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Vril
There’s a story about Germany in the 1930s that may or may not be true, although it’s pretty unlikely that anybody is ever going to find out which it is. The story goes that there was an organization called the “Vril Society” (“society” was probably in German) that was involved in — or maybe responsible Continue reading
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Valentine’s Day Prep
Valentine’s Day is coming up this week, and as an excellent representative of the American commercial holiday it has a logo, metric tons of merchandising, and a simple theme: love. But is it so simple? “Love” is one of the most discussed and written-about notions around, and if you count popular music in the last Continue reading
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The bailiwick that’s up your alley
If someone is asked a question about an area they know nothing about, they might reply that it’s “not in their bailiwick”. Nowadays, at least, it also carries the connotation that “it’s not my job”. For some reason, there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding phrase “yes, that’s right in my bailiwick” — maybe this Continue reading
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Runcible spoons and sporks and foons
It’s obvious to everyone in Western culture what forks and spoons are. There is also a combination implement that’s sort of a “serrated” spoon. It’s nowhere near as recent an invention as most people think, nor is it entirely settled that it should be called a “spork,” which is the most popular term for it. Continue reading
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February 10
A wedding is a rite that goes back to antiquity in some form in many cultures. It often features elaborate rituals, special clothes for the couple being united, and some sort of public proclamation of the union. The couple involved is most often, and traditionally, and man and a woman. But that’s not always the Continue reading
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A bill of bills
If you hear someone complain that they were “sold a bill of goods,” what they mean is they were conned or swindled. The phrase doesn’t really make a lot of sense on its face; the literal meaning of a bill of goods is simply that it’s a list of items — not even necessarily involved Continue reading
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It’s just a phase
The moon has phases, a big construction project can have phases, you might phase in a new lesson plan in school or a new budgeting system in a business, and while that might leave some practitioners unphased, others, disturbed by the changes, would be more correctly described as “fazed.” “Phase” has a long history, and Continue reading
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Kevin Warwick
If you think items you read like AI-this or AI-that, or cyborg robots, or even Elon Musk’s plan to implant computer chips in people are actually news, let me introduce Kevin Warwick, whose 70th birthday is today. Warwick was born in Coventry, England, and earned a PhD at Imperial College, where he stayed on as Continue reading
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February 9
Have you seen the 2021 movie Don’t Look Up? It’s pretty good, although as a metaphorical satire it’s a bit heavy-handed. But the title makes me think — everybody looks up. Looking up, to the sky, or the clouds, or the vee of the migrating geese, or the contrail of the jetliner you might wish Continue reading
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In that groovy groove
The English language gained a number of odd words in the 1960s. One of them is groovy. Er, that is, one of them is “groovy,” which may or may not be groovy. “Groovy” means cool, apt, pleasing, current, and generally desirable, and if you actually use the term today it evokes people wearing bell-bottom jeans, 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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