In Frank Herbert's Dune novels, there's a historical footnote that plays in one of the underlying themes of the series. There was a time in the history of humanity, still in our future, when humanity dev thinking machines, computers with human-like minds that quickly replaced human labor in almost every sense. In Herbert's vision, this leads to a brief utopia for humanity. But it doesn't last, because very quickly "people became slaves to other men with machines".

I want to talk about junk food. You know, the candy bar that tastes really good but does absolutely nothing for your body's nutritional needs. The thing that makes the candy bar bad is not what it has - it's not the fat or the salt or the sugar or the calories. What makes junk food bad is what it doesn't have. Junk food lacks essential ingredients that our bodies require in order to be healthy, strong, fit, and eventually even to just survive. A person eating a diet consisting entirely of junk food would eventually starve to death (the technical term is malnutrition).

"Tell me about the aliens, Daddy." Juliya was a young girl, maybe six years old, perched on the seat of her father's combine, with her hands on the steering wheel like she was ready to drive off into the field herself. She was bright for her age, or at least her daddy and her teachers said so.

I want to tell you about The Newsroom. In many ways it might be the greatest American television show ever made. But it may also just be another ordinary television drama.

There are a lot of different skills required to write a novel. Technical facility with the language is perhaps one of the most basic (and most commonly ignored in today's age of instant digital self-publishing). Character development is another and worldbuilding is yet one more. There are myriad more, and plenty of community college writing classes dedicated to teaching them, so there is no need to describe them all here.

[satire]
Homeless people are a big problem. They look bad. They smell bad. They talk bad. They scare us.
[/satire]

But really, homelessness is a problem and it's on the rise. Unemployment and underemployment contribute to foreclosures and broken leases, forcing people and whole families to live on the street. And when you're living on the street, things as simple as a toilet or a shower are just pipe dreams, nevermind the hope for a warm bed and clean clothes.

You might think for a nerd and avid reader, I might have read J. R. R. Tolkien's "masterpieces" much earlier in life. You'd be wrong, of course, because I had other masterpieces to read and I was always more interested in science fiction (or science textbooks) and found the fantasy genre in general to be somewhat less interesting to me.