Popular Mechanics • February 15, 2023

Prison Islands Are Desolate, Lonely Places—And Their History Is Just as Bleak

What happens when an island is taken over, turned into a prison or penal colony, and later left deserted?

itch.io • February 1, 2023

No Substitutions: A Browser Game About Cooking

This is a word substitution game made for Gaming Like It's 1927. Explore eight real passages from a "domestic science" book, then swap out words found elsewhere in the book.

Popular Mechanics • February 24, 2022

Get to Know Occam's Razor, the 'Only Thing That Distinguishes Science From Religion'

Occam’s razor is a figure of speech and fundamental idea that helps us remember the value of simplicity. Scientist Johnjoe McFadden's recent book follows the man himself and his outsize impact on centuries of science to come.

Unwinnable • December 27, 2021

The Best Books of 2021 | Unwinnable

Kazuo Ishiguro is a wonder, telling stories that often tilt toward allegory about the forward march of time. In 2021’s Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro combines the fable-like dreaminess of The Buried Giant with the dystopia of Never Let Me Go.

Popular Mechanics • July 31, 2020

Hot New Medicine: This 1,000-Year-Old Mixture of Garlic, Onion, Wine, and Cow Bile

Scientists are studying a millennium-old medicinal recipe they say might be able to kill some antibiotic-resistant bacterial structures: onions, garlic, a splash of wine, and cow bile.

Popular Mechanics • July 21, 2020

Science Confirms Plato's Theory: Earth Is Made of Cubes

New research shows a Platonic ideal may be true after all: The world may primarily break into cubes, and not just in Minecraft.

Popular Mechanics • January 3, 2020

Tons of Great Books, Movies, and Music Just Entered the Public Domain

On January 1, a new batch of copyrighted materials entered the public domain. For 20 years between 1998 and 2018, the U.S. release of public domain works was suspended following a grim corporate lobbying campaign by the Walt Disney Corporation.

Unwinnable • December 2, 2019

The Design Element of Surprise

Disguised traps and pitfalls are a defining trait of the dungeon crawler or traditional roguelike game, but they’re just the latest expression of a tale as old as the art forms themselves.

Nerd Much? • November 24, 2019

33 Best Robot Books of All-Time (2019)

An unranked reading list of 33 books about robots, including the first appearances of robots in fiction.

Popular Mechanics • November 23, 2019

To AI, or Not To AI: Artificial Intelligence Helps Define Shakespeare

The MIT Technology Review reports that a scientist claims he knows for sure where Shakespeare ends and his long-suspected collaborator begins. Petr Plecháč used machine learning to train an algorithm on the works of William Shakespeare and another writer named John Fletcher.

Nerd Much? • October 6, 2019

33 Best Horror Books of All-Time: The Ultimate List

In time for Halloween, a list of 33 all-time-great horror books, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties.

Nerd Much? • September 29, 2019

33 Best Cyberpunk Books of All-Time

Riding the cyberpunk revival of the 2010s, a list of cyberpunk novels and anthologies from the 1960s to today, including legendary writers as well as emerging ones. Every world culture has its reaction to and fresh take on cyberpunk because of how well the genre adapts to what any given society is doing to its citizens at any given time.

Amazon • September 15, 2019

Palmistry: Discover What Secrets Lie in the Palm of Your Hand

Palmistry is a primer on palm reading, from the famous heart line to the details of hand shape, finger length, planetary alignment, and more. • Details on major and minor lines, each finger and its mounts on the palm, and other features like travel lines and bracelets. • Interior pages are vivid and bright with photos, historical art, and illustrations

Amazon • August 1, 2018

Learn to Code Kit (4 Books and Downloadable App)

I wrote the three included history and teaching books, created dozens of animated characters and background tiles, and designed the block language used in the app.

Amazon • August 1, 2016

Brain Games: Extreme Word Search

With over 110 extremely challenging puzzles, this spiral-bound book will stimulate your brain like no other word search collection! Inside you'll find shaped and 3D puzzles as well as extended traditional puzzles, all on a variety of themes. Themes include add-a-letter anagram puzzles, foreign language puzzles, and deep dives into subjects like wine grapes and states in Mexico.

Amazon • August 5, 2015

Presidential Humor: Quotes, Stories & Jokes

This short book contains hundreds of quotes and anecdotes from U.S. Presidents, sorted into chapters with nonpartisan themes. Interspersed are vignettes and short essays about specific Presidents, like Nathaniel Hawthorne's fawning biography of President Franklin Pierce, why President John F. Kennedy is accused of killing the hat industry (what was he, a Millennial?), and President Andrew Johnson's hangovers.

Amazon • March 30, 2015

Brain Games: Bible Word Search

The challenging puzzles in Bible Word Search combine a mental workout with your favorite scriptures. This spiral bound puzzle book contains 84 word-search puzzles. Puzzles focus on Bible books, scripture quotations, and general themes and motifs of the Bible.

Medium • October 31, 2018

Crafted With Love: Beyond H.P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft is one of the most profound influences on everything we think of as horror today. If you love his stories, and more importantly the influence his stories have had, I’d like to share a lot of other stories, ideas, events, legends, movies, and more that have some of the same themes: paranormal investigation, loss of sanity, cults, unfathomably big ideas, and much more.

Medium • October 22, 2018

Chris Kohler’s Book of LoFFVe

An interview with Kotaku's Chris Kohler about his book Final Fantasy V, published by Boss Fight Books. Kohler's book details his youth as a cartridge and rom hacker in order to get to games like FFV, which you could only find in Japan at the time. His pursuit of these games shaped the writer and journalist he's become.

Medium • October 22, 2018

The Particular Worldbuilding of Allegra Goodman

Novelist Allegra Goodman set her beautiful novel The Chalk Artist in a high-pressure game studio like the ones making the news constantly in 2019. We spoke via email about her research, decisions, and depiction of a fictionalized major game developer whose game smothers the lives of players and creators.