Pylimitics

Simplicity rearranged

unmonetizable content since 1997

  • Dust River Valley

    Wilfred Cummings first visited the Dust River Valley when he was 17, on a camping trip. The place stayed in his mind the rest of his life, and he visited six more times, when he was 23, 37, 47, 53, 61, and 79. On his first trip he was suffering from a rash on his… Continue reading

  • In which it might not be O, but it is K

    Owl was just putting away his morning paper — which was a sheet of paper he took out every morning to place carefully on the table beside his breakfast — when there was a sharp rapping at his door. “Goodness sakes,” he said to himself, “the intonation of that rapping put me in mind of… Continue reading

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  • Coyly, now

    Pay attention, if you can, without batting an eye. That is, don’t play baseball with your eyelids. No, wait, that’s not right. Don’t flap your eyelids like bat wings…er…but that’s not how bats fly, as far as I know. What I mean is…well never mind that; let’s figure out what’s going on with “batting eyes.”… Continue reading

  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel

    Some of the features of the infrastructure of the modern world include bridges with very wide spans, tunnels under rivers, standardized railroads, ships driven by propellers, ships that are really big and made of steel…I could go on. An amazing number of these were first designed and built by one man: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who… Continue reading

  • In which questions and pestions are Explained

    Otter was helping Tigger help Kanga with baby Roo. Otter and Tigger were great friends, and that made Roo misbehave a bit because he was jealous. He was also Tigger’s friend, of course, and Otter’s too, but he worried about being left out of something. Roo wasn’t sure what he thought he might be left… Continue reading

  • Clanging and tooting

    If you have a “kitchen with all the bells and whistles,” you have all the accessories and appliances that most people can think of — but even without them, it’s still a kitchen. “Bells and whistles” can be found in practically any field. Here’s an unusual application from 2010: “One would think that most chief… Continue reading

  • The Original Powerful Hollywood Actress

    Industries change, and one of the ones that has changed the most is the motion picture industry. In the early days of the US film industry, in 1909, an early star named Mary Pickford appeared in 51 films. In those days a “movie” was a short, monochrome, silent pantomime that only took a few days… Continue reading

  • In which Christopher Robin is Nidifugous

    Winnie the Pooh was stumping along the path to Piglet’s house when he heard someone say “hello”. “Hullo,” he said, looking around to try to see who he might be talking to. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it,” said the voice. “Well,” said Pooh, “it’s turning into a puzzling sort of day.” “Don’t you like… Continue reading

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  • Who knows

    There’s something out of kilter about the way we use the word “kilter.” The word’s first appearance in print was around 1600, and for about a century before that it was “kelter.” Both kilter and its immediate predecessor “kelter” mean “in good order or good condition.” But various dialects of English have had different meanings… Continue reading

  • Donald Barthelme

    Have you ever read a story by Donald Barthelme? The odds are you haven’t; Jacob Appel (a literary critic) described him in 2010 as “the most influential unread author in United States history.” Barthelme was born April 7, 1931, and died pretty young at 58 in 1989. He published more than a hundred short stories,… 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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