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February 15
February 15 is a date that’s not divisible by two or ten, which is slightly weird when you look into what’s happened on various February fifteenths. It was February 15 in 1945 that ENIAC was formally introduced as the world’s first programmable digital computer that functioned electronically. The name ENIAC stood for “Electronic Numerical Integrator… Continue reading
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Pure Fabrication
English has quite a few words for different types of fabric, and many of them have pretty interesting and mysterious origins. Take “corduroy,” for example. It’s a kind of thick cloth with ridges. It’s generally used in colder weather, because it does a pretty good job of insulating. Depending on the sources you use, you… Continue reading
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No dessert for me, thanks
“‘He has got his deserts’, said Joconda.” Jaconda said that in an 1882 novel by someone with the pen name “Ouida.” Both the novel and the writer (whose real name was Maria Louise Ramé) are not much remembered now, but the phrase “got his deserts” or “got his just deserts” is still around. The phrase is… Continue reading
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Christopher Latham Sholes
On the off chance that you ever use a computer keyboard, you may be either glad or annoyed that today is the birthday of Christopher Latham Sholes, who invented the QWERTY keyboard. Sholes invented the keyboard as part of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, which he invented, along with Carlos Glidden, in the late 1860s. … Continue reading
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February 14
Today is the anniversary of a very important photo. It was taken February 14, 1990, and it’s a landscape. In fact it’s the landscape, in a way. It’s the the Pale Blue Dot photo, taken by Voyager 1 from nearly 4 billion miles away. It’s called the Pale Blue Dot because that’s all there is… Continue reading
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Indefinite Hyperbolic Numerology
When you want to talk about a whole lot of something, but not an actual, specific number, or even an actual range, you might use a word like “zillion,” or “umpteen,” “skillion,” or “jillion.” Nowadays these “indefinite hyperbolic numerals” are used pretty much interchangeably and there isn’t much variation in which ones you tend to… Continue reading
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Galoot
The word has gotten a lot rarer since its peak, probably in the mid-20th century, but you’ll still occasionally see someone referred to as a “galoot.” Galoots are usually large, as in a “big galoot.” The “big” might be redundant though; there doesn’t seem to have been a galoot of any other size since the… Continue reading
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Ivan Andreyevich Krylov
You’ve heard of the great Russian writers Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Pushkin, but another one you may not know about was born February 13, 1769 in Moscow. Ivan Andreyevich Krylov was the son of a military officer, but his father died when Krylov was 10. Krylov and his mother were left in poverty, and moved… Continue reading
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February 13
I’ve always liked the word “eldritch.” Since I’m not writing fantasy stories including elves and ancient, magical, “eldritch” powers, I’ve never had an opportunity to use it. But I looked it up, and counter to what I expected, it doesn’t necessarily imply anything ancient or magical. You can just use it as a synonym for… Continue reading
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Dracontology and more
If you’re a zoologist drawn to study animals that live (or supposedly live) in lakes, what you’re involved in is “dracontology.” It sounds like it ought to be the study of dragons, which is because it’s derived from the Greek word “drakon,” which means “serpent” and is also the root of “dragon.” By the way,… 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!
Recent Posts
- The True Chew
- The Cycles within the Arc
- I’d rather have a taco
- 20-something Hubris
- You can’t be a leader without followers
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