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Writing and reading
I was reminded of the memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. I read it a few years ago, mostly because I found the title intriguing. What reminded me was this post from Herman Martinus, the developer and maintainer of Bear. He cited this passage from Murakami:“…I can’t grasp… Continue reading
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Why do we keep doing this?
I don’t know if it’s a uniquely American thing, or maybe a uniquely human thing, but damn, we fall for scams. All the time. Maybe it’s an off-the-charts ability that a few people have that make them able to come up with what they know is a lie, and get everybody within earshot to believe… Continue reading
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Contradictions
Terry Goodier’s essay The Boring Internet is all about the low level protocols that underpin Internet services. He points out that there’s nothing pretty or easy about protocols. And he points it out in a visual essay that’s lovely to see. The form of the essay and the form of its subject are a contradiction.… Continue reading
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Beauty…came too readily
There is a moment in To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, in which the moment before commencing a creative work is crystallized. “…she took her hand and raised her brush. For a moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstacy (sic) in the air. Where to begin?–that was the question at what point… Continue reading
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We must hold to what is difficult
Along with many of my former colleagues, I find myself unexpectedly “standing in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.” In our case today it’s due to a disembodied decision somewhere in an enormous organization. In the case of the author of that quotation, Rainer Maria Rilke, the transition belonged to Franz… Continue reading
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The mythos mode and the logos mode
Another deeply thoughtful essay this morning from Om Malik. You should read it! Malik begins by wondering why Anthropic called its new model Mythos. To even wonder about that, you have to understand some things about history, literature, and philosophy. I won’t explain Malik’s inquiry; that’s what his essay does brilliantly. It’s another example of… Continue reading
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Well whaddaya know
Everybody knows a lot more than they’re able to explain. There are some areas where language just isn’t adequate. For example, imagine trying to explain an aroma without referring to other smells. Without “it smells like…”, there’s not a lot you can do. Even though people have amassed countless pages of written information, and that’s… Continue reading
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The stepping stones and the flow
There are two kinds of digital places you can put your creations. In one of them, what you create remains and becomes a kind of stepping stone for crossing a stream. In the other, what you create disappears and becomes part of the stream, as if you’d poured a cup of water into a brook. … Continue reading
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The bills are starting to come due
The leading AI vendors are starting to remove the curtains around how many tokens you’re using and how much they cost. In large corporate settings, token cost has been effectively zero for individual practitioners. In my most recent corporate gig, I was strongly encouraged to make as much use of Codex and its ilk as… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer (among other things) located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. No surprise, she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity. You can also find some of my minor software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly write tiny utilities in Python.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com