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Born Today: Henry Every, King of the Pirates
It might be a bit unusual for someone to be remembered for centuries for events in just a brief period of their life. In the case of Henry Every, who was (probably) born August 20, 1656, (probably) in an English village a bit north of Devon. He may have been related to the Every family… Continue reading
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Facinorous, etc.
If you’re anything like Shakespeare, (and come on, you know you are!) you occasionally have the need to fling an epithet at someone. And here’s a good one. Shakespeare used it in “As You Like It.” When you use it, you’re calling someone immoral, vile, heinous, highly criminal, very wicked. The word is somewhat obscure,… Continue reading
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August 20
You’ve probably heard the term “going postal.” When it’s used as dark humor, it means being driven nuts by events and people around you. When it’s used seriously, it means shooting your coworkers. “Going postal” comes from this very day in 1986. Patrick Sherrill, a “relief carrier” in the Edmond, Oklahoma post office, brought a… Continue reading
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Born Today: Philo Farnsworth
If you’ve ever watched television — and it would be a rare individual nowadays who hasn’t — make a note that today, August 19, is the birthday of Philo Farnsworth, who invented the first all-electronic television system (including a camera) in the 1930s. Farnsworth was born in 1906 in Utah, in the US. When he… Continue reading
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Dashboard
There’s a lot of talk about “dashboards” in the business world today. Everybody wants a “dashboard” presenting a summary of relevant information. Some software products are, to users, dashboards. The ready analogy, of course, is to the dashboard in an automobile, although it should also be noted that as manufacturers switched from analog gauges to… Continue reading
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August 19
Carl Fisher was born in Indianapolis in 1874. Not today; his birthday was in January. He joined in the bicycle craze of the late 1800s and opened a bike shop. By the early 20th century the shop was doing pretty well, and Fisher’s new enthusiasm was for those new horseless carriages. He saw a big… 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
- C’mon give it up, sluggish human
- The True Chew
- The Cycles within the Arc
- I’d rather have a taco
- 20-something Hubris
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Chocolatiana
Essays
History, sort of
Immorality
Incompetence
Quotations
Resistance
Stories
Tales from the Forest
Technicalities
Tragedy
Unanticipated Consequences
Privacy policy
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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com