I barely remember the actual story in cryptonomicon, but his tangents on who fucked who in Greek mythology, how to eat cereal with a beard, how to assemble a Linux distro with such an obtuse user interface as to defeat Van Eck Phreaking, or Plato's cave are absolute gold.

It's a joke in my household that I often say "there's great a chapter on that in Cyrptonomicon" given basically any topic.

I learned so many random bits of information from that book.. Just the amount of work that goes into laying underwater fiber!

He wrote a article about it later (or before?)

https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Great read!

That was a really thick issue of Wired. I still have it.

I've forgotten most of the content of cryptonomicon -- I should re-read it -- but that "abandon shit" joke will probably never leave my brain.

You might enjoy The Saga of WalMart from DODO.