Skipping school isn't a crime. It's an infraction. They're totally different.

The opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind.

It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

These days, tales of what Facebook did with its users during the singularity are commonly used to scare naughty children in Wales.

It's part of a cycle of stories I'm writing where I deconstruct classic science fiction.

Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free—and we're not. Guess who's winning the "war on terror?