-
Oops
From IEEE Spectrum, an interesting analysis of how AIs make mistakes, as do humans, but because the AI mistakes differ from human mistakes, the expectations we have and the infrastructure we’ve created to recognize, reduce, and correct for human mistakes doesn’t fit AIs as well. We’re actually pretty good at dealing with mistakes — to Continue reading
-
Well whattaya know…
My partner is Birdie;we talked; she’s a “cat.”We don’t have anotherfamily member like that. She’s small and she’s younger.Her fur’s gray like smoke,and we found out we laughat the same kind of joke. We both started our livesby just living outsidebut now as a familywe are safe, warm, and dry. Birdie is skinny;she was hungry, Continue reading
-
It’s cold out; wear your cardigan
It’s pretty common lately in political speech to see the phrase “playing the [x] card”. It’s generally meant as a criticism, meaning that if a politician “plays the gender card” or “plays the race card”, it somehow delegitimizes whatever point they’re trying to make. The first of these cards to be played appears to have Continue reading
-
Dao De Jing by Laozi
These are from a new translation by Ken Liu: “A country teetering on the edge of a collapse is filled with patriots.” “The more people arm themselves, the more chaotic the country.” “Lords stride about in glorious clothes, carry sharp swords, eat so much good food that they’re sick of it, and hoard wealth beyond Continue reading
-
My New Partner
My family just grew;there’s a member who’s new.Not to be wordy,Her name is Birdie. -Chocolate Continue reading
-
About that history you were taught…
This is a photo of a model reconstruction of Bologna, Italy, somewhere around 1300 or so. What the heck are all those towers?!? We know they were there because the foundations are still there today in Bologna. They were built by wealthy families to protect themselves and all their stuff when the 99% got angry Continue reading
-
Hop in
Heard of jargon? Here’s some cargon In addition to interesting words for parts of automobiles (and wagons), there’s a larger collection of words than you might expect for types of automobiles and wagons. Wagons are included because most of the words for cars originally came from wagons. Most people know that a “coupe” is a Continue reading
-
Want some mustard with those wünderbrats?
One side effect of money, at least when there’s a lot of it, seems to be that the recipient often comes to believe they are special in some way other than being fortunate and (often) having superior ability in a particular area. Many, many people have superior ability in a particular area, of course, but Continue reading
-
No laughing matter
The famous novelist Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton — he’s famous these days for being a bad novelist — wrote, in 1842, this line in his most famous novel, Paul Clifford: “If Paul’s comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more merrily than ever. He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring sofa, Continue reading
-
You can’t say we weren’t warned
Thirty-one years ago, in 1994, the Internet existed but not everybody knew that yet. Even those of us who did know about it didn’t always have an convenient connection; computers had only barely begun to be portable, and you certainly weren’t going to access much on that telephone in your home that had a handset 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.
Privacy policy
No trackers, no ads, no data collected or saved.
Contact
peterharbeson@me.com