-
October 21: The story of a day of stories
In the early days of exploring and settling North America, several European nations claimed territories or colonies or areas as “property” of a sort. The territories were generally consolidated into independent countries: Canada, the US, and Mexico. But France still has a North American territory. Not everyone knows about the “Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre Continue reading
-
A Silly Story with some Silly Spelling
Everybody knows what “silly” means: foolishness. To imagine that it means anything else would be just silly. But “silly” is a word with a very long history, and it hasn’t always meant “foolish.” The whole silly thing begins back in the days of Middle English, when it was “seely.” “Seely” had a couple of meanings. Continue reading
-
Completion
The word “complete”, which means something having all of its parts or components, has been around in English since the 1300s. It comes from the Latin word “complere,” which means “full.” Back in the 1500s, “complete” had another meaning as well. When you used it in reference to a person, it meant highly accomplished, or Continue reading
-
Born today: Patrick Volkerding
Around the early to mid-1990s, if you had heard of a new Unix-like operating system for your personal computer, it wasn’t a trivial matter to try it. You had to find a source and probably get CD-ROMs sent to you in the mail (you could get in on floppy disks instead, but it needed at Continue reading
-
October 20
Depending on how you arrange the digits of a date, today is either 20-10-2023 or 10-20-2023. Statistically speaking, it’s 10-20-2023 for about 88.5% and 10-20-2023 for the 11.5% of the world that puts the month in the first position. In both positions, though, October 20 sometimes represents World Statistics Day in about 49.5% of the Continue reading
-
The word about words
“I, for one, say words are important,” declared Magpie. “Nobody said they weren’t,” said Hare. “It’s just a question of what is a word…” “And what isn’t!” yelled Raccoon. “And I’m telling you it’s perfectly obvious that for something to be a word, you have to be able to hear it.” “Not at all,” said Continue reading
-
On the brink
When you start reading this, you’re on the brink of a not-particularly-important discovery. To wit: what the heck is a “brink”, anyway? You can be “on the brink” of something good, like a singer “on the brink of stardom,” or a scientist “on the brink of a major discovery,” but it’s more common to find Continue reading
-
Born today: Gerrard Winstanley
If you look into the history of most European, well, areas (the actual countries have changed over the years), it appears that religion was one of the driving forces behind things that don’t really seem all that spiritual or even associated with religious feelings at all. Looking specifically at England, there was an historical period Continue reading
-
The style of elements
Chemical elements are named for all sorts of reasons. Americium was named because it was discovered in the United States — there’s also Europium, named because it was discovered in Europe. Gallium is named after France (Gaul). Hassium is named after the German state Hesse, where it was discovered. There are loads of other examples, Continue reading
-
October 19
Vivian Hubert Howard Green was Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Quite a proper gentleman, he lectured on ecclesiastical history at St. Augustine’s College in Canterbury before his position at Lincoln College and was asked if he would consider sitting for the ordination exams. He declined, explaining that as the ecclesiastical lecturer he would be grading 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.
Privacy policy
No trackers, no ads, no data collected or saved.
Contact
peterharbeson@me.com