War thoughts
A friend in church was wearing a pin with US and UK flags on. It felt very reassuring; we're on the same side, in Jane's words, "sticking together." Dying together too.
I'm finding it really hard to pull together any cohesive thought
Topic
Writing
A collection of 128 issues
The Poetry of Programming
Read an interview with Richard Gabriel, a Sun engineer, linked from IdeaJoy. ThinkGeek has the perfect t-shirt for this guy: Code Poet.
Writing code certainly feels very similar to writing poetry. When I'm writing poetry, it feels like the center of my thinking is in a particular place,
Rememberance
Today is Veteran's Day in the US, yesterday was probably Memorial Sunday in the UK. World War II still has its effects in UK culture. You tend to eat two or more vegetables with every main meal, because your parents grew up with food rationing. You study the
The Living Web
Link from Simon Warren. Mark Bernstein's article on A List Apart: 10 Tips on writing the living web.
Worth the read. In summary:
1. Write for a reason
2. Write often
3. Write tight
4. Make good friends
5. Find good enemies
6. Let the story unfold
7.
Carpe Diem (trans: Fish of the Day)
English is a light-fingered language, stealing a word here, a phrase there. I have been wondering what "sine qua non" means for a bit, and found a web site with translations of the words English has snaffled from French, German, Italian, Spanish and Latin. Curiously, English took only
Hot or Not?
Now you can rate blogs based on a mere second's thought (if that), or rate them all a 3 before they even load. Is Quantum Tea hot or not? (But all the herd is moving that way Mummy, please can I go with them?)
But surely a blog
Poetry
Sehlat said:
"The desire of depressed people, especially depressed teenagers, to write bad poetry is so common that it should be listed as an official symptom in the DSM-IV."
Haiku, sonnets, and flumes are poetry forms that require discipline. The first two specify number of syllables, which line
Web content
How to write a better weblog by Dennis Mahoney is a good read. I've just found A List Apart. In Defense of web diaries is another article I want a link to, by Erika Meyer. I love this quote:
Web writing is different at its very core. Words