One of my plans for this year is to read more poetry, as poetry is something nice to read which can also be enjoyed in small doses. And there is loads published online. So I figured I might as well post a few as I find them, to share the fun

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Perhaps the most popular and beloved of 20th-century American poets, Frost wrote of the character, people, and landscape of New England. In 1912 he went to England, where he received his first acclaim as a poet. After the publication of A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), he returned to the United States, settling on a farm near Franconia, N.H.

An Old Man’s Winter Night

ALL out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.      
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again      
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself      
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case      
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.      
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

read more @ http://www.bartleby.com/people/Frost-Ro.html

One of my plans for this year is to read more poetry, as poetry is something nice to read which can also be enjoyed in small doses. And there is loads published online. So I figured I might as well post a few as I find them, to share the fun

Anyway the poem for this week is Solitaire, by Rhett Iseman Trull

I found this one on the site http://www.storysouth.com, which I was brought to via the Endicott journal team. As I have said before I often find good stuff thanks to Endicott! I have donated a little something to the site (it is always a good idea to donate a little something to sites you enjoy frequently, since it helps keep them alive. too many good sites have disappeared without a trace. The same goes for musicians who give their music away, or freeware authors too!)

Anyway, I had never heard of Rhett Iseman Trull, and most likely neither have the 4 readers of this blog….  “Rhett Iseman Trull received her B.A. in English from Duke University and her M.F.A. in poetry from UNCG. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Greensboro Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Poet Lore and Prairie Schooner. She has taught poetry classes at UNCG and in many high school and ESL classes throughout the triad. She lives in Greensboro, where she works at Acme Comics and edits the poetry journal, Cave Wall (http://www.cavewallpress.com).”

Solitaire  by Rhett Iseman Trull

He has learned to love the loneliness of night,

The possible hauntings, faraway sirens, the silver
Of the sky. He used to follow all the advice: hot baths, warm milk,

Soft jazz, no caffeine. He tried sleeping with socks and without,
In silk or cotton sheets. He even took pills, which made him feel
Upon waking, as if he’d slept through a play’s second act.

...

read more at http://www.storysouth.com/poetry/2007/09/three_poems_3.html 

The illustration is insomnia by fourcrows, see http://fourcrows.wordpress.com/2007/04/ for a larger size and fourcrows’ blog

Of course these are all (c) their authors and/or the place where they were published, and I am not sure whether can post the poem or part of it without breaching it. Posting an extract feels kind of like amputating the poem…  but hopefully it gives a teaser.

One of my plans for this year is to read more poetry, as poetry is something nice to read which can also be enjoyed in small doses. And there is loads published online. So I figured I might as well post a few as I find them, to share the fun

Lara Gose lives in Bloomington, Indiana, with her fiancé, author Ed Gentry. A stint in graduate school, pursuing a doctoral degree in comparative literature, encouraged her to use her knowledge of literature, culture, and literary theory to develop her own creative writing. She writes short fiction, usually in the sci-fi, fantasy, or mystery genres, and when writing poetry she enjoys playing with forms like the pantoum, terzanelle, or sestina.

Visiting Grandma Lara Gose

Her hair is air-spun candy, white;
Cat’s-eye glasses curl across her wrinkled face.
Her bent body bends over a flowered puzzle;
Nervous, crooked fingers try this piece here,
But it doesn’t fit, so they try again somewhere else.
She says, “No, I guess it don’t quite go there.

“It looks like it just might go, but it don’t fit there.
See, there’s those little specks of white.
I reckon I’ll just have to try it some place else.”
I wonder if a raisin has more wrinkles than Grandma’s face.
“You pull up a chair, help me. Sit right here.
Let’s sit and talk, fix this thing up purty, this puzzle.”

...

read the full poem: http://www.strongverse.org/poems/gose_lara.html

Lara’s Blog http://lifl.blogspot.com/

I’m about to start a photoblog at blipfoto

This is a very slick photoblog site with the constraint that it only allows one photo a day, and it has to be from that day. This is an interesting challenge, which forces one to maybe look at the same things in a different way to keep taking a picture day after day (although you dont have to have one every day).

Like every blog, some people use it as a photo diary, some as a way to allow far away friends to keep in touch, and others are pure art

Mine is http://www.blipfoto.com/iphigenie

I had never heard of her but her poetry is full of a sense of wonder, curiosity, and often a touch of the mythical - I think.

Here’s a bit of “why we tell stories”

Because we used to have leaves
and on damp days
our muscles feel a tug,
painful now, from when roots
pulled us into the ground

and because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers

and because before we had lungs
we knew how far it was to the bottom
as we floated open-eyed
like painted scarves through the scenery
of dreams, and because we awakened

and learned to speak

see the full poem at http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3140/

She’s now on my list of books to snatch, i have to read more

Some links
short bio http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/85
interview after she got the pulitzer http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/april97/mueller_4-14.html

This has now moved to http://iphi.net/index.php/site/services/, although the old article is still on the back page if you want to have a laugh at what I didn’t get back then.

Read More...

http://theroadtothehorizon.blogspot.com/

This is the site of someone who left his engineering job to join the UNHCR. The stories on the site give you a different perspective on life and issues - geopolitics, the dignity of people, what people can do - but also lots of anecdotes and funny/dramatic stories.

some posts to give you an idea if you’ll like this or not

introduction: how it started
deserted island story
deportation from the us
current topic food crisis

I think this site also drove it home to me what people can do in all sorts of places, and indirectly he sparked this UNESCO idea nagging me in the back of my mind, which is that as a scientist, technology expert, small business leader and feminist, and someone who is always harping about the wonder of people and cultures of all kind…  I really ought to put my skills to use for an organisation like this. How to get about it is another matter…

Anyway, enough about me, go check that site :D

This is an absolute treat, I read the teasers and the first episode and enjoyed it a lot. I would not have heard about it except I read the blogs of several authors I enjoy, and some of the authors involved happen to be on my list - they then pointed me to the others and they have all been talking about this.

It’s also the product of a childhood imagination pastime being reinvented by the author the child has become.

So I thought I’d check it out. Could have been self indulgence, but so far it’s good

What is it? A donation supported episodic fiction - let me quote:

The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit hunts humanity’s nightmares. But there are nightmares humanity doesn’t dream are real.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit sends those cases down the hall.
Welcome to Shadow Unit.

Nice teaser, eh?

Read More...

Today I chose a poem by Terry Windling, The Night Journey

I’m too lazy to triple check my facts tonight, so here it is from personal memory.
Now Terry Windling is an artist of multiple talents. First she writes, and she wrote one of my favorite books, The Wood Wife. She also writes poetry (obviously!), short stories and non fiction in blogs and magazines, drawing on her extensive knowledge of myth, folk lore and all related arts. She is also a visual artist. Then she is an editor of many successful anthologies, and last - but not least, to me, since this one influences me every week , via the Endicott studio, magazine and blog she also constantly finds delightful art around myth and folk lore, and writes fascinating reflections around all mythical topics. I have mentioned Endicott more than once on this blog so I will not bore my few readers away by going on.

This poem is very much a bit of an enumeration poem, but very musical and evocative… makes it hard to pick an bit out of… besides the page states not to reproduce it without permission in any form. So just go there, I’m too chicken to ask for permission to reproduce an excerpt. But I have had the poem bookmarked a while and it makes me want to go in a forest take pictures, or even draw…

The Night Journey

http://www.endicott-studio.com/cofhs/cofinvoc.html

It’s a universal fantasy, isn’t it?—that the animals learn to speak, and at last we learn what they’re thinking, our cats and dogs and horses: a new era in cross-species understanding. But nothing ever works out quite as we imagine. When the Change happened, it affected all the mammals we have shaped to meet our own needs. They all could talk a little, and they all could frame their thoughts well enough to talk. Cattle, horses, goats, llamas; rats, too. Pigs. Minks. And dogs and cats. And we found that, really, we prefer our slaves mute.

I seem to read online more, lately. Here’s short speculative story that takes a great premise and follows from it, based on the author’s ideas of human nature. Now this one is right up my alley, around science fiction and myth, and with a dash of my favorite mythical topic at that, the trickster idea (i own the anthology this is from).

It is also a story that really made me sad - because i totally bought into where she went. I fear people would be like that… It really made me pause.

It is a delightful story available for free - Enjoy! http://www.kijjohnson.com/evolution.html

Just a quick note that I am catching up fast this week on Shadow Unit. I have read all the short bites and am working my way through the 8 episodes.
This is because the “season finale” is coming next week and I have read that this will be a multi media, interactive, enjoy-it-live-on-the-site-and-forums kind of thing.

It is actually a blast to read, so I figure I’d give it another plug - I’d love to discuss it with some of you :D

From Elizabeth Bear:

If you have been waiting to catch up/start reading Shadow Unit until the season is over, may I respectfully suggest that it is now approximately one week until the first season finale extravaganza begins. And, um. It’s the sort of thing that is going to be much more wonderful chaotic fun to participate in real-time than to read about later.

Trust me on this.

Shadow Unit, for those of you joining us in progress, is a web serial/hyperfiction written by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, and, er, me. It’s modeled on a television show format, complete with episodic and season-long plotlines, burgeoning mysteries, and an ensemble cast of unrealistically sexy smart people attempting to save the world from the worst monsters imaginable… unless they die trying. It’s sort of what would happen if Millennium, The X-Files, and Criminal Minds had a love child, though I have to admit we have yet to have an episode with an industrial microwave. But surely, it’s only a matter of time.

Current site content comprises seven novelettes or novellas, a whole bunch of vignettes, artwork, a message board with thriving discussion threads and an awesome community (and a fine obsession with food!), a plethora of fairly lightly concealed Easter Eggs, and interactive character blogs.

Additional toys will be provided over the hiatus, and the current plan is to offer first-season community members a particularly nice toy in the fairly near future.

All content is free, unless you are moved to donate (We are currently using the Public Radio Guiltware model), and while we are exploring traditional publication options, there is no way on Earth that all the web content is going to make it into dead tree form. There’s just too much of it. So, you know. Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor.

On the tor site - A story of magical realism and refugee camps.
I enjoyed the description of the life of a camp, and the lovely poetic miracles - although not enough is known of the strangers and what their powers are to totally make sense, but that is ok in a short story.
I could not help but to think that in a way what the strangers do is just like what most of the western countries and organisations do - whisk in, do a couple miracles, and waltz away.

The story is available to read, print or download

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=4231

I enjoy a lot what Elizabeth Bear writes, and here is a story available online, a nice twist on a classic theme: The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder. I dont quite click for the rock music setting, whether here or in other books, but it is a nice idea.

One I liked better is shared online: Stella Nova, around Tycho Brahe and Keppler. Of course as a trained physicist with a huge soft spot for science, this is a great topic (incidentally a book has been written this year by a famous french writer which fictionalizes those same characters, I wonder if he read this one)

More about Elizabeth Bear:

The official site, her fiction journal (contains stories and ideas) and her personal journal
She’s also on librarything and frequents several fiction forums,
And of course Shadow Unit, the online episodic fiction which I mentioned before and which deserves support, I think.

I have several books by her on my TBR list, and she has a new book out in a few weeks (in the US, the UK says December) - the first few chapters are available for free online. It looks absolutely fascinating to me, exploring the end of the world from Norse mythology. Will have to get that. Amazon UK | Amazon US

Had preordered from Amazon because I had vouchers to use, and for once they actually had it delivered on time. I think there is a huge difference whether it is sent by amazon or by their Jersey partner… just a guess.

Now it took me all evening and through the night to install then update the thing, so I actually played a bit of WoW last night. This morning I managed to get about 30 minutes of play (after 20 minutes of faffing about making characters up) before the server went down at 9:00 uk time for some maintenance, should be back up soon.

Still, I had the beta so I am probably not as eager as some, but I am looking forward to exploring the different classes and races… a lot. Will post up server names here soon, in case some of you want to join me At the moment I have only a. I plan to have a go at an RvR and a RP server, and also of course try the other side - but at the moment that is the popular side so of course I had to pick the forces of “order”...

Servers:
I have an Empire character on the “Kazak Eight Peaks” (or some such name) server - but this server is now full so I might have to recreate it elsewhere to play with friends - “World’s Edge Mountains” looks moderate at the moment. I also have created a character on the “Ellyrion” server, again on the order side. This is a RvR/RP server so will have to see how far I get

Kazak Eight Peaks - Empire - Witch Hunter - Ifigenia
Ellyrion - Dwarves - Rune Priest - Agnil
World’s Edge Mountains- High Elves - White Lion - Zenaide

More about Warhammer Online

Note: this is a talk-out-loud piece written wearing the hat of an average user - it is not written wearing the hat of the web and software professional - that’s why it is in my personal blog and is written in light conversational style.

In the past I have often said that as cool as I thought many rich-online-applications that seek to replace desktop apps, I hadnt really started using any of them. But recently a shift has started to happen, and it hit me in recent conversations about some images and patterns I used on my site - all of them had been whipped up playing with online applications.

So I guess it is time to reverse the pattern of posts saying “web app x, tested, stopped using” to spread some love to the ones I do end up using.

1. Aviary (& donationcoder)

When I first heard of aviary, I really wanted an account. I registered my interest but alas never made the cut. Luckily for me some of the delighful people on the Donation Coder site had some invitations to share, and I got to get my hands on one. I am amazed as to what can be done with image manipulation online nowadays. I guess I shouldn’t be, having been in the web development field for long enough, but it’s actually different seeing first hand what can be done, and how smooth it works.

Screenshot: Vector editor in opera

Even though I only just dabbled with the tools, I ended up paying for aviary, in part to support them and get them to implement all the promised apps, and in part because the ability to have access to tools such as these from any computer or any OS really will make my life easier when travelling. I can access them on a friend’s computer, I can use an older laptop, or a netbook, because I only need the RAM and CPU to run the application and view the result, not to process the image. And of course I can boot on FreeBSD or opensolaris or anything with a modern browser available, and aviary should work. No more “crap, I wanted to quickly whip something up on this photo but the machine is booted to BSD and running something and I dont want to switch” (of course I might get the whole virtualisation thing finalised and wont have that problem at all anymore, who knows? But that is another story)

As I said, I mostly just dabbled with the apps - especially peacock, which is just like pipes but for images generation.

Screenshot: Peacock with my little triangle experiment

I was playing with triangles, which are my favorite shape (as much as one can have a favorite shape). At the time I was trying to create a set of nice sharp triangles as a basis for a website design - another idea which didnt really make it through. But the background based on triangles I created in peacock was used on this site for a while, and is still my background on my computers. It doesnt look quite that great on white, but it is a transparent png and creates a fascinating depth effect on a dark background (don’t take my word for it, look!)

See this on aviary

Out of the full applications they are planning to do, I am most interested in the font creator and probably the “real medium” painting simulator. And I am a bit disappointed they seem to have cancelled any idea of web design tools. It will be interesting to have access to things like sound editing without having to install any application, since I need it maybe 2-3 times a year (at the moment I just use wavosaur when it happens, since it is a no-install app). We’ll see!

Edited: one thing I forgot to mention about aviary is how people often share their creations, complete with all the actions used in their creation. This makes it a great learning feature, because not only can I admire what people created with the tools, I can also see how they did it.

PS: Donation Coder is a great community, by the way. I joined it a while back because I wanted to donate something back for some apps I was using, and as an addict to independent software this was a great place - full of addicts like me, and developers. It is also a very supportive learning community. I should write a bit about them, but just go check the site, the software offered on it, and the discussion in the forums.

2. Colourlovers

I have been working on a slight update of the colors used on different sections of the site (not that you could tell, like half of what I ever do it hasn’t made it onto anything visible). Now I am a)lazy b)not a designer so I thought it would be fun to use a webapp to play with color schemes. So I found Colour Lovers a few months back and played with it a bit. Created several palettes at random, some of which became the currently half-finished themes on the site.
I also played at creating patterns from those palettes and others, and in spite of the rather limited set of available patterns (especially ones that use the full set of 5 colors), I had a bit of fun. Since I was just messing about I cannot comment for the app’s suitability for production work, at first glance I would say it is not sufficient. But it might be a good one to get a bit of inspiration in a way that does not kill concentration, prior to going to work in the professional tools.

Screenshot: Colourlovers

I particularly enjoyed the option to submit an image and have the system offer colors from that - although I mostly found that some of my favorite photos of my own turned out to make rather lousy color palettes. What works in a photo does not work in a flat color setting.

In the end though, Colourlovers, like other very narrow fun-social websites before them (eg: wordie) is something I can see myself using in short bursts followed by months of forgetting about them, especially since for the pure work of palettes and texture, aviary mentioned just above has some pretty nifty tools.

See the patterns on colourlovers

both files are to be considered released on CC license, attribution required (a link to this post would be enough)

First, as I have said here and elsewhere before, I love blipfoto.

It is a very simple but beautifully done photoblog, or photo diary. You can only post 1 image a day (but no pressure to do it every day). The community is friendly, encouraging, and creative. If you are looking for a way to encourage yourself to take more pictures more regularly, you really owe it to yourself to check blip out. It certainly did that for me, to incredible degrees at times. I lost it over December but fully expecting to go back.

The site has been free for 2 years. But like every site out there, they have costs, and need to start covering those costs.

They are not adding ads, they are adding premium memberships, with improved features and additional bonuses (I suspect these will be special discounts, perhaps also ways to show/export your blog but probably a lot of premium information, courses etc. But I am just guessing). But they are doing something else that is very much in the spirit of the community created around the site: they are creating special supporting founder memberships:

(from the blog
you’re going to have a never-to-be-repeated opportunity to show your appreciation for everything Blipfoto has done so far, give us a kick-start for 2009 and stake your place in history with an exclusive Blipfoto Founding Membership.

For £40, you’ll receive:

- 18 months full membership, starting when we introduce our membership option
- an exclusive founding member’s icon, which will stay with you forever
- a specially produced founding member’s enamel badge
- 10% discount on all future Blipfoto purchases, including membership fees

As if that wasn’t enough, when you take out your Founding Membership, you’ll have an opportunity to pay a little extra and lay your hands on a set of 200 personalised Founding Member Blipcards. Again, this is an exclusive, one-off print run which will never be available again.

Why do I think this is so clever? Note that apart from a few token trinkets, you have no idea what the membership features will be. They are not selling the premium features, they will have plenty of time to do this later. No, they are appealing to their core users, the ones who love the service and would pay for it as it is (even though the service as it is will always remain free). They are saying “if you like us, trust us, and fund the time we are spending creating the next level”. I think this is an extremely open and modern way to fund an application, and a very courageous approach.

It works for me.

Even though I have no income at the moment I will become a founding member of blipfoto, because I have received real value from the site and want to support its team to do more of the same. I am not doing it for the badge or pin, I am doing it to support the site. I want to see what it can become, and am willing to chip in to make sure it gets the chance to get there (note that this is the same reason I paid for lwa, 72photos, aviary and others, and I would do the same for a site like bookmooch or friendfeed).

I have been cleaning my bookmarks and I notice I have a whole set of very simple web based tools I have which I think can be of use to everyone one day or another…

Text manipulation - Textopus http://textop.us/

webforms for just about every text transformation or conversion you might need - without having to write a script :D
“everything from sorting lines to advanced encryption and hashing”

online file conversion http://zamzar.com/ and http://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf/

When someone sends you a format you cant open… (in my case, something like microsoft publisher, or a vector file drawing at work)

what is its color http://whatsitscolor.com/

Get the main colors from an image - similar to what you can get on colorlovers.com

Visibility check  http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/

Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is color blind. You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.

Timestamp converter http://www.4webhelp.net/us/timestamp.php

(geeky) when you’re not on unix and you need to check a date, perhaps from a logfile entry

Recipe measurement converter http://www.ez-calculators.com/measurement-conversion-calculator.htm

This site has many other calculators and no ads…

File extension search http://file-extension.net/seeker/

what’s that file for???

password generator http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/ and http://www.fourmilab.ch/onetime/otpjs.html

Very handy if you’re creating accounts for people

DNS dig http://www.analogx.com/contents/dnsdig.htm and subnet calculator http://www.analogx.com/contents/cidr.htm

(geeky) check domain name records and test DNS servers, and figure out whether /24 really does what you think it does…

connection tests http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools

what is your ISP doing to your pipes…