Visuwords

Thought I'd bring this one forward,  I want to add a few things to the list on the right but Google is having trouble (are we surprised) with some of its features.  This one doesnt go anywhere but it's fun to doodle with.

http://www.visuwords.com/fullscreen/

Digitizing the World

(thank you to Ron for reminding me) One reluctant step at a time, we are turning ourselves away from paper to digital everything: no one writes letters, they use email or a Messenger or cell phones. 

Books are now downloaded into handheld readers,  newspapers and magazines almost always have an online presence. 

My dentist is taking 35 years of patient records and digitizing them. I have no idea what he does with the paper records, but its a bundle.  And yet to destroy them would mean no paper backup to the digital backup...If there were a fire, the paper is gone. If there is a power outage the digital stuff is inaccessible. 
The solution would be to also make copies of each and store THEM someplace.  oh yeah.

I see it as causing more work and only creating one extra layer rather than removing anything...

It's Been That Kind Of Week (6WS)

--and at the end of it all you think, "if I had a dog,  he'd have thrown up on the bed at 3 AM,  on the new white duvet cover that I purchased, the day before they went on sale..."

the dog and I are very grateful that I don't.

Scary to think about, maybe

I have been reading  comments across the boards about people who post photos of their very young children, grandkids, and the neighbor's new baby on public sites.  Facebook, Twitter, even blogs abound  with photos of small children and babies, many of them in various states of undress or no dress. Yes babies can get away with it,  but I'm thinking that too many people forget how utterly public these photos are.   Pasting a naked butt shot of your granddaughter on Facebook is the equivalent of posting that same photo in a shop window in a large city.  You cannot control how many people see it, or who those people might be.

Pedophiles and kiddie porn guys regularly haunt such places.  Think about that.  Unless you have a site locked down for family only,  you have no say--or knowledge--about who is watching.  It's not about giving out personal information, although I  think we all do, inadvertently;  we get comfy with our posts, our 'friends', our blogs, and drift a bit.  But when someone starts posting picture after picture of  their kids, be sure someone is going to find them. 

Somebody said, and I agree, keep those pictures in an album, or a shoebox,  and if you have to show them to someone, do it in email. 

It Hurts to Lose Old Friends (6WS)

Anywhere on the net we may encounter people we like, people we dislike, and sometimes those we grow to love.  For whatever reason,  and sometimes you never do find out why, some of them just disappear forever, overnight, without a trace or a word.  

It's a very fine thread that ties us to them;  no bigger than a strand of  spiderweb, in a way;  and once that strand is broken you finally have to accept that Gone is Gone, pack up the memories and move on.  Not that it works quite that easily, or gently.

Someone once said to me, "if something happened to you, how would I know?" 
He made a good point:  there are a lot of people out there that I know by only a first name, or a handle of some sort, and often not even what state they live in.  I guess the only way is to accept them as Five Minute Friends, always aware that the thread one day will break at one end or the other,  and go from there.

So Many Books, So Little Time (6WS)

(thanks to Cessie at 6WS for the inspiration for this)

Whining from the Frozen Tundra

We're down to counting sticks of wood in the shed and there is talk about scraping the snow off the stuff outside in case we need it.  It's the Ides of March  and we have barely a cord left inside.  I had hopes of at least limping into April with a bit left,  but this morning at 6 AM the outside temp was a hearty 6 above zero. O, please.   The house was an equally brisk 52. 

A three stove day, for sure.

But, she says bravely, straightening her shoulders and reaching for a wooly sweater, but it is the middle of March,  the days are getting longer,  the sun is a bit more useful than it has been, and April is out there somewhere. 

And whatever became of the Ides of, say, September...

Where's my mud? Where's my spring?

SPRING FEVER

Here where the slow light softly falls
on barren ground unstirred by spring
and frost still honeycombs the walls
there is no sound, no moving thing:

not yet the brush of leaf and wing,
nor yet the sturdy, dainty bloom
of  poplars prophesying spring.
Here is no spring, not yet, not soon.

Only the lengthened afternoons
gathering up the winter days
and chilly geese beneath the moon--
winter yet, with winter's ways.

Spider update

I found her this morning,  finally  released from her single strand of silk,  fallen into the space between the two windows.   I guess any life, no matter how small,  matters, if only to the creature involved.  And now and then, to others who somehow get involved too.  

small addendum:  the post that  this one refers to has been taken down:  it had become a magnet for seach engines of the spamming variety,  and there seemed no way to end it without actually removing the post itself. My apologies for anyone who happens upon this and thinks, 'what the hell...". 

Six Word Saturday

snow snow snow...

wood wood wood...

http://www.showmyface.com/