Pylimitics

Simplicity rearranged

unmonetizable content since 1997


  • Good grief, Galah

    Winnie the Pooh was stumping his way along the path to Owl’s house one morning about eleven-ish. Yesterday Owl had said he had a new batch of seed cakes, and Pooh thought it would be a Very Considerate Thing To Do if he stopped by to see how the cakes were doing. And if he Continue reading

  • Sagittiferous AND sagittipotent!

    If you found yourself composing, say, a morning’s Harkening of the Day back in the late 1600s, you might want to mention Robin Hood. After all, the legend was alive in those days too, and (hard as it is to believe) it was a popular story even before the man himself was played by a Continue reading

  • March 3

    Miss Annabelle Winslow was born in Boston, Massachusetts on the eve of the Civil War. Living in Massachusetts, as she did with her family, she was not much affected by the events of the war, and as she was merely an infant and toddler throughout most of it, it’s not clear that she was even Continue reading

  • In which Roo doesn’t see no sticks

    Everyone in the Hundred Acre Wood had gathered at the bridge to watch the game of PoohSticks that Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore were going to play. There was Much Discussion about who might turn out to be the winner. Pooh, of course, had thought up the game in the first place, and everyone knew he Continue reading

  • Jade

    “Alphonse had, over the years, amassed a lovely collection of samples of jade and oriental jade carvings, but by the time he came across the carved dragon, he was so jaded he hardly glanced at it twice.”  There are not two, but three different “jades” in that sentence! The first thing to know about jade Continue reading

  • March 2

    March 2 has boasted some impressive engineering accomplishments over the years. There’s nothing particularly special about the date, at least as far as I know. It’s just a coincidence that various huge engineering projects have reached milestones on the same day of the year.  For instance, it was March 2, 1969 that the Concorde supersonic Continue reading

  • What’s another word for “the next boring post”

    When there’s a term that could be interpreted as troubling or offensive, we often employ a “euphemism” in its place. When you don’t want to come right out and say “Bonzo is the stupidest person I’ve ever met”, you can use a euphemism like “Bonzo is not the sharpest tool in the shed.” Euphemisms are Continue reading

  • Placeholder title.

    I think everybody (at least in the US) has heard of “John Doe”, the fictional name used in legal cases as a substitute for a real name that’s being kept secret. But “John Doe” is a lot older than you might think. In English law it goes back to at least the 1500s. A rulebook Continue reading

  • Sergei Kourdakov

    Sometimes, for some people, real life is pretty much like a movie. Sergei Likolayevich Kourdakov, who was born March 1, 1951, is one of those people. He was born in the Soviet Union, in the Novosibirsk Oblast. It’s in southwest Siberia. His father had been an eminent officer in the Soviet Army, and a strong Continue reading

  • March 1

    March 1 Being afraid is a bad experience. I’m not talking about nervousness, worry, or mild anxiety; I’m talking about real fear. The kind that shuts down your ability to think clearly. The kind that leads people to do things that, later, even they themselves can’t fathom. And more often than not, they feel regret. 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 Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but 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.

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peterharbeson@me.com