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The dark side
As some people (including you) know, “adroit,” which means adept and agile, is etymologically derived from the French phrase “á droit” (to the right). For some reason the French (I suspect they weren’t alone in this) used to think that being right-handed meant that you were capable of being adept, agile, graceful, and coordinated, and… Continue reading
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Usualing
“Usualing” is a new coinage by Seth Godin, and IMHO deserves to be…um…commonized? Continue reading
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Something about the light brigade…
You can charge forward, charge a battery, charge someone with a responsibility (and then they’re in charge of it), or charge them with a crime (which might lead to them being in charge of nothing at all for a period of time), and if you’re hungry you can charge a meal by using a credit… Continue reading
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Just the next step?
In a study just published in CHI 2025, researchers found “reductions in cognitive effort and confidence” among “knowledge workers” who made use of AI. Now, this is real research and definitely worth further investigation. But also what they found was self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and confidence. In other words, they just did a survey… Continue reading
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Marvelously frightening
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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From a night train in Ukraine
“As in Russia, we have let local newspapers and local media die. As in Russia, their place was taken by a few commercial operations. As in Russia, the media are owned by oligarchs, who then become close to government or submit to it (not all of the media in America, of course, are submitting, but… Continue reading
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AAB (Acronyms And Backronyms)
These days the language we use is full of acronyms. Probably too full; people are so used to acronyms that they sometimes assume that a word that’s not an acronym must be one, so they invent it. When they do that, they’re creating a “backronym.” For example, there’s a test applied to newborn babies to… Continue reading
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Two Craigs
Craig Cutler is a photographer. Craig Frazier is an illustrator. They’re collaborating on the website Two Craigs, which shows their interpretations of a prompt every week for a year. They’re not done yet; as of today (11 February) they’re up to #36. As you view the gallery you see each week’s pair of images, but… Continue reading
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Check, please!
We’ve had to wait a long time for “wait” to be used the way it is today. You can “wait” for something, meaning to bide your time until an event, you can “wait” on something, such as a table at a restaurant, and you can simply “wait tables.” “Wait” originated as an old Germanic word… Continue reading
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Elbow grease
It’s the time of year many folks are confronting the near-term results of their “New Year’s Resolutions.” To actually follow through on them, of course, is another story; it needs sustained gumption. That’s the way it is today, at least. In the past following through on resolutions had very little to do with gumption. This… 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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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com