While researching a poem, I found this page about the Holocaust.  Scroll down, and below the main article in brown there is a little red box with a thumbnail summary including illustrative icons.  If you just read the highlighted keywords and their icons, you get "holocaust, systematic, state-sponsored, six million Jews, Nazi."  That's a brilliant nutshell for people who may not be verbal or fluent in English.  While I rarely see it in local-America outside of resources designed for people with special needs, it's quite common in Terramagne, although it usually appears above the main article to serve as a quick introduction.

Tags: activism, cyberspace theory, networking
Current Mood: busy

What you get when geeks are really into the typing experience.

LOL yes, Dvorak would bang these boys like a screen door in a hurricane.

Tags: cyberspace theory, networking, science
Current Mood: busy

mirrorofsmoke has a detailed post complaining about the inaccessibility of the popular chat program Discord for vision-impaired users.  It's not just inaccessible, the company is being obnoxious and basically doesn't feel that it should have to accommodate people with disabilities.  Please nag Discord to make its program accessible, and spread the word.

Tags: activism, cyberspace theory, networking
Current Mood: busy

Now I've been calling him that for a while, but this actually happened.  The Force really can  have a strong effect on the weak-minded!

Ladies and gentlebeings, start your memes!

Tags: cyberspace theory, entertainment, fantasy, humor, news, politics, science fiction
Current Mood: amused

There's a new Molly Beans strip, called "Mollyworld." What this really is: a discussion of who should pay the spoon for that conversation. Greg finds vocalization easier and more rewarding, while Molly prefers typing.

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Tags: art, cyberspace theory, family skills, how to, linguistics, networking, writing
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Do Not Read With Mouth Full

Recipe titles suggested by AI program. 

My observations:

1) There's a lack of computer-relevant separation; i.e. it helps to tell the computer what nouns and adjectives are, and not to duplicate words.  Learning how to do this without explicitly programming it is a useful challenge.

2) Some of these are encouragingly similar to what toddlers will suggest.

Tags: cyberspace theory, humor, linguistics, networking
Current Mood: amused

This is spillover from the February 7, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from siliconshaman. It also fills the "Friends in Low Places" square in my 12-1-16 card for the iPod Music Shuffle Fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

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Tags: cyberfunded creativity, cyberspace theory, family skills, fantasy, fishbowl, life lessons, poem, poetry, reading, science, weblit, writing
Current Mood: busy

This is the freebie for today's fishbowl, spliced from prompts by librarygeek and redsixwing.  It also fills the "Internet Friends" square in my 2-1-17 Love Songs card for the Valentines Bingo Fest.

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Tags: crafts, cyberfunded creativity, cyberspace theory, family skills, fishbowl, free stuff, poem, poetry, reading, weblit, writing
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This poem is spillover from the January 3, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles, mdlbear, and redsixwing. It has been sponsored by janetmiles.


"Heisenbugs"


In the febrile gap between
letters and numbers live
the Heisenbugs.

They bring the déjà vu
of things seen again and again,
a glitch in the matrix; and
the jamais vu of things
never seen before.

They perch on the tip of the tongue
and crunch numbers before
they can be summed,

words before they can be recognized.

They make the misconceptions
and the mistaken readings,
the lexical gaps and overlaps.

When is it fog, and
when is it a cloud?

Oh, wait, the word in the list
was humility, not humidity.

They live in computer programmers,
and thereby get into computers
and programs, far more fatal
than the wing of a moth.

The next thing you know,
December is January and
we're left wondering

how the glitch stole Christmas.

* * *

Notes:

Déjà vu  is an eerie sense of repetition.

Jamais vu  is an eerie sense of unfamiliarity.

Tip of the tongue is a sense of almost knowing something: the query activates the correct memory packet, but it fails to make the transit up to the conscious mind.

The first computer bug was an actual moth.

Tags: cyberfunded creativity, cyberspace theory, fishbowl, linguistics, poem, poetry, reading, science fiction, weblit, writing
Current Mood: busy

Watch a robot solve a Rubik's cube.  I actually saw something similar not long after the cube first came out, but the robot was much clunkier.  This one is elegant, faster, and demonstrates a better grasp of physics.

Tags: cyberspace theory, networking, science, video
Current Mood: amused

And the Asshole of the Year Award goes to All Romance e-Books. 

Tags: cyberspace theory, fiction, news, reading, romance
Current Mood: angry

This poem is spillover from the April 5, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from siliconshaman. It has been sponsored by lone_cat.

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Tags: cyberfunded creativity, cyberspace theory, fishbowl, history, linguistics, poem, poetry, reading, weblit, writing
Current Mood: busy

My partner Doug tipped me to WolframAlpha, a search engine that calculates things and answers questions.

Tags: cyberspace theory, networking, science
Current Mood: pleased

Why privacy is security.

Tags: cyberspace theory, news, politics, science
Current Mood: busy

There's a music video coming out of my poem "Origami Emotion," and a preview of that inspired my partner Doug to go looking for the poem online.  And it's everywhere.  This one has definitely escaped into the wild, passed around by word of mouth and blog and newsletters in a way that makes me suspect this one just might make it down to deep time.  This is a thing I value more than copyright.  This poem, flying around the world on its own wings.  <3  Apparently it's quite popular in sermons across multiple religions.  As an interfaith worker, that makes me happy too.

If you want to see the results, just google "Origami Emotion Elizabeth Barrette."

Tags: cyberspace theory, personal, poetry, reading, spirituality, weblit, writing
Current Mood: satisfied

 The online dating site OKCupid has added features to support polyamorous relationships.  It recently expanded its options for gender identity and sexual orientations too.

Tags: cyberspace theory, gender studies, networking, romance
Current Mood: busy

Some of these predate the internet even in their slang usage, although social networks have greatly spread the usage. 

Tags: cyberspace theory, linguistics, networking, reading, science
Current Mood: busy

 I enjoyed this dance for its subtlety as much as technical skill.  There is great potential in merging technology with dance, but too often it's overkill.  This is elegant.

Tags: cyberspace theory, entertainment, networking, video
Current Mood: busy

 Make virtual paper snowflakes when you need to relax.

Tags: crafts, cyberspace theory, networking
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 Here's an interview about the excellent animated short "Get a Horse."  The bit I want to highlight is where they couldn't find a clip of Walt Disney saying the word "red" so they spliced it together out of phonemes spoken in other words.  This is a crucial step necessary to the evolution of technology which reduces and eventually removes the need for actors: the ability to create a 'library' of appearance, motion, and sound which users can employ to compose performances.  It's a very popular way to make entertainment in the future.

Tags: cyberspace theory, entertainment, news, science
Current Mood: busy