A journalistic and literary trope I increasingly despise: creating an elaborate and evocative metaphorical description of something without naming what it actually is, often with the side-effect of making a rather mundane technicality sound all gee-wiz and confusing rather than enlightening the reader. E.g., Mike's booting up a copy of Windows in a VM:

His first step is defensive: the creation of a software shield that will hide his identity. He boots up a computer containing a version of Windows that’s cut off from the rest of the machine. It’s a digital Russian doll, a computer within a computer.

Yeah, OK, we get it. Windows running in VirtualBox or Parallels or VMWare or whatever. Yeah, it's a security measure. But if a guy's engaged in laboriously sculpting mother earth with an implement of ancient design comprised of planar forged ores fastened to the end of a sylvan shaft, just call a fucking spade a spade and tell us he's digging a hole in dirt.

The language doesn't serve to inform, it conceals. And in this case, the security isn't necessary to protect the identity of the VM, unlike the elaborate description of Mike's apartment silo.