shattered sea

shattered sea

is it beyond belief

that beneath this shattered sea

our damage attacks the reef

that supports you and me

how can we not see

that our greedy reach

extends beneath the shattered sea

our sacred pact we breach

we attack the pact of love

intrude beyond the world above

into the shattered sea we shove

horrors of our rueful glove

how can we, once from the sea

who came to dwell upon the land

not hear or heed the urgent plea

how can we not take a stand

and to our aquatic cousins

we infect them with our sins

inject them with poisoned bodkins

turn away as their realm blackens

let us plunge in and find how can we

fathom what can we do, you and me

begin to make peace with the sea

join the plea to heal this shattered sea

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Transcript of Infographics

I transcribe infographics to text for accessibility. The transcript could be written by the original author, someone who redistributes it, a reader like your or me, or automatically transcribed by an artificially intelligent bot using techniques such as optical character recognition (OCR) and image and scene analysis and description software. The transcript could be in plaintext, rich text, Markdown, or other standardized formats. Information beyond the graphical content could also be included, including but not limited to citation information such as source, author, and date of publication. Data beyond the data is commonly called metadata. There are many advantages to having a textual transcript of all photographs, drawings, and infographics. Nearly all motivations are about increasing accessibility. Textual annotations or transcripts of graphics, video, or audio content allow screen readers to play audio or braille or other rendering of the text for people who are blind or visually impaired; text is indexable and searchable on web sites, blogs, and social media platforms; text is readable for people who cannot look at a visual display to read which can be useful if they are driving, flying, operating a forklift, and more; text is translatable to other languages by human or machine translation. It is my belief that all content should be accompanied by a plaintext transcript or at least annotations including description and author at a minimum.

how to make a grotto

Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a natural stone formation that can be used as a grotto. If not, how would you go about constructing one? Here is a checklist on how to make a grotto. We hope that you find it helpful. But here we will share a few notes about grotto construction to consider.

Start with a pile of rocks

Grotto construction can be a simple matter of piling rocks into a structure, however this could be a safety risk because the rocks could collapse and cause damage, injury, or death. Bricks or landscaping pavers could also be used as part of the structure. Again, if you just stack these materials with or without rocks and soil, be careful of the safety of your construction.

Use mortar to keep the rocks together

A significant enhancement to the stability and safety of a grotto can be achieved through the use of mortar. This video describes the fundamental differences between cement, concrete, and mortar. You can apply mortar between the stones or bricks as you build your grotto. The mortar helps hold the structure together. If you plan to add significant strength to the structure, consider using concrete, as noted in the video earlier in this paragraph.

Use steel reinforcement bars (rebar) for strength

Although it is less simple and natural than a pile of rocks or a stack of bricks, you could build an artificial grotto structure using concrete. In order to shape the concrete into creative or natural looking structures, you could use steel reinforcement bars (rebar) to create the desired shape and add strength to the structure. Such strength is especially important if you will ever climb or walk on the grotto structure such as to tend to the plants you may have growing on it.

Skilled construction workers and landscape engineers may use burlap, plastic or metal screen, chicken wire, and other materials around the rebar to help shape the concrete that is used to build the structure. An example of this is shown in this video showing a preparation stage of an elaborate grotto construction.

Adding water

Before building the grotto structure, you may wish to add plumbing inside the grotto structure, or craft water channels in the surfaces of the structure. You can transform a simple stone or concrete grotto structure into a fountain or waterfall by using appropriate plumbing and water channels. This can also be useful for irrigation of plants that grow in and on the grotto.

Adding plants

Some people like to build grottos as a simple stone shrine. Transforming the grotto into a water feature should be planned ahead if at all possible, though water could be retrofitted into some existing grotto structures. Whether you build your main structure of stone, brick, reinforced concrete, or a combination of these, you can incorporate plants into your design. Be sure to accomodate enough space in the planting portions of your design for adequate soil, water supply, root structure, and drainage.

Ferns, grasses, reeds, bamboo, all varieties of tropical plants, and flowers are popular kinds of plants to include in a grotto. In some cases the same plants could survive through the life of the grotto. It is possible to replace old flowers with new ones on a regular basis. And you could change the types of plants in the grotto over time. Depending on your balance of the grotto elements—the fundamental structure, shrine, water, and plants—you could create a garden that features your grotto or even a garden within the grotto. Whether you build a garden grotto or a grotto garden, we hope you enjoy your creation.

Favorite grottos

Do you have any favorite grottos that you like to visit? A quick web search can reveal a wealth of photos of grotto gardens. Do you have a design that you would like to build some day, or perhaps photographs of a grotto you have built?

 

pineapplezza

in my travels i have found

some people truly care

if pi are square

or pi are round

some people like their pi

sometimes the fruity kind

but people are particular

about certain kinds of zza

whether you spin it or roll it

thick or thin, how do you slice it

do you prefer triangulish wedges

or squares with centers and edges

do you make your pizza cheesy

or topped a little scant and teasey

do you pile on the pepperoni

or spice it up with pepperoncini

is the red sauce mandatory

or something you eschew

are garlic and basil perfunctory

and is pineapple taboo

does cilantro taste like divinity

or does it taste soapy to you

do you crave this prince of parsley

and garnish your pizza with it too

it took a pair of kiwis

one from here, one from there

it took this pair beyond compare

to make the perfect pineapplezza

many a time i have seen

pizza with pineapple toppings

often in chunks, sometimes slices

placed on top, along with spices

but pineapplezza is a bold creation

to some it is a perturbation

yet many rejoice this recipe

hope to eat it and dance with glee

and so it was the prince of Yee

who laid a foundation pineappley

of pineapple wedges a crust was made

upon papered tray this bliss was laid

with cheeses and sauces it was dressed

by olives and cilantro this was blessed

baked in the oven until hurrah

ready to eat this pineapplezza

pineapplezza so pleased the Yees

the news swiftly spread beyond kiwis

after ‘twas eaten they still wanted more

when to expect pineapplezza’s encore

would you eat just any old zza

or start with a pineapple crust

and pile on the toppings you trust

would you try this pineapplezza

Finding rhymes with rhymer and grep

So when a friend asked about rhyming with taxing, I thought of a couple words, and the two other things I resort to when I cannot think of a rhyme.

1. Rhymer.com — I used to use it much more than I do now. But it is still on a tab way at the top of the browser on my phone.

2. On macOS and Linux you can use the “grep” (global regular expression print) command and the words file to search for stuff.

Note in the following, a regular expression character of a dollar sign anchors the matched values to the ends of the lines (words in this case) thus the pattern “xing$” means words that end in -xing.

You’re welcome.

🙂

—

$ grep “xing$” /usr/share/dict/words

antiboxing

antimixing

autosexing

boxing

coaxing

fixing

foxing

indexing

perplexing

proboxing

shadowboxing

taxing

uncoaxing

unfixing

unperplexing

unrelaxing

unsexing

untaxing

waxing

$ grep “ksing$” /usr/share/dict/words

$ grep “ks$” /usr/share/dict/words

adzooks

badderlocks

Bentincks

bleachworks

blinks

blunks

boilerworks

boondocks

brassworks

chinks

copperworks

cornbinks

cowlicks

creashaks

curlylocks

facks

fenks

fishhooks

fishworks

Gadzooks

gasworks

gateworks

glassworks

goldenlocks

goldilocks

hunks

inks

interworks

ironworks

jinks

links

longshanks

marshlocks

meatworks

Meeks

merribauks

metalworks

methinks

Odzooks

pilliwinks

plainbacks

pricks

printworks

saltworks

scrapworks

shucks

silkworks

skeesicks

slateworks

sparks

specks

spindleshanks

standelwelks

starchworks

steelworks

sternworks

sticks

stocks

sugarworks

tanworks

tarworks

thanks

tiddledywinks

tileworks

trucks

tryworks

tubeworks

wireworks

womenfolks

workfolks

works

yellowshanks

yoicks

zooks

halfwich and demiwich

is a half sandwich

not half of a sandwich?

ambiguity makes me twitch

i must know which wich is which

which half of a sandwich

is a halfwich?

the left half of the knife

or the right?

not a halfwitted halfwich

the kind torn all haphazard

that’s just a hapwich

not a true halfwich

don’t tell me a demiwich

is even half the same

an open-faced demiwich

really isn’t to blame

wouldn’t eat it the same

if i was only half sane

fingers all a-slopping

in that demiwich’s toppings

not trying to snitch

it’s all we can do in a pinch

but that open-faced wich

is clearly a demiwich

is a tostada a demiwich

with round rigid foundation

scratching your hunger itch?

rice, corn, or bread, any suffice

so what makes a semiwich

that isn’t a demiwich

not even a halfwich

but truly semi-sandwich-ish?

i swear i’m not wacko

but it’s sort of a taco

but without a tortilla

a semiwich has bread instead

but boring round tortillas

so splendidly circular

only make semiwiches

seriously semicircular

that droopy oblong loaf of rye

load up one side of a slice

with your favorite toppings

add a little spread to the head

fold the slice along the center

soft bread becomes more benter

when head meets toe of the slice

your semiwich is quite nice

bread of another persuasion

right rectangular or even domed

straight down the center

goes the semiwich’s fold

square bread gives you choices

for a fold down the meridian

or even equatorially

turns a square into a rectangle

but if you fold diagonally

square bread turns to triangles

with two acute corners

and one that’s right

so what do you call

these semiwich styles?

equatorial and diagonal

or rectangular and triangular

no matter which way

you don’t slice it

a semiwich made with care

can be a yumwich beyond compare

but if you slice your semiwich

would it be a quarterwich

or like a fortnight folded

is half a semiwich a weekwich

mad hummer

whether autumn, winter, spring, or summer

some found my behavior a bit of a bummer

i could have been a strummer or a drummer

but they used to call me the mad hummer

within my head a soundtrack always playing

throughout my whole being permeating

lips closed, a tune ever emanating

some would say, only in sleep abating

yet often would i dwell in silence

immersed in nature and in science

then my humming held compliance

imagination and silence in alliance

over time the humming ceased

gave my family some relief

sacred humming not deceased

pulled within beneath the breach

for years thereafter

amid tears and laughter

with cloistered clambering crafters

humming hung in rafters

tucked away like years-long lent

the humming was not wholly spent

but never was it prevalent

yet the hidden hum was relevant

when the hum nearly went dark

then there came a lark

whose twittering sure did spark

the hummer out of park

just when nearly spurned

that spark that deeply burned

life’s experience has churned

the mad hummer has returned