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September 12
On September 12, 1910, in the Neue Musik-Festhalle (a newly-built hall in Munich with 3,200 seats) an orchestra of 171 instruments and a choir of 852 singers performed Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony Number 8” for the first time. The organizers — including Mahler himself — had started recruiting choirs and musicians to join the performance. The… Continue reading
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Tricks, Tricks, and More Tricks
Hare was still confused. He was pretty sure Dog and Bear had tricked him with their sniffing contest, but he couldn’t figure out how they’d done it. He sniffed his four crayons again and again, but couldn’t smell any differences between the green, blue, red, and yellow ones. Sometimes he thought the yellow one might… Continue reading
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Maieutic
When you hear about the “Socratic Method,” it almost always refers to a way of teaching. There may well be Socratic Methods for other things — making souvlaki, arranging your toga into erudite-looking folds, skipping rocks across a pond — but those haven’t generally gotten as much notice. Socrates taught by creating a dialog in… Continue reading
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Be Patient
Depending on where you live — not to mention a whole host of other factors — it can take quite some time to schedule an appointment to see a doctor, or to receive treatment for some medical condition. The whole process can be pretty frustrating, and often your only choice is to just be patient.… Continue reading
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Born today: Mungo Park
The 1790s was a pretty significant time for both Europe and Africa — for better or worse, it was the time that Europe was experiencing a surge in economy and what you might call “swelling of the collective ego,” and people began to realize that the continent of Africa existed, and they didn’t know anything… Continue reading
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September 11
It’s hard to write about September 11. The remembrance of that day hangs over and darkens our time, at least in the US. It doesn’t help to realize that whenever you look up the notable events of any day of the year, most of what’s been remembered has to do with inhumanity. September 11 certainly… Continue reading
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Haplology
Sometimes words get shorter because people who use them start to leave out sounds or syllables. Take, for example, “pacifist.” Around the turn of the 20th century the word was “pacificist,” as used in the March 4, 1907 edition of the London Times: “Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman’s article…on the limitation of armaments…cannot be said to have… Continue reading
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September 10
Elias Howe received a patent on September 10, 1846. It was for a sewing machine. It wasn’t the first sewing machine, and not even the first sewing machine patent (although it was the first of those in the US), but it did have an important innovation. Sewing needles have a hole (or an “eye”) on… Continue reading
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Born today: Nicholas Lanier
Superstar singer-songwriters aren’t hard to find nowadays, from Taylor Swift to Bob Dylan to who knows how many others. But is this just a modern phenomenon? Probably not. Nicholas Lanier, who was born (or at least baptised) September 10, 1588, may have been the first. His family had come from France, escaping persecution because they… Continue reading
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Born today: Leo Tolstoy
We know him in English as Leo Tolstoy, but he would have been more familiar with “Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. He was born September 9, 1828 in Russia, into an aristocratic family (hence the title “Count”). He’s regarded as one of the greatest writers — not just from Russia, and not just from the 1800s… 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!
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