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Wash. Rinse. Repeat
May 2022 I recently attended a military ritual — it was a group of veterans honoring one particular veteran. The power of it, like the power of any ritual, came from the repetition of the same series of actions. Probably because it was a military ritual, the repetition was precise, and the people involved were… Continue reading
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Terrific
Words take on new meanings all the time. One of them is terrific. No, I mean one of them is “terrific.” It comes from the Latin word “terrificus”, which means frightening. But of course nowadays if you say something is terrific, you mean it’s marvelous and not frightening at all. Something like, I don’t know,… Continue reading
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Listen Carefully
Porcupine proudly held up what looked like a piece of cloth. “Look at this,” she said, “I made it myself!” Hare, Dog, and Magpie nodded appreciatively. “How’d you make it?” asked Magpie. “Knitting!” said Porcupine. “Beaver lent me a book with instructions. In the book they use things called ‘needles’, but I just use a… Continue reading
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Repetition
It’s a funny thing about repetition — it’s great, but sometimes it can quite suddenly cross a threshold and become “too much.” The pulse of loud music is a good example; I can be enjoying it and then for some reason, I’ve had enough. I seldom see the threshold approaching. Maybe there isn’t anything approaching… Continue reading
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August 6
August 6, 1926 is the day the silent film era ended; that’s when the Warner Bros. movie “Don Juan” opened, using the new “Vitaphone” sound system. People had been used to getting their sound from radios, and their visuals from movies, but those things were starting to merge. Television was first demonstrated around the same… Continue reading
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Pauciloquitious
It’s slightly ironic that English has so many words for “not so many words.” Someone who prefers to keep their verbal expressions to a minimum could be called “terse”, “brief”, “taciturn”, “curt”, “succinct”, “trenchant”, “pithy”, “laconic”, “brusque”, “gruff”, “brief”, ‘abrupt”, “short”, “bluff”, or — and this is probably the best one, even though nowadays it’s… Continue reading
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Lipogram
“This is a lipogram – a book, paragraph or similar thing in writing that lacks a symbol, particularly (but not always) that symbol fifth in rank out of our 26 script-signs (found amidst ‘d’ and ‘f’), which stands for a sound such as that in ‘kiwi’. I won’t bring it up right now, to avoid… Continue reading
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There are 10 attitudes about numbers
“You can’t fool me, Raccoon,” said Dog. “There are not that many numbers.” “Yes there are,” insisted Raccoon. “There are more numbers than one, two, and ‘a lot’, Dog.” “Are not,” said Dog, laying back down in the grass. “I’ll prove it,” said Raccoon. “Look here, Dog, I’ll make some marks in the dirt. Listen… Continue reading
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Math is Not What You Think
Math is not what you think Math is not what you think it is. I think that holds for everybody, even real mathematicians, whose understanding of it is vastly beyond what the rest of us can muster. Math is not just a different thing to different people; I think it’s even a different thing to… Continue reading
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Leucipottomy
In the southern part of England there are areas where the rock underlying most of the hills is white and chalky. The famous “white cliffs of Dover” are the iconic example, but many hills and meadows around those parts are just as white underneath. This has been known to the residents since prehistoric times, and… 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
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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com