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Misophosy
It’s pretty conventional, in mainline western-civilization thinking at least, to have a high regard for the combination of knowledge and judgment we’d call “wisdom.” In fact, if you were to rate English words by their positive connotation for most people, “wisdom” would probably come out somewhere near the top of the list. At least so Continue reading
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GPT
Originally published April 2023 There’s a lot of, um, chat going around about ChatGPT, the well-known large-language-model generative chatbot. I’m holding off on calling it an “Artificial Intelligence,” but I will go as far as calling it an AEM — Artificial English Major. ChatGPT and its pals really are a lot like the typical caricature Continue reading
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Descartes
I keep circling back to Descartes. René freaking Descartes. Maybe the original tech bro. Guy decided animals were machines. It wouldn’t have made any difference, except the jerk was an a-list persuader and people listened to the things he said and for some reason (this reason is still around and you know it) took the things Continue reading
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Born Today: June 30
In the spirit of diversity, we’re eschewing any suggestion of speciesism and celebrating today’s birthday of Cookie, a cockatoo who lived in the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago in the US. Cookie was born June 30, 1933, and lived for…wait for it…82 years. Cookie was a “Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo,” also known as Leadbeater’s Cockatoo. The birds Continue reading
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Born Today: June 29
Instead of featuring a particular birthday person today, I have a very unusual set of coincidences to report. I get birthday information from Wikipedia, which has a page for every day of the year listing events, births, deaths, and holidays around the world. Because there have been a lot of years for people to be Continue reading
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Born Today: June 28
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva, was born 311 years ago today. When he was born, Geneva was a city-state, and his middle-class family had voting rights there. He was always proud of that, and signed his books with the “Citizen of Geneva” comment for his entire life. He never lived to see the Republic of Continue reading
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Born Today: June 27
Helen Keller was born 143 years ago today in Alabama in the US. She’s known because of her writing, speaking, and advocacy for women’s rights (including the right to vote) labor rights, peace, and for disabled people — of whom she was one; she lost her sight and hearing when she was 19 months old. Continue reading
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Born Today: June 26
If you enjoy graphic novels, you’ll be interested in Lynd Kendall Ward, who was born June 26, 1905, and kind of invented (or at least heavily influenced) the genre. He was born in Chicago, and named after Lyndhurst, the English town his father had lived in before emigrating to the US. He decided to become Continue reading
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June 23
On June 23, 1884, Frederick Wellington Taylor was born in Ontario, Canada At least we’re pretty sure it was June 23; there’s a bit of uncertainty about the exact date. His father sold farm equipment, but the family was relatively poor, so Frederick left school at 17 to work in a piano factory to help Continue reading
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June 22
Most of the “history” you see about computing, at least in the US, mentions either the Atanasoff-Berry computer or the English Colossus computer at Bletchley Park as the first modern programmable computer. Neither of those are true. Konrad Zuse, who was born 123 years ago today, invented the first modern programmable computer in Germany in 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.
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