ㅁ It's revealed that the mind's departing. Cobwebs of perception remain. Cliches circulate, slowly. Anxieties rise up. Reactions kick in. All's uncertain. And joy fades. No fun. Fog...
– a nonnet.
Month: April 2025
Caveat: Poem #3178 “What method is that?”
ㅁ errors proliferate in the world's strange fabric scientists assume there are rules maybe
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Poem #3177 “Errors of judgement”
ㅁ Clouds, drifting, make mistakes. They scud along, head for the mountain, committed to the bit, and then suddenly are torn, shredded on waiting, upright trees. They dissolve into a fractal mist.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3176 “A counterexample”
ㅁ On the other hand, there are the trees. They have a professional style. Organized, systematic, they take on gravity, eke out victories, and confronting earth and sky, persist, grow.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3175 “The beasts in the woods”
ㅁ People think animals are experts in their many activities, but I don't think that that's true. They are rank amateurs! Constantly doubting what will happen, thinking what to do next.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Links #140
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
- Dream welfare (really)
- The mental illness divide between liberals and conservatives probably isn’t what it seems
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“All this effort is invested in making influential people decide that you have taken away something they felt they deserved, causing them to hate you for life. Yes. These people are, generally, libs. They were already your enemies. Do you want to hurt them, or do you want to convert them? A child would want to hurt them; a king, to convert them.” – Curtis Yarvin (My thought: wow, not wrong, just needs a moral compass and he’s set!)
Caveat: Poem #3174 “Objection”
ㅁ Nothing ever goes as you expect. You create complex ideas, evolve preconceived notions, but that planning ahead fails to account for contingencies the real world throws at us.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Untypepadded at last
On this day we finally celebrate the long-hoped-for disintermediation of typepad in this blog’s existence.
I moved my blog to this self-hosted wordpress instance in 2018, frustrated with some decisions taken at the prior host, typepad. But these past 6 years, I have been unable to completely end my relationship with typepad, because I had literally 1000’s of pictures and blog-internal links to the old site (I’d been with typepad for 14 years!), all wrapped up in the page code imported to the new site, and I had no easy, automated way to fix that. So I have had a habit to go in and manually update these broken links, to go and manually grab the photos from the old site and get them properly moved to the new site. I have done a few here, a few there. I have had some bursts of productivity, but I rarely would get more than a dozen blog-posts processed in this way at once.
In the last six years, I have processed about 3000 old blog posts, dating from the blog’s founding in 2004 through 2018. And finally, this afternoon, I closed in the last remaining ones. Because I was only semi-systematic in my approach, these last stale blog posts were from October, 2013. They dated from the conclusion of my radiation treatment for my cancer. Somehow that felt weirdly symbolic.
So now, if I want, I can finally stop paying typepad for their hosting of the old blog. This was never a financial burden – my newer, self-hosted version actually costs me quite a bit more. Typepad had offered a deal, when I first signed up, for a “rate never changes” hosting plan that I’d signed up for. So the rate, a mere $50 / year, has never changed. Unfortunately, the quality of their support never changed much, either – it was always consistently bad. And the last straw was when they forced technical changes, with zero support or understanding, that broke material I’d posted.
Anyway, I’ll let the typepad hosting plan die a natural death, waiting until the end of the annual renewal – I believe that’s in August or September. And I really have to hope I don’t ever become disillusioned with my current blog hosting provider, since that’s… myself.
Caveat: Poem #3173 “The snow did not stick to the ground”
ㅁ The rain had changed to snow at last; it scudded down in swinging gales. Large, clumpy flakes plunged down so fast. The rain had changed to snow at last; but shifted back, the winter's past. The ground's too warm, so nothing pales. The rain had changed to snow at last; it scudded down in swinging gales.
– a triolet.
Caveat: Links #139
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“Growth!” – Cancer
Caveat: Poem #3172 “What’s actually there”
ㅁ The dream told me I was in Saint Paul, down along Snelling Avenue, but the buildings were all wrong - odd gothic fantasies: U of Chicago run through AI, distorted in weird shapes.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3171 “At the gate”
ㅁ civilization, founded on trust, is overtaken from within; cynical barbarism, distrusting all the words, hollows out the world, until at last what remain are our fears.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Links #138
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“Escape room idea: a well-stocked bookstore with clearly marked exits. You have one hour. Good luck.” – Internet Person
Caveat: Poem #3170 “And you can get there by subway”
ㅁ i have left this world a place between real, not-real orbis tertius
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3169 “Discourse on madness”
ㅁ Language is utterly contingent. Meanings will coalesce sometimes, only to evaporate. Strings of sounds will remain, contours in the air. This bland babble entertains, flowers, fails.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Links #137
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
- Observational evidence for string theory
- Pueyo on Korea’s History (good summary for those unfamiliar)
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“We all have forests in our minds.” – Ursula Le Guin
Caveat: Poem #3168 “Eighty-fifth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon sighed. Things becoming quite dire. People were angry, the world was on fire. Still, she at least had the comfort of ghosts. Calm and assured, with their confident boasts.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Part of a never-ending series of randomized snippets from the life of a fictional being in a fictional world (which is to say, my novel-in-progress that refuses to actually ever progress).
Caveat: Poem #3167 “Falling asleep, and then”
ㅁ Those hypnagogic moments when the brain zaps flourish: not quite "zen"... I jolt awake, as if the gods had poked at me with cattle prods.
– a quatrain in iambic tetrameter.
Caveat: Links #136
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
- Kriss’ strange fiction (?) is always interesting (The coming AI overlords…)
- Slightly right-slanted analysis of extreme political polarization in SKorea
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“Ölümden qorqma, faydasız yaşamaqtan qorq.” – Crimean Tatar proverb (“Don’t fear death, fear living a meaningless life.”)
Caveat: Poem #3166 “A decision has been made”
ㅁ I have many tasks, but I'd rather do nothing. So: procrastinate.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3165 “Caninity”
ㅁ Dogs and dogs live their lives along the road visiting and smelling the scenery.
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Links #134
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“When you go far enough left, you get your guns back.” – Internet Person
A thought.
Closed-border autarky is just right-wing-coded degrowtherism.
Caveat: Poem #3164 “What I think when I say ‘Enjoy the sunshine'”
ㅁ The sun is shining. The air is still quite cold, though. I prefer the rain.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3163 “Ideations”
ㅁ If I weren't bound here by commitments and duty, I'd re-emmigrate.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Links #133
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“Dreams drag truth out of the darkness” – Internet Person
Caveat: Poem #3162 “Events down the road”
ㅁ some birds swirled nearby tracing out their social plans feeling spring's approach
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3161 “The softness”
ㅁ the fool ruled the world with a fist of jelly no one could resist such mildness they lost
– a cinquain.