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John Dee
Everybody has probably heard of “the British Empire.” In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was the largest empire in history, and for much of that time was the military “superpower” of the world. It began in the 1400s when Europeans, initially from Portugal and Spain, began exploring the world by ship. The European… Continue reading
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Decisory
When an event is rapid, it happens “quickly.” When it’s highly audible, it’s “noisy.” It can occur “publicly” or “privately.” If it’s an action taken by a person, it can be done “firmly,” “tentatively,” “happily,” “sadly,” and so forth. But what if the event determines something for sure — the price of your last tank… Continue reading
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Josiah Wedgwood
Especially if you live in North America, you’re familiar with direct mail advertising, money-back guarantees, free delivery, “buy one get one free” deals, illustrated product catalogs, and the like. And if you’ve paid attention at Amazon, or even in physical stores like WalMart or Home Depot, you may have noticed that many of the products… Continue reading
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Humor but not comedy
When you’re feeling hopeful or optimistic about something you might say you’re feeling “sanguine” about it. If you’re like most people, you probably wouldn’t, but the point is that you could. “Sanguine” is a reasonably common word, although it doesn’t generally pop up in everyday conversation in most circles. But it has a pretty unusual… Continue reading
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Just the latest-fashion
There’s an amusing cycle in English; sometimes a two-word phrase (for example, ice cream) for some reason acquires a hyphen for a while (ice-cream). Then the hyphen seems too fussy and troublesome, so it’s dropped completely and becomes a single compound word (icecream). After another while, the words separate again and the original two-word phrase… Continue reading
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Venetia Burney
Today is the 106th anniversary of the birth of Venetia Katharine Douglas Burney, who was born in Banstead, England. She came from an educated family; her father was a professor at Oxford, her grandfather was the librarian at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and her uncle was Science Master at Eton. Burney studied economics, and… Continue reading
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A track on the tract
It’s not unusual to see the words “tract” and “track” confused; people use “track” where they mean “tract”, and (less often) talk about “tracts” that are really “tracks”. Maybe they shouldn’t be blamed too much, though, because the history of “track” and “tract” is pretty tangled and involves some weird coincidences. Both words appeared in… Continue reading
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Kathleen Booth
Kathleen Booth One of the founders of the digital computer era is someone you’ve likely never heard of: Kathleen Booth. She was born July 9, 1922 in Worcestershire, England and attended the University of London, where she earned undergraduate and PhD degrees in mathematics. While she was studying at the University of London she was… Continue reading
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Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
You’ve heard of Zeppelins, the huge dirigibles that were the leading aviation machines until the Hindenberg disaster in 1937 convinced people that flying around underneath a large amount of hydrogen might not be the best idea. Oddly, although the photos are shocking, there were 97 people on board the craft and only 35 fatalities. Airliner… Continue reading
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WANTED: Doornails, dead or alive
In 1884 the “Pall Mall Gazette” opined that “The Congo treaty may now be regarded as being as dead as a doornail.” We still say “dead as a doornail” today, a century and a half later. But wait, “Piers Plowman” includes this bit: “Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.” That’s… 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 newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
Recent Posts
- Educational Trip
- Yeah but what about the Jewish Space Lasers?
- Happy Anniversary?
- Alleys
- Your pockets aren’t deep enough
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Chocolatiana
Essays
History, sort of
Immorality
Incompetence
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Tales from the Forest
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Tragedy
Unanticipated Consequences
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Contact
peterharbeson@me.com