Pylimitics

Simplicity rearranged

unmonetizable content since 1997

  • Frankly

    Quite frankly, it’s not immediately clear why “frankly” should mean open and honest. It has nothing to do with a truthy guy named Frank, after all.  The word arrived in Middle English somewhere near 1300 from the French “franc,” which at the time did not yet have to do with monetary currency. Instead, in both… Continue reading

  • Inglenook

    You may have seen a brand of wine called “Inglenook.” You may have heard of Inglenook, California — which, by the way, is not where Inglenook Wine is produced. You may have heard of Inglenook, Pennsylvania, which also doesn’t produce any wine. There’s even a logic puzzle called “inglenook sidings;” the puzzle is to shuffle… Continue reading

  • March 12

    You’ve heard of the Great Resignation. The Big Quit. As Andrea Hsu wrote, “Many [people] are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time.”  Hsu, like most others, attributed the Great Resignation to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Maybe the pandemic was the proximate cause; the trigger. But take… Continue reading

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  • In which Rabbit wears a Mask

    Winnie the Pooh was tidying up the pots of honey in his cupboard one day when there came a knock at his door. He stumped over and opened it only to be quite startled by who — or what — was on his doorstep. It was an animal that looked mostly like Rabbit, except for… Continue reading

  • Viatic ubication

    I bet you didn’t know that if you have trouble determining your own ubication, you might not be in possession of a strong viatic urge.  “Ubication” and “viatic” are at least obscure and probably obsolete words, but they go together pretty well. “Viatic” means anything related to travel. “Viatic” has the same root as “via,”… Continue reading

  • Yclept

    Old English isn’t so much an older version of English as a completely different language. It was much more completely Germanic than modern English is completely anything. Nobody knows quite how old it is, but it died out over a thousand years ago. Although it’s one of the main sources of modern English, it operates… Continue reading

  • Vannevar Bush

    If you ever use that World Wide Web thing, you should give a tip of your hat to Vannevar Bush, who was born March 11 1890. He was an engineer, inventor, and writer, and evidently an extremely capable administrator in both government and the private sector. Although he didn’t invent it, exactly, he wrote the… Continue reading

  • Tinker Talk

    A “tinker” is (or was) an itinerant craftsman who would travel from village to village fixing metal utensils — pots, pans, kitchen knives, and the like. They were generally held in pretty low repute, and tended to be ready targets for derision.  The profession is obsolete nowadays (nobody mends metal utensils; we just buy new… Continue reading

  • March 10

    Generally speaking, people are pretty social. We find ways to join together in all sorts of ways. Family groups often stick together, whether they’re the nuclear families of very recent invention or various forms of clans. Children of similar ages play together. People organize clubs, organizations, bands, orders, associations, crews, teams, and circles. But there… Continue reading

  • In which “Pillaloo” is Invoked

    Rabbit, because he had such big ears, was the first to hear the Strange Sound carried on the breeze through the Hundred Acre Wood. “What was that?” he said suddenly.  Eeyore, who also had very sensitive ears, said “probably mud.” Pooh hadn’t heard anything, so all he said was “What was what, Rabbit?” Piglet had… 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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