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October 20
Depending on how you arrange the digits of a date, today is either 20-10-2024 or 10-20-2024. Statistically speaking, it’s 10-20-2024 for about 88.5% and 10-20-2024 for the 11.5% of the world that puts the month in the first position. In both positions, though, October 20 sometimes represents World Statistics Day in about 49.5% of the… Continue reading
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Just flighty, that’s all
The word “flibbertigibbet” is a cute label for somebody who tends to fly foolishly from one thing to another, or to chatter on nonsensically. It sort of seems like a frivolous word, and it even sounds like something that might have been coined in the late 1800s or so, doesn’t it? Surprisingly enough (that means… Continue reading
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October 19
Vivian Hubert Howard Green was Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Quite a proper gentleman, he lectured on ecclesiastical history at St. Augustine’s College in Canterbury before his position at Lincoln College. At St. Augustine’s he was asked if he would consider sitting for the ordination exams. He declined, explaining that as the ecclesiastical lecturer he… Continue reading
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Isabel Briggs-Meyers
Let’s say that you’re alive in the US in about 1942 and you read a magazine article about how some people seem to “fit” particular jobs better than others. You’re thinking about your country is preparing to send troops to war in various places in the world, and you have the idea that if only… Continue reading
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Tautochrone
Imagine you want to build a clock, but annoyingly enough, you find yourself stuck several centuries in the past, and you don’t really know how to start. The first thing you need is something that “ticks” in a reliably steady cadence. Enter the pendulum. Pendulums swing back and forth pretty steadily. Pendulums started being used… Continue reading
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October 18
The small groups of people who see themselves as in charge of larger groups of people — bosses of workers, say — generally don’t like the idea of the people who are supposed to be “under their control” getting more ability to control things for themselves. One way workers can achieve more agency is through… Continue reading
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Piketty dispels more BS
The very wealthy don’t, as a rule, pay taxes. If they do, it’s at a rate far lower than the rest of us. And whenever the question of taxing the very wealthy comes up, they:1. Claim it can’t be done2. Spend tons of money influencing the political process so it isn’t done.3. Argue that taxing… Continue reading
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Arthur Miller
Two dramas, both from the 20th Century, have entered the American zeitgeist so much that their plots and characters are familiar to people who have never seen or read the plays. I’m talking about The Crucible, a 1953 play ostensibly about the Salem Witch Trials and allegorically about the McCarthyism era in the US. And… Continue reading
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One more time
Again is a word that comes up…well, again and again in conversation. It’s been around for a very long time; at least since Old English. But its meaning contains a surprising little twist. What you probably think of when you use “again” is repetition; you did something once, and if you do the same thing… Continue reading
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Proper Supervision
My humans aren’t allowed to go walking unleashedand you know that it’s for their own good.If left on their own, they might wander awayand go farther than really they should. The poor dears don’t knowAll the dangers out thereThere are squirrels and rabbits and birdsAnd there might be much worseThan those things that I saidOr… 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. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Recent Posts
- “I’m from the government, and…”
- Lest we forget
- Freedomism
- Business Idiots
- Originalism is always fabrication
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Scripting News
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Krugman Wonks Out
Daring Fireball
[citation needed]
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