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Not a culverin
“Slang” is nonstandard language. In some circles slang is considered worse than just nonstandard; the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “A species of cannon; a serpentine or culverin.” Oops, no, that’s what “slang” meant in the 1500s. I should have used this: “A long narrow strip of land.” Oh, drat; not that one either.… Continue reading
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Maria Branyas
If you’re anywhere near Catalonia, in Spain, you might think about stopping by today to wish Maria Branyas a happy birthday. She’s 117 today. Really. She’s the oldest person in the world. Although she’s Spanish, she was born in San Francisco, California in — get this — 1907! Her family had moved there from Catalonia… Continue reading
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March 4
March is Women’s History Month, so I think it’s a good time to have a brief look at some of the women in the history of March 4, specifically. It was March 4, 1917 that Jeannette Rankin became the first female member of the US House of Representatives. She was actually the first woman to… Continue reading
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The Argues
The next time Dog met Flash the Barn Cat was in Hare’s meadow. Flash was sitting on a stump talking to Magpie. “I’ve heard about something like that,” Magpie was saying. “The last time Coriolus passed this way he mentioned something about it. He said he and his vee…that’s Lucky, Spruce, and Bruce…they saw some… Continue reading
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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
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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
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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
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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
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!
Recent Posts
- Hang on, I’m busy
- Sometimes it’s not an improvement
- Do not call your friend…
- Once more, into the breach
- Be Here Now. And Sit.
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Chocolatiana
Essays
History, sort of
Immorality
Incompetence
Quotations
Resistance
Stories
Tales from the Forest
Technicalities
Tragedy
Unanticipated Consequences
Privacy policy
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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com