I think people would stop pirating things if they had enough money to legitimately buy them.

I just read a short while ago that Disney+ plans on actually enforcing its prohibition of sharing a password with someone else in the near future. This disclosure then led to a way in which you could still get away with sharing a password, and that was to bring your device over to the original WiFi that houses the account, stream something for a few seconds, and then you should be good to go for another 30 days as the device gets registered with the service. And then people started weighing in about torrenting and pirating, and how people will just go back to doing that so that they can just watch the things they like for free.

This got me thinking about pirating music, movies, television, comic books...and you name it. The first service I remember that allowed people to pirate things easily was Napster. I remember using it for the first time and thinking... "wow, I get all of these things for free?" Eh... it was all stolen, yes. But you didn't feel like you were stealing because you had the anonymity of the internet, so it's not like you walked into Sam Goody or Musicland and just walked out with a CD. But...essentially...it was really kinda like that.

I have a friend who still pirates, but he also struggles to pay his bills, and he doesn't have health insurance from his employer. He's the same age as me. I haven't pirated anything in decades. I basically pay for everything, but here's the thing: I had the money to pay for everything. That simple truth gave me an idea that I want to share. I think that the rise of pirating decades ago should have woken people up to the fact that people weren't making enough money, i.e., that wages were too low. It should have been "the smoking gun." There's lots of talk about this now in 2024. But there wasn't talk about this in the late 90's, and there should have been. All those years ago, people were struggling. That's why they were pirating things by and large. These people wanted better lives, access to things that brought them joy (like music), access to television shows and movies that they couldn't afford to see. I remember reading somewhere that the guy who created Napster did it so that he could have access to music that he didn't have the money to pay for. I don't think you can spell it out any better than that.

In 2024, I see article after article and news report after news report about how the American Dream is dead. The new generation of people are depressed because home ownership isn't realistic and costs are too high. Wages haven't kept up with prices, and on and on and on. The truth of all of this is that it isn't a 2024 phenomenon. For a really long time, many people haven't been making enough money to get by, and I think that the clearest indicator of this is in the rise of pirating videos, songs, books, and other such things. People actually would pay for those things if they could. I don't know why economists never looked at pirating and said, "You know...what we have here is not a theft problem. It's a wage problem. I bet pirating would go way down if people just got paid a living wage." But all you ever heard was "piracy is bad" and "you're stealing from artists" and other such things. What if instead of "piracy is illegal" running ahead of a video you're about to watch you (instead) got a message like "Not paying a living wage to your employees creates crime"? How do you think that would have reframed the discussion around piracy?

I feel like the United States solves things by reacting to them. If there's a fire you pour water on it to put out the fire. If you are overweight then you take a semiglutide or you go on a diet. Our system never looks at the causes of things. Oh there's a fire? Anyone see if there's an electrical problem that needs fixing? Oh we have an obesity problem? Anyone look to see if people actually have access to low calorie nutritious food and access to exercise? Oh there's a piracy problem? Anyone want to look and see if people are not making enough money at their jobs? Oh there's a fascist candidate running for president? Anyone want to look and see if the people who support him might also be authoritarian and fascist? It's like we are stuck in this never ending cycle of "treat the symptom" but don't "treat the disease." I'm not sure why we do this. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. If you have any comments to add, please do so.

I'm skipping Monday, but I'll be back on Wednesday with an IWSG post. See you then.

I think Lovecraftian storytelling elements can strengthen any story.

On the Lovecraft subreddit, I recently came across some recommendations for old school movies that have a Lovecraftian feel to them. Specifically, the list included notables of horror like John Carpenter's The Thing. But it also included a film I hadn't seen (and was interested in watching) called The Abominable Snowman. Starring Peter Cushing (as a young man), this 1950's black and white science fiction film entertained me. But I'm not necessarily saying it would entertain you, so there is no recommendation to watch it forthcoming. However, I definitely see the Lovecraftian elements in play, and I can understand why the people on the Lovecraft subreddit listed it as a film that used horror elements of which Lovecraft was famous.

In The Abominable Snowman you don't really get a view of the monster. This is (I think) key because the special effects of the time were so bad that showing something like that would make the monster "silly." So, kinda like in the movie Jaws where the shark remains mostly unseen for the majority of the film, you instead get this feeling of "something sinister is out there." Other Lovecraftian elements that sprinkle into the narrative of The Abominable Snowman remind me of the short story The Call of Cthulhu. 

In that short story, there's this mysterious statue of Cthulhu that gets described in loving detail, and it makes the reader question the minds of whomever made the thing in the first place. Who could have possibly made this statue and why? Those are important elements in a Lovecraft-type story. In The Abominable Snowman the setting is in some Tibetan town high in the Himalayan mountains. In this town, the people are all superstitious, and the head of the village is an old monk who serves as both a wise person and as a spiritual leader of his people. An expedition into the mountains comes back with a strange silver canister with writing all over it. Inside the cannister is a single artifact: a claw/nail from the finger of some creature. When the old monk is questioned, he says that the cannister is a precious religious artifact that was stolen, and as for the claw? That was a thing carved by monks a long time ago...carved from bone. It obviously doesn't belong to anything real.

But then (of course) you suspect that the guy is not telling the entire story. And that right there is Lovecraft in a nutshell. Exploiting what is unknown so that the mind starts to fill in the details is a kind of horror writing that I never was able to master. But I can appreciate it a lot when I see it. That (I think) has been the terrible tragedy of the Alien universe films: they try to explain too much. But with regard to Alien, I get it. I'm a fan of the films, and I had lots of questions. So the writers made films to answer the questions. But when we all got the answers, not everyone liked what we discovered. And now that Alien has gotten so infused into the cultural zeitgeist that it may be getting a Lego set soon... it's probably safe to say that it has gotten away from its Lovecraftian roots. But maybe I'm wrong. Afterall, I know that there are stuffed Cthulhu's that you can buy online, and every presidential election year the meme "Cthulhu for president! Why vote for the lesser evil!" makes its circulation.

It was a real shock for me then to discover that J.R.R. Tolkien is highly regarded as one of the most outstanding Lovecraftian writers of all time. I came across this tidbit in perusing the Rings of Power reddit. One person laid out examples of Lovecraftian horror all throughout Tolkien's stories. There's the nameless evils in the dark places of the world, and the eldritch terror of Sauron and Melkor. In particular, the drums in the deep section of Moria is packed full of Lovecraftian horror, and the ringwraiths (the Nazgul) are embodiments of that kind of inexplicable evil that really isn't explained all too well. They are just there, they are evil, and they are intelligent. The development of all of those nameless things by people playing in Tolkien's sandbox (much to the chagrin of uber fans of his) has been at a steep cost: knowing all the answers doesn't necessarily make for a better story. I (for one) always wanted to know the connection the elves seem to have with actual light, because I could never quite get there on my own, and I don't think Tolkien really knew either (in clinical detail). With the help of the other writers just literally spelling it out to me, e.g., without light elves fade and so does their kingdom and their immortality...I could finally see why light was so important. But now I do, so I'm happy. But others are actually mad about it, and they think that the writers for Rings of Power have shat all over Tolkien's legacy.

If I were writing a story now (presently I'm not), I think that there would be a question in my mind: To Lovecraft or not to Lovecraft? I believe that the answer to that should always be "to Lovecraft" simply because withholding information and creating unresolved questions is a great way to build tension in a story, and it's a great way to enlist a reader's imagination. Given just those two things it honestly doesn't seem to have a downside.

Actual explosions are more powerful than they are portrayed on television.

Explosions are a lot more powerful in real life than you see on television or in the movies. I was at home on Thursday, and I started to hear explosions. They came about once every thirty seconds or so, and they were rattling my windows, and I could feel the shockwave through the floor. I wondered, "What the hell is going on?" I went online and checked NextDoor. It turned out that the entire Salt Lake Valley from the point of the mountain all the way north to Davis county was feeling these explosions (that's about one hundred miles). The news had reported nothing at this point.

Eventually, the explosions stopped and the news finally reported that the explosions were the detonations of old equipment at the Tooele Army Depot on the other side of a mountain range called "The Ochre Mountains." Yes, you read that right. There's literally a mountain range in-between the Tooele Army Depot and the Salt Lake Valley. Additionally, my windows rattled where I live, and that's about fifty miles away from the Tooele Army Depot. Fifty miles!

My co-worker and friend, Leah, was flying into Salt Lake City and captured these photographs of the explosions that were shaking the ground.

You can kind of see the scale and the distance in these photographs. To me, these explosions look much smaller than anything "nuclear" that I've seen on television. They look smaller than that "mother of all bombs" or "MOAB" that Trump dropped on Afghanistan when he was president. Yet, they still shook my windows in a house a great many miles away and hiding behind actual mountains.

So, I guess I was kind of in awe of how powerful these explosions of weapons/munitions are. They are nothing like what you'd see on television. Real explosions are far deadlier and more destructive than the way in which they are portrayed, especially when you have people just slow walking away from an exploding structure behind them. There's literally no way that they could do that, and these explosions that were felt in the entire valley just validate my point.

Reading a Halo novel made me realize that the act of reading anything isn't necessarily better than watching tv.

I've been reading a book called Halo: The Fall of Reach. The reason I was reading it was that I was a fan of the now canceled series on Paramount + of the same name minus "The Fall of Reach." There are a few similarities between what we saw in the series, and what we got on Paramount +.  But the big ideas that are present in The Fall of Reach would have been super costly to pull off (I think) in a television series, and the series looked really good. The fight scenes were fantastic. But the space opera like space battles would have taken a Star Wars level budget, and I don't know if that was ever possible for this television show.

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking: have I ever picked up a book that basically explained exactly what it was in the title? I mean...it's about the fall of Reach to the Covenant, who are these super advanced aliens pushing humans to the brink of extinction. "Reach" is a critical planet in the human civilization, protected by all of the human forces, and housing humanity's most important shipyard facilities. The destruction of Reach is a terrible thing. But usually, in a title, it isn't so obvious, right? It would be like naming Return of the Jedi to The Emperor Dies in the End. That just seems kind of...I dunno...a bit "spoiler-iffic?" But what do I know?

The book itself is decent entertainment. It's a consumable for fans of the franchise. But it isn't high literature. Aside from telling you exactly what it is in the title, it seeks to introduce characters like John a.k.a. "The Master Chief" and "Kelly" (these two are both Spartans) and some military brass who you end up liking because they are very clever, and then a doctor named "Halsey" who is also clever if not a bit unscrupulous. None of the characters are ones you can really like, because they don't have much of a personality. However, they do kick ass and take names repeatedly, which I suppose is what you expect from the Halo franchise. And when you frame your story against the high stakes of Armageddon for humanity, does personality really count? All that matters is that you are good at your job. And there is some deep satisfaction at watching people who are good at their job just go to work.

I do have some criticisms in the reading of the book, though. All of the chapter heads have an official "date" thing and time of events printed in courier font to make it look like someone typed them as official orders, or record-keeping. These things added nothing to the read. But, I get it. The nerds who love Halo want to feel like this world of military "super people" is real. It just got a little bit annoying to slow down and commit to memory when (in the Halo timeline) the last chapter started so that you could say, "Oh, this is just a few hours more" or "wow, this is three years later--I guess nothing happened in that three years except military training." 

And there's also the obvious need to keep these books clean of sexual details and other kinds of things because the audience for the books dovetails to the younger side. The way you write books and stories like that is you provide tons of high stakes combat so that there isn't time to get to know anyone. To quote Jesse "The Body" Ventura in the old movie called Predator, this is the "I ain't got time to bleed" moments of storytelling.

So you have all of these characters with the bodies of Olympians and yet they don't have any sex, don't have any relationships, and don't do anything because they are always fighting. It would seem silly to ask: why are you always fighting? When it is clear that the reason for all of the fighting is that humanity has been pushed to the brink. Duh? Don't you get that? Geez... I find some of this as a convenient excuse for a writer to not have to invest anything in the characters other than "they are kick ass" and I'm going to write the ways in which "they kick ass."

Maybe I wouldn't notice these things if I hadn't gotten old. But who knows? I see a lot these days that makes it harder for a person to suspend disbelief. However, after having read The Fall of Reach, I think I'm more convinced than ever that books aren't a sacred thing. There's this oft repeated mantra that I've run into over the years where someone says, "Any reading is great. That person is at least reading." I disagree.

I literally see no difference in educational content to the pulp fiction of The Fall of Reach to any one of the many Star Wars series on Disney +. Sure, there are no moving pictures, and this kind of book may "stimulate your imagination." But any other benefits you might get from books is woefully absent here. Even Halo's satirical message of fascism buried behind patriotism doesn't seem to translate well unless you realize that "authoritarian rule bad!" and know what to look for. But it certainly doesn't come across as bad. Rather, it seems to come across as desirable. It is entertaining, and it does scratch a kind of itch. Maybe in the end all that matters is that we enjoyed ourselves on empty calories.

What is fandom?

What is fandom?

I started pondering this question, because I live with some gamers. They both are fans of a game called Warhammer 40K and are playing the new game Space Marine 2. I'm not interested in playing it, but I do know from interacting with other Warhammer fans (not just my roommate), that many fail to see the satire in a story about genetically bred superhumans enforcing a strict imperial rule...and then dying...for a literal corpse on a throne (the Emperor is essentially dead or it is strongly eluded to that he is a corpse that is falling apart). It seems obvious to me, but satire takes critical thinking ability to suss out and not everyone is capable of doing it. So you end up with large swaths of people who get excited over this grim dark world and believe that fascism is actually the "true way" to live. It's really weird.

The same thing happens in Star Wars and in Star Trek and in Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien fanbase doesn't like anyone even messing with Tolkien's notes, which he was using to create the story that he wanted to tell. But establishing all of those things with the Silmarils and the Palantirs and ancient Numenor and the Maiar and the Istari and etc. were all things that he wrote down in notebooks to help him (as an author) world build. It's completely arguable that the character of Tom Bombadil is just a silly stand-in for the author himself, much like the character of "Dungeon Master" in the old 80's cartoons of Dungeons & Dragons was just a stand-in (a wink and a nod) to the actual story teller that hosts a game. If this is the case, in the author was poking fun at himself, is it really so egregious to say that the character of Galadriel was a kick-ass warrior or that mithril contains within it the magical and undying light of a silmaril?

Here's my point: fandom at its most fundamental level is not about anything real. What it does do is it sucks people into it (the fandom) to such an extent that they end up spending a lot of time and energy pursuing a fantasy that comes at the very real cost of the time, energy, and attention they could be applying to their own lives. Some even neglect to make friends, further their careers, or take care of their own health. These people can also get caught up in fights where one person is a problematic fan because their fanart or fanfiction isn't popular, or their particular take shines a light upon unsavory traits (like racism and sexism). 

There is also (I think) a lot of mental illness in a fandom community, and the people who are part of a fandom could be trying to cope with said mental illness via some form of escapism. In a fandom, even mentally ill people can find a community, constant mental excitement, and the chance to explore something you don't have access to in a vicarious way. So what can happen is you get access to everything else that you can't get anywhere else. However, all of this comes at a cost: you end up with a bunch of maladjusted people collecting together, and in many ways, this isn't good because some illnesses like personality disorders can be somewhat contagious.

A lot of times too, a fandom can result in groupthink, sometimes quite negatively. People can literally be doxxed and have their lives ruined simply because they don't like the same thing as most of the rest of the fandom. Anyway, no matter what I think, fandoms are here to stay for good or for ill. I only recently started really thinking of them in this other light as I've been enjoying Rings of Power on Amazon. As a result, I've looked to understand more than what I already knew (which is considerable as I've read a lot of Tolkien), but the fandom is so utterly toxic. They say, "This is just fanfiction!" as if that were some kind of insult when really...anything not written by J.R.R. Tolkien himself (who has been dead for decades) is "fanart" or "fanfiction." What are they going to do when the entire thing eventually passes into the public domain? Have a complete and utter meltdown?

I guess the only thing I can do responsibly is to manage my own role in fandom, and that is to be as self-aware as possible and to not become some kind of gatekeeper touting the phrase: "This is the only correct way to do this." But as I've gotten older, I've realized that most people do not have open minds even if they say that they do. Those doors got closed a long time ago for whatever reasons, and it would benefit all of us to keep this in mind when becoming a fan of anything.

I finished Star Trek Discovery and I want to talk about it now.

I want to talk about Star Trek Discovery, and its final season which I just got around to watching. If you haven't seen the final season, you may want to tune out for this blog post as there will be spoilers ahead. 

First off, I really liked Star Trek Discovery. Yes, it was tonally different than other iterations of Trek that we've had before. But the themes of exploring and discovering things that I had never seen before was a part of this show from the very beginning. I mean, they gave us a space ship that could essentially teleport around to parts of the universe (all of this made possible through the power of mushrooms). So yeah...it was an adventure to where "no one has gone before."

I feel a little bad that Discovery did not get to end its run on its own terms. If you've seen the final season, it is a whirlwind of action and puzzle-solving that is very reminiscent of the best parts of Indiana Jones (only on a galactic scale). But after that is all said and done, the final episode continues in a way that reminded me of what happened at the ending of the Return of the King. Do you guys remember that? Going back to the Shire, Sam being married, old Bilbo and Frodo making their way to the Grey Havens, and on and on and on. It kept going for like an hour after Sauron met his doom.

This is the same tack that Discovery took with its series finale. It wanted to wrap things up so it showed us old Captain Burnham, her kid all grown up, and then sending the actual starship Discovery to deep space to just sit there waiting for something in the far future...all so that it could tie into the "short Trek" episode called Calypso. All of that seemed kind of forced, but it is difficult to make an ending land like it should. Very few series manage to pull it off. To date, I don't think there has been a series ending for any iteration of Trek that I've actually enjoyed (don't get me started on how awful I thought Deep Space Nine ended).

I also think (suspect) that certain characters didn't get their due. For example, the Breen Prince who died in season five (his name is L'ak) is one of these. I think he was going to get brought back. The reason why is that throughout all of Trek, we've had multiple revived dead people. One in particular happened in Discovery (the doctor) who was brought back to life thanks to the miracles of mushroom space. I think that it is likely that L'ak would have returned in season 6, but they just got canceled before that storyline could be fully resolved. This may be especially true since we see L'ak's body getting preserved indefinitely in the pattern buffer, otherwise, why would they have done that?

Since Moll was presumably recruited by Kovich to be a temporal agent, this could have been laying the groundwork for Moll attempting to use time travel to save/revive him or maybe get a brainscan since they were very specific that the Progenitor technology could make a clone but with no memories. If we had gotten a season 6, it's of course anyone's guess what we would have seen. But maybe Primarch Tahal of the Breen would have become the major antagonist since the succession was (as yet) unresolved.

This would have allowed the writers to construct a story around some Temporal Cold War McGuffin and maybe even a search for the original creators of the Progenitor tech. This major questline could revolve around the crew of the Discovery hopping between time periods with the events of Calypso being that Zora gets lost in the 23rd century and hence, it needed to wait 1000 years to return to the present day 32nd/33rd century. As well, Moll was probably going to have a redemption arc to give Michael a chance to come full circle and become a mentor to someone that was in her place. The season and the series would have ended with L'ak and Moll ascending the throne of the Breen Imperium and ushering in an era of peace between the Federation and the Breen.

But yeah...we got none of that because the show got canceled due to Paramount trying to sell itself to any buyer that will take it. The details of all of this is a long story and goes back decades to a man that bought Viacom using money he had lying around from owning several successful movie theaters in the New York area. His heiress wanted to unload the company, and I have no idea if they've been successful. I just know that a lot of shows got the axe because Paramount needed to slim down its production of new shows to make it more appealing for a huge multi-billion dollar deal.

But isn't there a proverb that goes: "When elephants fight it is that grass that suffers?" I think this saying is appropriate here. Multi-billion dollar deals are the elephants and the grass that suffers is the content that all of us love...the art and entertainment that gets done that actually makes up the business. If we had seen a season 6 of Discovery, I think its ending would have been great based on the things I've sussed out. But they didn't have that option, and it is what it is. Anyway, if you've stuck around this long, thanks for listening to my thoughts. If you have any you'd like to share, please post them in the comments below. 

This clip from Strange New Worlds season 3 is really funny.

About a month ago, one of the conventions (I don't know which) aired a clip from season 3 of Strange New Worlds that I really liked. It's funny if you know the characters. Otherwise the humor probably doesn't land right. But given that this is season 3, I'd think that the people who watch said scene are probably invested in this show and will get the humorous sub-context that underlies everything that you're seeing in it.

It's only a clip here, so there is little context to the details of the mission. Additionally, a lot of questions are apt to pop up in the minds of viewers like myself (or you). For example: Why is Pike carrying a weapon? Is there some threat that awaits them? Another hidden gem is the serum not working on Pelia. Played by Carol Kane, Pelia is a delight as the chief engineer. She has fantastic comedic timing, and it's just wonderful to see her again as I've very much enjoyed the other roles in which she takes.

Also, Pike's hair as a Vulcan is pretty epic. It's been a note of discussion on Reddit forums at how good Anson Mount's hair looks when he's playing the role of Christopher Pike. So to see his hair get this kind of "do" is a real crowd pleaser. I love it. And Ethan Peck (Gregory Peck's grandson and the actor who plays Spock) does an amazing job in the clip showing an "internal scream." His look seemed to me to say, "This is high school all over again. Shit."

Anyway, if you get a moment (or five) take a look at the embedded clip below. It's great.

Bear McCreary scored the Old Tom Bombadil song from Fellowship of the Ring and made it a masterpiece.

Some inventions emerge perfect into the world just the way they are, and they shouldn't be messed with. One such example is the button on a shirt. There is nothing wrong with the button, whether it snaps or gets pushed through an eyelet. One way in which this is getting messed with in modern times is people making clothing that has magnetic buttons. So you have these buttons on the placket of the shirt and they come together via magnetic force. Whoever thought of this is someone who doesn't wash clothes. A magnet will stick to the drum inside a washing machine and keep the shirt from getting clean. The same goes for drying them out. If you have a shirt that has magnetic buttons, it will have a more difficult time getting dry because it will stick to the inside of the dryer.

However, there are other inventions that absolutely get better when someone takes a stab at them and decides, "I can improve on this."  Take for example the old "Tom Bombadil" song that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote. Here's a few of the lyrics that appear in Lord of the Rings:

Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.

Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,

Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,

There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,

Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water...

I hated coming across all of these songs in Tolkien's fantasy works when I was a kid. Sometimes, I would skip them completely and just go on to the next place where the story picked up. But, I'm glad that Bear McCreary did not think the same thing as me. He took this Old Tom Bombadil song and scored it, and the results are below (you should give it a listen). When I heard it for the first time, I was like...okay...this is amazing. It is a brilliant and beautiful use of Tolkien's words.

If there's a lesson to be learned here it is this: not everything can be improved upon, but sometimes it is desperately needed.

In the September IWSG post I reflect on my most frustrating educational tidbits that I struggle with when I write.

The band Greenday has a song with a line in the lyrics that says, "Wake me up when September ends..." I've also heard of the term "the September Scaries," which I don't quite understand. I think September is a wonderful month. The days aren't as long, which means that I'm not prematurely awakened by sunlight peeping in through my curtains (I'm pretty sensitive to light) in the morning. The intense 100 degree heat of the summer has cooled to something a lot more moderate, and the nights aren't so cold that you need to turn the heat on (at least around here they are not). I love September.

And with expressing that sentiment, I'm moving on to the Insecure Writer's Support Group post. This is a blogfest that I participate in and the rules below come from their website, which you can find HERE.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do y'all post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. This is when you should post your thoughts on your own blog. Alternately, you could talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. You could discuss your struggles and triumphs, or offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. If you want to grow your own blog, this is a great time to network.

The X (Twitter) handle for the IWSG is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the September 4 posting of the IWSG are Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando!

Now, every month, the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!

September 4 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?

I'm pretty old, so I'm going to answer this not from an English class per se, but as one who learned to type on a conventional (electronic) typewriter. A thing that messed me up for a long time was two spaces after a "period" and using the "tab" key. You should never use "tab." However, there are some things from my English class that I've since tossed as well. One of these is "never start a sentence with the word 'And.'" Another is to avoid the use of 'very.' I agree that it is a weak adverb, but people use it all the time. I also think that avoiding weak writing doesn't matter as much as it used to (dangling preposition which is also okay now). Readers don't seem to care anymore unless you are writing for a certain standard of reader (a highly educated one). So, know your audience (I guess) is the best advice I have to give on this. 

Thank you for coming by my blog, and I look forward to networking with you.