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Don’t get me wet
Rain is a pain;I do not enjoy damp.Drips on my coatget no OK stamp If it’s raining don’t botherwe don’t need to talk;I’ll just go right on napping;Forget the darn walk. -Chocolate Continue reading
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Don’t be shy
Literature set in England in the 1700s and 1800s is a good place to find exclamations like “You hare-hearted, milk-livered poltroon!” (1769). It was both a generalized insult and a specific reference to being cowardly. It’s such an apt thing to shout at someone that you still find it in modern works like Mutiny on the… Continue reading
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October 7
Railroads are older than you think. That’s because when we think of railroads, we naturally envision a locomotive (diesel, electric, or steam powered) and railcars, all rolling on steel tracks. But what are the really essential parts of the system? Tracks, certainly, along with some kind of containers being conveyed along them in some way. … Continue reading
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Stinky is stinky
Not too long after Izaak Walton wrote a heartfelt guide to fishing in The Compleat Angler in 1653, George Gascoigne penned The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hunting in 1575. Both books were what today we might call how-to guides. Among the handy pointers Gascoigne dispensed was this: “There is difference betweene the fewmet of… Continue reading
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Hedgehog and the invasion
Hedgehog was worried. “I’m worried,” he said to Squirrel. “What is it this time?” asked Squirrel, who sometimes found Hedgehog’s constant worrying a bit tedious. “I’m worried about the invasion.” “What did you say?” asked Squirrel, astonished. “The invasion. I think it’s going to happen today, and I’m worried. Sure, I’m small; I can probably… Continue reading
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C’mon, man!
My hurry up and go-nessIs annoyed by human slowness They simply lack velocity!This earns my animosity. -Chocolate Continue reading
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Abacot or not?
People who compile reference books like dictionaries have to be on the lookout, not just for mountweazels inserted into other references as copyright bait, but also for simple mistakes. After all, if you’re going to write your own dictionary, some of the best places to start are other dictionaries. But what if one of them… Continue reading
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October 6
Although it might seem like it’s been around forever, the Instagram app was released exactly fourteen years ago today. It was available only for iPhones at first. An Android app came along two years later, along with a desktop version that works in a web browser. It appeared on Amazon Fire devices two years after… Continue reading
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A good egg, that chap
An occasional Halloween prank in the US is “egging” where kids throw eggs at a house or a car. Their friends, you might imagine, are busy “egging them on.” But egging someone on, even when you’re egging them on about egging, has nothing to do with eggs. Well, I mean, in that particular case I… 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