Essays
-
It’s about time
If human life spans were just a few months, we would think about the world entirely differently. Events we now ignore as too minuscule, if we even notice them, would take on far more importance. Projects that take a year or more would be enormous undertakings, like building a cathedral in Europe centuries ago. In… Continue reading
-
Also “gates” and “zucky”
There’s a saying, probably old: If you can’t spot the sucker at the poker table, you’re the sucker. And there’s another saying, which I think is pretty recent, at least in regard to computer security: Defenders have to be lucky every time. Attackers only have to get lucky once. Those sayings are obliquely saying that… Continue reading
-
19 and 20 and 25 Annotated
The unlinked version is here. The world is ending in death and cactus. Walking to the local hofgarten in broad daylight I can see ghosts clinging to the other people on the sidewalks; third members of each couple. T to the seashore to see tides diminished by blood and hear a screaming soaring across the… Continue reading
-
Beware the outsiders
Let’s talk about “proper English.” English is not a centrally-managed language; it’s a dynamic set of conventions, and for the most part as long as you can make yourself understood, it works. But there are also social assumptions about how you use English. One that’s drummed into many of us in elementary school is that… Continue reading
-
The last man in the Canterbury waste land
Cold misty rain, supposedly all week. it’s not a soaking rain, but the damp chill seems icier than even the silent cold days of midwinter. The forecast for the week is gray and dank; every day shows rain. I wonder how long weather forecasting will continue. I wonder about the mediocrity of “the world’s richest… Continue reading
-
The early days
The early days of personal computing were not that long ago. Part of those days was a tidal wave of innovation and creativity. There were whole categories of applications that I’m not sure even exist any more. For one thing, there were viable alternatives to the Excel spreadsheet de-facto monopoly, and at least several incorporated… Continue reading
-
The upside of AI
I am still pretty skeptical of large language models. I went pretty deep with them a couple of years ago, and most of what I found was either disappointing (in regard to LLM performance and capabilities) or annoying (in regard to all the marketing blather). In the ensuing months, I tended to discount the whole… Continue reading
-
Responsibility ain’t what it used to be
Sitting in the sun on a windy autumn day, the sun warming and the wind chilling. On the best days, when the textures of the season become leather and the colors creep into the real world from behind your eyelids, the warmth and the chill are in balance. It’s a comforting thing, balance. I don’t… Continue reading
-
The Calculation of Desire
It’s very difficult, recently, to escape the flood of news stories about artificial intelligence, many of them created by the latest version of artificial intelligence. “AI” is an initialism now recognized by far too many people. When I say “latest version” of AI, artificial intelligence has been around by that name since the mid-1950s, and… Continue reading
-
Autumn Time
Autumn has just begun in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the most interesting season, for me at least, and it has its own feeling. It’s hard to put words to that feeling. Hart Crane, about a century ago, wrote Fear: The host, he says that all is wellAnd the fire-wood glow is bright;The food has a… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.