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What Nietzsche Knew
Friedrich Nietzsche lived from 1844 to 1900, so he never heard of the orange baby, but he clearly knew of people like it. In Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, he wrote: “You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive… Continue reading
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…airless post-human convenience…
“The immediate circumstances of the AI industry changed dramatically for its incumbent powers just days after Andreessen’s post due to the furor around the Chinese AI technology DeepSeek, whose success raised the question of whether you actually need $500 billion worth of infrastructure and world-historic energy consumption in order to make a fun little tool… Continue reading
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A merment of your time?
To ”ferment” something means to institute a biochemical process where carbon dioxide and alcohol are synthesized. Fermentation is a step in the creation of wine, vodka, whiskey, and the like. On the other hand, to ”foment” has to do with people; you might ”foment a dispute” or even ”foment rebellion” — that latter phrase is… Continue reading
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Humans are weird;they “wash” out of fright.They wreck all the sniffswhen my stuff is just right. My blanket was perfect!Aroma was fine!It’s how everybodycould know it was mine. But then it was stolenand what they did…man!They can’t smell the soapsudsbut it’s mine, and I can. So listen up, people,there’s more than one “clean,”and to force… Continue reading
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Quotes of the day
“…no amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good story. […] Storytelling is a real art, and that’s something that we’re always going to be working on very, very hard. I don’t think it’s changed in a long time, and I’m not sure it will. And I don’t think it’s something that the technology… Continue reading
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Your necklace is rusty. Get it at the carnival?
“Tawdry” means cheap and showy — like plastic jewelry, for example. But the word has an interesting history. In the 600s (or possibly the 800s; sources disagree), there was a queen in part of England (in those days kingdoms — and ‘queendoms’ — were often about the size of a modern town) named Aethelthrȳth. She… Continue reading
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That wonnot wash, Miss
It’s not in very common use nowadays, but at one time it was pretty common to see or hear phrases like “he’ll be at the race track on Thursday, as is his wont.” That doesn’t mean he “wants” to visit the race track. Even though obviously he does want to, “wont” and “want” are completely… Continue reading
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Same old same old
The thing about dictionaries in English is this: they’re descriptive, not prescriptive. Words don’t enter English because you find them in the dictionary; it works in exactly the opposite way. Words enter English, then eventually they (probably) show up in a dictionary. So how, exactly, do words enter English? Social media! The original social medium… Continue reading
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Hello DeepSeek. Well this changes things…
From Jeffrey Emanuel, one of the best analyses of the advances in DeepSeek AI, wrapped in an investor’s rundown of Nvidia’s valuation, business, and future. This is long, but full of great information and insights. Here’s another good DeepSeek post, written as a FAQ by Ben Thompson. You might notice that it’s a blog entry… Continue reading
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Cap wealth. And “cap” means different things…
“The single most ridiculous aspect of human history is how much of it has been driven by the goal of allowing a tiny portion of a large population to live in luxury.“ 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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