Everything2 New Writeups

Kinko's as the gates of hell (thing)

2013-06-19T16:03:03Z

"You know," she said in a nasally voice,
"your graphic would be a lot better if there were bells !!
& whistles attached," menacing crescendos and
dynamic cinematography wide enough to include a shot of the
lonely boy scribbling REDRUM in the corner shadows.
"Right now, it just feels like letters on a page."

*the next day *

"It won't print," she explained dully
to experience rejection twice by the same bored lady
under fluorescent lights scratching dandruff from her cakey scalpus—
not bringing the amount of toner left
or the quality of your nightmare pamphlet into question,
just stating facts.

"And these days," you'll at least want a lawyer
or a stern consultation before you sign your MC-17 advertising poster
someone (à² _à² ) is watching your every move
archiving your…

I Am the Assuminator, and I Have Just Assumed (idea)

2013-06-19T15:42:35Z

Everybody remembers the Terminator movies, right? At first, the Terminator was a "bad guy," and then it was a "good guy." The act of assumption is regarded as the "bad guy." However, if utilized properly, it can be the "good guy." According to dictionary.com, to "assume" means "to take for granted or without proof."

"How," you ask incredulously, "can taking for granted or without proof possibly be a good thing?"

I answer you: to make an assumption based on emotions and/or bias is never a good thing; making an assumption based on reason without bias can be a useful thing. What really spoils the tool of assumption is the insertion of prejudice. What is prejudice? Its an opinion or feeling you have of someone or something before having all the facts or reasons in hand. Prejudice is a negative thing no matter how you decorate it. But assumption can be a different animal altogether---or it can be so heavily based on bias/prejudice that…

proverb (opinion)

2013-06-19T08:02:25Z

It is a purpose of a proverb to provoke thought, not limit it by specifying the interpretation. A proverb is wasted on one to whom it must be explained because the conviction of one's own heart concerning the meaning is what the proverb is designed to achieve. If one disagrees with the proverb, one must then wrestle with the conviction which is more challenging than arguing against what one has been told. A proverb may not be true in every sense but if it is not true in any sense then it lacks an essential quality of a proverb. Many proverbs are riddles or paradoxes; they are like code which not only the mind but the heart must unravel. An example of a proverb, or pair of proverbs by the greatest of proverb writers, King Solomon, is:
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."
The above proverbs give opposite directions, yet there is a sense in which each…

Fort Stevens (place)

2013-06-19T07:39:25Z

Fort Stevens, Oregon

Located at the mouth of the Columbia River, Fort Stevens is one of two military fortifications that were named for the first Washington Territorial Governor, Brigadier General Isaac Ingalls Stevens who was killed September 1, 1862 in the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia. Initially named Fort at Point Adams, it was renamed in 1865 to honor General Stevens.

Along with the Post at Cape Disappointment (later renamed Fort Canby) on the Washington side of the river, it was constructed to protect the area from the threat of invasion by pro-confederate English forces from Canada. Although the fort was built during the height of the Civil War, it was not actually completed until one day prior to General Leeâs surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

The original nine-sided earthen fort was formed in the shape of a wide ravelin arrowhead with its salient point aimed towards the River. It was…

making a date with your home (essay)

2013-06-19T02:28:23Z

One of Maxwell Ryan's ideas, and well worth thinking about, especially if you're a busy working single person.

You can just spend time with someone, but then, you can also have a date with them. Even if you're Platonic friends, married, or strangers, there's ordinary time, when you work or do chores, and then, there's date time, when you're both "on", showing your best selves, and getting to have fun with each other without having to think about (much) else.

The same is true of your home, whether house or flat.

It's surprising how many people don't really live in the places where they live. They might sleep there, sure, but they graze or eat microwaved food or takeout in front of the TV or the computer screen in the basement, not home-cooked meals at that lovely kitchen or dining table they've arranged with that dusty centerpiece. The living room might have a sofa, armchairs, and books, but they never sit and read there, the deck, with its…

spectres tell me your secrets so I might become a champion (thing)

2013-06-19T00:37:13Z

...what if we only just met,
is there such an impression as metempsychosis?

or did I break the only tenet: to not whisper to ghosts—
anxiety navigation, worries as means
to push my subliminal self in the wrong direction

perhaps you subscribe manifest destiny (the color of your eyes tell me you do)
and you've lassoed western leaning clouds from a young age
but in saturnalia, the well off neighborhoods where children play
it became lost on even yourself
the veridian green doesn't tell me this—only the slight furrow in your brow

so drop your shield for an avatar, I dare say a teacher
who will take you outside and open your beautiful face again
in morning covered dew

…

Cevian Centroid Rectangles (essay)

2013-06-18T18:21:22Z

This is a new geometry identity you haven't seen before. It's cute!

If you draw a random triangle, you can sketch a rectangle quickly and easily that has the same area as the triangle! In fact, there are three such rectangles, all easy to draw.

First, let's call the triangle the reference triangle, and abbreviate it as âR. Then, let's give the rectangle a name too. Let's call it the centroid cevian rectangle for reasons that will be explained soon, and abbreviate it as CCR.

The reference triangle is defined by three points. The three vertex points are A, B, and C. Doesn't matter if the triangle is acute, obtuse, or right angled, big, small... macht's nichts.

The triangle doesn't have a unique center, but one of its major center points is called the centroid.¹ The centroid is the center of mass of the triangle. Any line drawn through the centroid divides the…

Never forget (essay)

2013-06-18T15:39:43Z

Never forget the reasons you loved her.

They won't change.

Your feelings for each other might change. You might get more wrinkles. You might develop a hitch in your step, or begin snoring. She might get fat. She might not be so quick to smile. She might become a woman, instead of the girl you remember. Less naive, more complicated, more prone to your slights than she used to be.

Things used to be good. You only saw goodness in the beginning. The world was light and bright. No shadow, no clouds. You were running on pheromonal thinking.

She was always a step ahead. She knew the day would come when you didn't see her as perfect. She kept asking you to not put her on a pedestal. You didn't listen.

She braced herself for that day when you saw her as a normal, fallible woman. She knew it was coming, but you didn't.

That day came. The rose colored glasses came off, and you saw things as they were. It happened in a moment. You had lost…

Notes on Camp (place)

2013-06-18T15:38:31Z

When I was eleven or twelve, my parents thought I would enjoy sleepover camp with three of my neighborhood friends. We did everything together, in school and out, from "kick the can" to basketball to making potholders from multi-colored loops on a cheap square metal loom, which we, in our innocence, thought would make us lots of money. We talked about boys, mean teachers, and why our parents wouldn't let us wear two-piece bathing suits, yet they could jump, fully clothed, into a neighbor's pool after cocktails.

I had just rescued a baby bird and was keeping it alive in a shoebox underneath my bed. In secret, I asked one of my sisters to keep watch over it for two weeks while I was away. That didn't turn out well, so yeah, dead bird story.

It was a Girl Scout Camp called Camp Mogisca, not far, but too far for me. Some girls got letters everyday or had money to spend in the camp store for candy and lanyard-mak…

Chu's Day (review)

2013-06-18T14:58:03Z

Chu's Day
By Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Adam Rex
HarperCollins, 2013

Chu's Day is Neil Gaiman's shortest book -- a children's picture book written for very young children. It's very cute, and the illustrations are quite nice. As far as entertainment value goes, it is pretty much laser-targeted on ages 3-6.

Chu is a little panda with a big sneeze.

When Chu sneezes, bad things happen.

Will Chu sneeze today?

Chu the panda goes to the library. He thinks he's going to sneeze... but then he doesn't. He goes to a restaurant. He thinks that he's going to sneeze... but then he doesn't. He goes to the circus. He knows that he's going to sneeze... and he does!

And that's the whole story. There is no literary content. The big hook is that Cho's name looks like ah choo. If that. Of course, the illustrations add a…

Scent of a memory lost in time (poetry)

2013-06-18T08:31:23Z

I have read and it is said
by scientists no less,
that the human brain
even when insane,
just might be limitless.
So throw away your terabyte,
or whatever will come next.
When it comes to storing data,
the human brain is best.

Memories can never die
but often they're forgotten.
They can get lost or wander off
as sometimes is the problem.

Little tricks like sticky notes
or red strings tied onto fingers.
We've made all of these strategies
to try and make them linger.

Sometimes they are just like sand
and trickle from our clenching hands.
They wander off all on their own
and what we've lost we've never known.

But on occasion and it's a fact
they will…

please come stay with me in the forest so at least i have one person with whom i have no secrets (poetry)

2013-06-18T07:47:05Z

Soft, hold,
But please.
(the men are begging on their knees
their trousers drenched in apologies,
they whine and dine,
ad infinity)
And still,
believe,
a thousand rogue vagabonds unseen
believe believe believe believe
when most is crusted
unseemly teen dreamer
persevere, for me,
for thee,
FOR THEE!

Broke.
The lawless trademarks-
yesterday is here to stay-
just a slogan they have made.
With shattered glass
and pain, full show,
the glow embarrasses
rises through the nose.
I donât know I donât know.
BeholdÂ
the show
the pinnacle of our timesâ
The actors hardly know their lines.

Softly hold,
you know, no need bestow
on any except thee
ye know, ye knew
the adages so happily untrue
the paths broken before you
…

An Introduction to a Ghost Tour: On Truth, Myself, The Nature of Ghosts, and The City of Charleston (how-to)

2013-06-18T06:59:53Z

…

Shadow of the Giant (review)

2013-06-18T01:46:23Z

Shadow of the Giant
By Orson Scott Card
Tor books, 2005

Shadow of the Giant is the fourth novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow sub-series. It is immediately preceded by Shadow Puppets, and followed by Shadows in Flight.

This is the story of the major world powers sorting themselves out after the end of the Formic War (with a lot of help from the Battle School crowd), Peter's ascension (back) into power, and Bean and Petra coming to terms with Bean's disease. There is absolutely no point in reading it if you have not read the preceding books, specifically Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets.

Following Shadow Puppets, Achilles is dead and the Battle school kids are free to return to their home countries. Naturally, they are seen as powerful military weapons and are put to use sorting…

Apartment therapy (thing)

2013-06-17T23:35:49Z

Book/Website from Maxwell Ryan, 2003/2007

The idea is that the state of an dwelling reflects its inhabitant. Set designers know this implicitly: if you wish to show, perhaps, the mansion of a washed-up pop star Rita Rhinestone (in the opening scenes of a new rom-com), the place might be austerely luxurious in feeling, but it will also show signs of neglect, if not disrepair.Â Her long-lost high school sweetheart Tom Docker, (a humdrum widower with three children) will have a suburban home in apple-pie order, even if the walls are covered with kids' crayon drawings and the bookshelves with sports trophies. In reality, the pop star might actually have a cleaner house (she might have a cleaning service and/or just be a neat adult, the widower might not be able to keep house, especially with three kids complicating things), but for dramatic purposes, it's obvious which house is going to belong to whom. If the designer wants to really make it look like Ms. Rhinestone hit bottom, as…

Wreck-It Ralph (review)

2013-06-17T23:04:46Z

…

Peter Dinklage (person)

2013-06-17T19:25:36Z

Peter Dinklage is an actor of American origin, perhaps best known for his cromulent performance as "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister on HBO's TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, known on TV as "Game of Thrones". In 2012, after the airing of the first season of that series, he won the rather cumbersonly-titled Golden Globe Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television" and the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series".

Born June 11, 1969 in Morristown, New Jersey, Peter is not what most would consider a typical actor. He was born with achondroplasia, a condition that commonly results in dwarfism—his adult height is 4'5" (1.35m). Both his parents and an older brother are of average height. He has been married to theatre director Erica Schmidt since 2005; they have a…

The three golden rules of user interface design (idea)

2013-06-17T18:24:53Z

I received a message from Theo Mandel, letting me know that he was the author of the rules. Find his website at http://theomandel.com/resources/golden-rules-of-user-interface-design/.

The Limits on Executive Power in Disney's Aladdin (essay)

2013-06-16T18:10:15Z

"The law says you must be married to a prince by your next birthday."
- The Sultan of Agrabah

I am not about to claim that Disney put any significant time or effort into constructing a self-consistent universe for its retelling of Aladdin. This article is meant more as an exercise of Law in Literature, of deriving a consistent system from observation of behaviour, than a definitive statement of fact.

Real world systems have only a passing relevance to the Aladdin universe. The story takes place in the fantasy medieval sultanate of Agrabah. Apparently in the Arabian desert, and somewhere east of the Jordan, but with heavy central Asian and Indian influences, it is as far removed from an actual time or place as King Arthur's Camelot. It appears to follow Islamic traditions, with frequent references to Allah, and minaretted mosques prominent, but the government…

3eanuts (thing)

2013-06-16T04:28:13Z

What is it?

3eanuts is a webcomic based on a simple premise: Take Charles Monroe Schulz's popular comic strip, Peanuts and intentionally omit the last panel (basically, removing the punch line)

The result is often a mix of existential sadness, desperation and humor (and, depending on the reader, Schadenfreude)

Who does this?

Obviously, the primary author is Charles M. Schulz, who drew and wrote Peanuts during its almost 50 year run (from October 2 1950 to February 13 2000). He is often cited to be one of the most influential cartoonists ever due to his unique writing with sarcastic jokes, his minimalist style of drawing and the control he kept over his work (he insisted on not hiring assistants to do colors or letters because "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him.") A more complete biography can be found on the Schulz museum here.

…

Alma Ata (event)

2013-06-15T20:44:33Z

Coincidentally Similar to Alma Mater
Â Â Â Â (Nourishing Mother)

Never knew we were living in a world,
With a mind that could be so sure.
Never knew we were living in a world,
With a mind that could be so small.
Never knew we were living in a world,
And the world is an open court.

Maybe we don't want to live in a world,
Where innocence is so short.
We'll make it up to you,
In the year 2000...
_{Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â --Daniel Johns}

Alma Ata (Alma-Ata), (locally Almaty) the capital of Kazakhstan, was also the name of a conference held there by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 1978. Of course this location was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And in spite of the Cold War between communist countries and those embracing free enterprise, an urgent need…

And neither have I wings to fly (person)

2013-06-15T16:44:24Z

There is a ship

This might be easier to write about someone else's ship,
perhaps the Danish sea captain's, on my mother's side of the family,
or the aircraft carrier that took my sister's husband
to the Persian Gulf, while she was pregnant,
but the truth is in the simplicity of the phrase.

It could be anyone's ship, or no one's, like the Ghost Ship, last seen
far from Fukushima, drifting, off the coast of Alaska, sinking.

I choose to visualize for myself, the last ship model
my father started and didn't finish, a Viking ship.

And she sails the sea

His ship will never sail, listing starboard on a shelf, meticulous details,
half finished, gathering dust instead of barnacles,
There are no people on his ship.

She's loaded deep, as deep…

Your bed is no longer here, but the windows are (poetry)

2013-06-15T14:16:09Z

Hasty exits usually translate into
objects left behind, but you were
unusually conscientious.

Carefully removing almost every trace of yourself
(almost).

I have found two boxes of tea,
English Breakfast.

One slipper,
the one the dog did not eat, and

a single tube of lip gloss (mocha)
found accidently, while looking for car keys in the couch.

Lastly, you should know,
the sun still comes through the eastern window in
the bedroom.

It lights up the minature stained glass hanging there,
reflecting green and blue on the opposite wall,
every sunny morning.
Still.

She said the dance is a prayer. A prayer to toss into the tide all the weight of oblivion and humiliation. This is not a dance for one, fool - where are you? (poetry)

2013-06-15T03:01:45Z

To be honest,
she is no more real to me
than sleep

I can't pretend I understand it
Or that I know myself
for the duration

I can only trust myself
to know when it is necessary
and believe it will exist
without me

Believe she is there
wandering
Believe she will be whispering in my ear
telling me she can't stop and won't until
this whole town is in love with me
Believe she will be
holding up my little skeleton when
the day comes that they read the palms
and strike the matches and say no,
there is no other way
Believe she is running her fingers
through my hair
slowly, as though she was
trying to keep me awake

and failing miserably,
to be perfectly honest.

Bishops' Bible (thing)

2013-06-14T19:51:44Z

The Bishops' Bible was a translation of the Bible produced by a committee of bishops of the Church of England in 1568; it was revised in 1572, again in 1577, and then replaced by the King James Bible in 1611.

It was published in response to the Geneva Bible, which had been published by the English Dissenters in 1557 (Old Testament) and 1560 (New Testament), and which included commentary that did not reflect well on the established church. The Geneva Bible was also one of the first Bibles to be printed on a mechanical press and widely distributed to the public, and was disturbingly popular.

For about 40 years, the Bishops' Bible was the official Bible of the Church of England. It was much more grandiose than the Geneva Bible, with over 100 full-page illustrations, but without the commentary of earlier Bibles. It was used as a pulpit Bible in the Church of England, but didn't make much headway against the Geneva Bible in private…