Welcome to the Twilight zone

There are historical events that force us to question our very existence: 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, the Fukushima incident, and Twilight. What made that book series a global phenomenon was more enigmatic to me than what or who actually caused the September 11...

How to attack controversial matters: make them visible

A while ago TechCrunch picked up an ebook to suppress, not to promote, its sales because it dealt with a controversial topic: how to be a successful pedophile. The book did disappear, but not before its sales got boosted by 100,000% thanks to this unexpected PR boost...

A belated movie review: The Hurt Locker

(Note: There are many spoilers. But even if you haven’t seen the film, it only gets better once you understand what it is about. I will explain why.) The Hurt Locker, the 2009 movie that brought Kathryn Bigelow the first Oscar for a female director, does not allow the...

Do we prefer an endless game to a grand finale?

A technical writer's job is to write manuals and a manual's job is to solve chaos. Therefore, a technical writer’s job is to solve chaos. That has been the definition of my job for a long time, and in my fantasy I rank it as high as police officers and...

Cults are Us

I emphathize with cults but do not sympathize with them. I would like to dig into this issue. I define a cult as a (mostly) religious group that meets the following conditions: Its core belief is not widely known but nevertheless considered dangerous. Its primary...