start to record, it’s going to go on the record.” When you read that sentence, did your brain magically pronounce “record” in two different ways? This phenomenon is known as initial-stress derivation. It’s a rule that few people know, but everyone unconsciously uses. However, most descriptions of the…

You may have noticed a gaping hole in my productivity here on Medium. You probably didn’t, though. Who the hell am I, anyway? So you don’t have to look it up, it started on May 16, 2021, and lasted until 3 weeks ago when I rage-wrote about the overturn of…

There are no reasonable discussions about abortion anymore. Both sides are providing the obvious answer to completely different questions. The pro-choice side asks, “Should women get to choose what to do with their bodies?” The obvious answer is “yes.” The pro-life side asks, “Is murder wrong?” The obvious answer is…

They’re the best way to incentivize vaccinations and keep people safe — Welp, it happened again. In the grocery store, there was a man with his two middle school sons, strutting around without a mask on. The kids weren’t wearing one, either. He had a soul patch and his head was shaved and tattooed, so I may have been more surprised if…

It will eliminate the claim that an armed citizenry will stop repressive regimes — In February, there was a coup in Myanmar, one of the countries in southeast Asia. The military, known as the Tatmadaw and which had relinquished some of its absolute control in order to make the country seem more democratic, was soundly defeated in the 2020 election. So it announced that…