-
Back in the Day: July 29
With so many people working at home and meeting over videoconferences, kids have taken a more prominent role. Maybe not as prominent as some kids in the history of July 29, though. Take the year 238 in Rome. It was July 29 when the Praetorian Guard — the secret police of the Roman Emperors (think… Continue reading
-
Bad
Like the word “good”, “bad” has a very long history. Nobody knows quite where it came from. If it existed in Old English, it didn’t have exactly the same form, but there are several OE words that it MIGHT have come from. The first is not exactly a “word” at all; it’s the name “Badda.”… Continue reading
-
Jacque Piccard
The deepest depths in the oceans and the people who try to visit them are in the news lately — and coincidentally, one of the first two people to visit the Challenger Deep (the deepest known spot on Earth) was born today in 1922: Jaques Piccard. Piccard was born into an adventuring family; his father… Continue reading
-
T is for tiller, man
In the early days of automobile design, none of the standards we’re used to had emerged yet. Most very early cars didn’t have steering wheels; you steered them with a lever, which was called a “tiller”. English has two “tiller” words. The first has to do with farming; a tiller in that sense is either… Continue reading
-
Sir Percy (part 1)
0. The unexpected name of Sir Percy Whatnot Sterling Bishop Sterling Whatnot Percy burst upon the insular culture of London academia in a flash of grandiose, well-funded activity in May of 1842. His announcement of a new Publishing Society devoted to the Mathematics of Leonardo of Fibonacci was a most welcome addition to the book… Continue reading
-
Time and Again
August, 2022 Time is not what we think it is. What we perceive it to be. Time seems to pass steadily, in just one direction. We regulate our lives with time; our perceptions are full of what seem to be regular, reliable cycles and markers. The sun rises and sets. Our hearts beat. Living creatures,… Continue reading
-
Yahoo Serious
Surely you’ve heard of Yahoo, whose birthday is today. No, I don’t mean the internet service; I mean Yahoo Serious, who turns 69 today. Yahoo Serious was born Greg Gomez Pead in Australia. After high school he enrolled in the National Art School in Sydney, but for undisclosetd reasons he was kicked out. After that… Continue reading
-
Pandiculate
Although print magazines are fading in popularity thanks to web-based versions, they still exist in a multitude of categories, just has they have for over a century. The business model of print magazines has been pretty stable the whole time; most of them make their money by printing advertisements. The key to that, of course,… 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!
Privacy policy
No trackers, no ads, no data collected or saved.
Contact
peterharbeson@me.com