Author: the Author
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A good neighbor doesn’t make life perfect. They just make it possible.
What makes a good neighbor? For me, it starts with awareness — not the kind of nosy awareness that peeks through curtains, but the kind that quietly recognizes you share space, air, and time with others. A good neighbor knows when to wave and when to leave someone alone. They understand that silence can be…
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The Shallow End of the Human Pool
Ask anyone to list what they care about.Most will start earnestly: family, friends, health, happiness.Then, when pressed—what else?—there’s a pause. They might mumble music, movies, travel, or my dog. And that’s it. For all the hours spent scrolling, streaming, and speaking of “passion,” the actual list of things that command sustained attention is remarkably short.…
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The Myth of Progress: Why Ancient Humans Were Exactly Like Us
We moderns live under a comforting delusion — that we are the culmination of a grand story called progress. We look back on the people of 1,000 or 10,000 years ago as primitive: simple-minded, superstitious, and emotionally undeveloped. We talk about “ancient man” as though he were another species, fumbling toward the light of civilization…
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Quantum Entanglement & Instant Communication: How My 2014 Prediction Holds Up in 2025
In 2014, I made a bold forecast: By 2040, information will be communicated instantaneously using technology derived from quantum entanglement. Now, in 2025, let’s examine how close we are to this futuristic vision—and whether quantum mechanics will truly revolutionize global communication. The Prediction: Instant Communication via Quantum Entanglement Quantum entanglement—a phenomenon Einstein famously called “spooky…
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The Great Housing Flip That Never Was
There’s a popular conspiracy theory circulating online — that venture capitalists are buying up all the houses just to “flip” them for astronomical profits, locking ordinary people out of homeownership. It’s the kind of theory that fits perfectly into our collective anxiety about inequality: the rich snapping up what little is left of the American…
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If We Stop, Someone Else Won’t: The Myth of Lost Progress
Every few years, a government cuts a program, a company shutters a lab, or a university quietly ends a line of research. The announcement always sounds like a funeral: “A sad day for science.” “A step backward for innovation.” “We’ve lost our edge.” But that narrative assumes civilization operates as one unified project. It doesn’t.…
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The Nightlight Paradox: When “Off” Wastes More Than “On”
There is a small, almost laughably trivial irony flickering in bedrooms and hallways across the modern world. The humble LED nightlight—our technological evolution of the soft-glow plug-ins of childhood—often uses more electricity when the light is off than when it’s on. It’s true. When the light detects dawn or ambient illumination, it dutifully extinguishes its…
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In Praise of the Spaghetti Wall: Why Humanity Needs Its Failures
There is a cynical comfort in dismissing failed ideas. “Another waste of time,” we say, as we scroll past a new gadget that flopped, a social movement that fizzled, or a startup that burned through its funding. We treat these failures as clutter — the debris field of human overconfidence. But the truth is far…
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The Price of Permission: America’s Health Insurance Illusion
There is something almost theatrical about American health insurance. It dresses itself in the language of markets and choice, yet performs more like a state religion—complete with tithes, rituals, and a priesthood of billing specialists. The smallest of its rituals is the copay: that tiny offering we drop into the coffer each time we step…
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Roundabouts and the Death of the Traffic Circle — A Lesson in Civility, Engineering, and Common Sense
There is a special kind of driver who believes they are the master of the road, confident in their knowledge, certain of their skill, and unshakable in their belief that all circular intersections are the same. These are the people who still call a modern roundabout a “traffic circle.” Bless their hearts. They are the…
