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Obscurity? Where?
Sometimes you run across a word that’s so obscure, obsolete, or forgotten that it doesn’t even appear in the best dictionaries. Adoxography is one example; it’s pretty difficult to find a definition, and you have to go back to the early 20th century to find any examples of it. Nevertheless, “adoxography” — the method of Continue reading
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Boondoggles
A “boondoggle” is something you expect to hear about in connection with some wasteful, politically motivated project touted by some senator or representative in Washington, DC. It’s usually intended to provide public funds to the politician’s state or district, but doesn’t provide much benefit beyond that. One recent boondoggle — that in this case didn’t Continue reading
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May 10
On May 10, 1967, a very strange flying machine crashed pretty spectacularly in a dry lake in the western US. It was the Northrup M2-F2, and it had just finished a test flight, gliding down from 45,000 feet (14,000 m) at a speed of about 450mph (720 kmh). The pilot was Bruce Peterson. The strangest Continue reading
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Remember the movie The Big Lebowski from over 25 years ago? It’s a strange film — a comedy that seems to be about a kidnapping, but is also about a case of mistaken identity, as well as being about bowling and…well, some other stuff. The movie was written, directed, and produced by Joel and Ethan Continue reading
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Gaspard Monge
If you’ve ever found technical drawings useful, particularly those with 3-D projections, raise a glass and toast the anniversary of the birth of Gaspard Monge. He was born May 9, 1746 in France, and invented those things, as well as differential geometry (which you could use to describe the surface of that glass you’re raising). Continue reading
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A limited menagerie
Thanks to the absurd overemphasis in the news of even the most insignificant fluctuations in “the stock market” (there’s not really “the stock market;” there are lots and lots of them), most people have heard about both a “bull market” and a “bear market.” Sometimes the terms are about the traders themselves, and whether they’re Continue reading
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A feather in your cap
Different eras have different conceptions of social class. Nowadays it’s mostly about money, although there are some subtle variations based on how you obtained your money, what you spend it on, and whether you hang out with celebrities — and if you do, just what sort of celebrities they are; movie stars, musical performers, business Continue reading
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A real nice clambake
If you like American musical theater, you must know the name Oscar Hammerstein, who, as part of the duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, contributed many of the classic musicals to the genre. What you might not know is that Hammerstein was Oscar Hammerstein II. His grandfather was Oscar Hammerstein I, who founded the multigenerational Hammerstein musical Continue reading
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Jerkwater
If you watch cowboy movies, and sometimes other genres as well, you might hear about a “jerkwater town.” Such a town was a small, provincial, inconsequential village that nobody (who wasn’t, for example, hiding out after robbing the stagecoach) would ever want to visit. The term “jerkwater” is still in occasional use, and it’s applied Continue reading
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The terrifying territory of terrior
In France, the characteristics of the regional environment where a food or wine is produced has a word: “terrior.” It’s not just the region, climate, soil, and topography, but the flavor and related characteristics of the food as well. The word “terroir” comes from the Latin word “territorium,” which is also the source of ‘territory.’ 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.
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