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“Exceptionalism”
For a long, long time “American exceptionalism” has been a jingoistic slogan generally used to tout some way in which the US is touted as better in some way than anywhere else. But “exceptional” doesn’t really mean “better.” It means different. Adam Bonica did some interesting math to illustrate the current state of American exceptionalism.… Continue reading
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Personal Software
AI coding assistance makes it possible (even relatively easy) to create applications for your own personal use. They can be weird, quirky, and “missing features.” It won’t have all those dozens of menu items, hundreds of icons, and thousands of features that commercial software contains in order to cater to every possible customer. Because there’s… Continue reading
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Let me get this straight…
Advocates of the second amendment have used, as one of their justifications for why there should be no restrictions on guns, that they need to be able to fight back in case the government sends armed thugs into their communities. Now that the government is sending armed thugs into communities around the country (and killing… Continue reading
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Doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome…
Why do reporters (and editors and news organizations in general) continue to simply tell us what the orange baby regime says?? From the object in charge to every single craven toady, if the mouth is moving, the entity is lying. I do not care what they say. What they say makes no sense, is usually… Continue reading
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Message To ICE
With a nod to Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey: Get the fuck out of my country. Continue reading
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The rat in the house
“January 6, 2021 was the most shameful day in American history. It should live in infamy, as should the traitor who refused to accept the election results and incited the attack on the U.S. Capitol — Donald J. Trump.“ Continue reading
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Needs, wants, and habituated illusions
I need a car. Well, no, I don’t need a car. What I need is a way to travel locally, farther and faster than I can walk, while carrying passengers and goods. I can unpack that even more: I need goods (like groceries) that I choose, stockpiled in small quantities in my home, with the… Continue reading
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It’s all distraction
The orange baby knows the Epstein files have its name all over the place. All it cares about is itself. All it’s worried about is the Epstein files. It’s willing to do anything to change the story, because changing the story is how it has managed to survive for decades. It won’t work forever, but… Continue reading
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Oh great, another year of this
The orange baby seems to enjoy starting off its calendar years by presenting new evidence of how subhuman and despicable it is. It attempted a coup a few years back, on January 6. The US turned out to be a little bit too resilient for it, so the 2026 subhuman atrocity was aimed elsewhere. Like… Continue reading
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This explains a lot
I’ve often been baffled by economists, who comport themselves as super-smart academics who have everything figured out, but in practice make claims that are absurd, predictions that are incredibly, obviously stupid and wrong, and analyses built on unreasonable, imagined bases. In today’s post, Paul Krugman (an economist with the distinction of having won the fake… 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 newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
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