#metaphor — Public Fediverse posts

To write non-fiction, draw the trunk, then the rest of the tree

https://devz.cl/posts/how-to-write/

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49610780

#HackerNews #nonfiction #writing #storytelling #creative #process #writing #tips #tree #metaphor

A parasitic wasp found its way into our house. My partner spotted it when it landed on a box of cereal, and carried the box outside. When the amusement park ride ended, the parasitic wasp rider flew elsewhere.

This aligns with my own observations over many years. Parasitic wasps are laid-back and copacetic (although their ovipositor targets might disagree). They are the hippie liberals of the Hymenoptera World Order.

In contrast, black and yellow paper wasps are the MAGA wasp conservatives. Wink at one, and it will go nuclear on you.

#funny #metaphor #wasp

A parasitic wasp found its way into our house. My partner spotted it when it landed on a box of cereal, and carried the box outside. When the amusement park ride ended, the parasitic wasp rider flew elsewhere.

This aligns with my own observations over many years. Parasitic wasps are laid-back and copacetic (although their ovipositor targets might disagree). They are the hippie liberals of the Hymenoptera World Order.

In contrast, black and yellow paper wasps are the MAGA wasp conservatives. Wink at one, and it will go nuclear on you.

#funny #metaphor #wasp

A parasitic wasp found its way into our house. My partner spotted it when it landed on a box of cereal, and carried the box outside. When the amusement park ride ended, the parasitic wasp rider flew elsewhere.

This aligns with my own observations over many years. Parasitic wasps are laid-back and copacetic (although their ovipositor targets might disagree). They are the hippie liberals of the Hymenoptera World Order.

In contrast, black and yellow paper wasps are the MAGA wasp conservatives. Wink at one, and it will go nuclear on you.

#funny #metaphor #wasp

A parasitic wasp found its way into our house. My partner spotted it when it landed on a box of cereal, and carried the box outside. When the amusement park ride ended, the parasitic wasp rider flew elsewhere.

This aligns with my own observations over many years. Parasitic wasps are laid-back and copacetic (although their ovipositor targets might disagree). They are the hippie liberals of the Hymenoptera World Order.

In contrast, black and yellow paper wasps are the MAGA wasp conservatives. Wink at one, and it will go nuclear on you.

#funny #metaphor #wasp

Nine of my learnings from the first Meeting Design Practicum — 30 meeting designers together for 48 hours in Utrecht, The Netherlands

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2016/02/nine-learnings-from-the-first-meeting-design-practicum

#meetings #EventDesign #Practicum #learning #ElementaryMeetings #metaphor #Druids #EscapeRoom #fun #eventprofs

The problem with forgetting that metaphors are metaphors is that we start mistaking the map for the territory.

“Left” and “right” are useful shorthand, but they are not the actual political landscape.

Once we forget that, the metaphor becomes a box. People start defending the box instead of looking at the reality it was supposed to help us understand.

This happens everywhere: “the market”, “the state”, “the economy”, “society”, even “technology”. They are ways of thinking about things, not things themselves.

Metaphors help us see, they can also make us blind. So part of the #OMN path is learning to notice the metaphors we are living inside.

Simple stuff, but deeply important.

#OMN #openweb #4opens #KISS #metaphor

For the next two days, Mark Turner is visiting @sfb1475 for a rich program discussing overlaps between Blending Theory and our work on Metaphors of Religion. https://sfb1475.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/event/conceptual-blending-across-cultures-texts-08-2026/ I’m excited about this opportunity to touch base with one of the leading figures in the field. #Metaphor #MetaphorsOfReligion #BlendingTheory

> “For a program that’s been around since 2013, it was shocking that you’d come
> across its cancellation, effectively, in the corner of the bowels of a subpage of the internet.”

TWEEET!

Doubly-mixed metaphor; 10-yard penalty. Repeat first down.

#whistle #football #penalty #metaphor #MixedMetaphor #LanguagePolice

If you ask the grass, the zebra is the monster and the lion is the protector.

#perspective #philosophy #value #life #analogy #metaphor

“I live an hour out of town. It’s not like I can come in at the spur of the drop of a hat.”

— new top-tier malaphor overheard in Bismarck, North Dakota

#northdakota #malaprop #metaphor #malaphor #portmanteau

Baking a Model: A Metaphor for LLM Training

https://newsletter.kentbeck.com/p/baking-a-model

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49305969

#HackerNews #Baking #a #Model #LLMTraining #AIModel #Metaphor #MachineLearning

The Cost of Being Easy to Love

https://getawaywithhamza.wordpress.com/2026/08/15/the-cost-of-being-easy-to-love/

Dead insects in my office corridor.

https://glitched.earth/dead-insects/

#insects #metaphor

🚀 Ah, another day, another 'visionary' who thinks #AI #labs are the new sovereign states 🌐. The real revelation here? That 403 error – a fitting #metaphor for the impenetrable logic 🤔 of comparing a code-writing bot to an entire government. 🙄
https://ai-updates.net/an-openai-strategist-says-ai-labs-should-rival-government-power/ #Sovereignty #AI #Tech #HackerNews #HackerNews #ngated

What a #metaphor: #climatechange is making #Nazi #boats visible in the #Danube

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/world/europe/danube-germany-ships-serbia.html

If you like metaphors and similes (or hardboiled crime fiction), this one's for you: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2026/08/06/30-odd-metaphors-from-ross-macdonald/

#language #metaphor #ShortStories #CrimeFiction #reading #writing

oh my goddddd im so excited to VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT #metaphor #midterms #primaries

The Silver Strand

returning 
to the car 
i see
a silver strand 
intent on 
capturing me
 
i was gone 
but a moment 
yet the spider 
did spin
from the mirror 
across the window 
to lure 
me in
 
it seems 
this small one 
dreams of 
bigger prey
so too I 
if to my path 
I stay

this bit 
of web 
is a 
flimsy thing
but if 
I cast 
it not
i snare 
nothing

July 2, 2016

Fascinating, wide ranging (long) interview with Dr. Sledge, Internet historian and academic investigator of ancient texts on the uncensored history of our quest for meaning and what we can do about this moment's "meaning famine". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOEp7L2hi9g #Philosophy #OccultStudies #Religion #Mythology #Metaphor #MeaningFamine #ESOTERICA

Broken Chair

I rescued the chair from outside someone’s apartment with the hope of fixing it and having it become a welcome member of our family.

But, as often happens, it sat around in various places waiting for me to find the time to repair it.

Finally, I decided it was one more project I did not have time for, and so yesterday I put it out on the sidewalk in the hopes that someone would take it home.

It sat out there all through yesterday in the rain and the sun, lonely, awaiting a new friend. A few people paused to look but then drove away. Periodically I would look out my window to see it still sitting forlornly there.

Then this morning I noticed an older gentleman walking past who began to inspect the chair. He picked it up, put it on his back and walked away.

It is a beautiful chair. It just needs to be repaired, and I am sure its new owner will do just that.

I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot like that broken chair, waiting for the gentle hands of someone to put me back together again.

I wait, broken, with the hope that those hands will touch me, I will be healed, and I can have a purpose again.

July 10, 2015

Vincent, or: Theo

A Sijo

EPIGRAPH:

You don’t know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can’t do anything.

–Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890)

the life we painted—over;
blank linen upon my easel;
this choice feels almost sacred;
one false first stroke would skew my course;
still, memory steadies my hand;
old lessons guide the brush I raise

Sijo?

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

Mom killed that idea. Here's one way that kids are smarter than adults—skill at employing metaphor—and the implications for events

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2015/01/mom-killed-that-idea

#events #EventDesign #metaphor #eventprofs

🐟🕶️ Ah yes, because comparing a Fortune 500 company to a blind cavefish is the perfect #metaphor for corporate strategy. Apparently, once you're successful, you should stop seeing where you're going—it's the latest trend in business innovation! 🙈#CorporateWisdom
https://ianreppel.org/how-successful-companies-go-blind/ #CorporateStrategy #BusinessInnovation #BlindCavefish #Fortune500 #HackerNews #ngated

#Explaining #AI #fake #videos to your #parents is the new telling a #toddler there's no Easter Bunny.

#meme #technology #education #teaching #metaphor #nerd #humor #just4fun #lmao #lol #rotfl #fun #funny #illusion #children #kids #believe #reality #digital #propaganda

Sexual Metaphors Across The Centuries

Relieving song, or: Rising steam

A Sijo

my pot begins to murmur
beneath its plain, faithful cap;
every heartbeat finds less room
inside the thick, waiting steel;
then comes the valve's relieving song
each stanza lifts with rising steam

d’Verse: Ars poetica revisited

At d’Verse, we are encouraged to write an Ars Poetica that reveals our relationship with poetry through imagery, symbolism, or personification, showing our writing process rather than simply explaining it.

Sijo?

A Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka and comprised of three lines of 14-16 syllables each, for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line contains a pause near the middle, similar to a caesura, though the break need not be metrical. The first half of the line contains six to nine syllables; the second half should contain no fewer than five. Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure. Modern sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

I explain my path through metaphors of ontological grammar with examples.

👉 https://open.substack.com/pub/brywillis634737/p/ontological-grammar-and-metaphor?r=pvxh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#philosophy #substack #blog #podcast #optics #lenses #water #refraction #software #firmware #ontology #judgment #metaphor #grammar #ontologicalgrammar #perspective #physics

How did you celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the #Brexit vote?
I took the car for a service, and got a quote to spend more money than I anticipated.
I then cleaned out the chickens, shovelling shit in uncomfortably high temperatures.
#metaphor #ukpol

There's A Reason Zombies Are Everywhere This Decade (Someone's Getting Rich)

https://youtu.be/-XgCFn6Vbnw?si=ZpDFEfCuEtvebmdZ

#AttentionEconomy #BarrysEconomics #economics #Inequality #SocialJustice #BehaviouralEconomics #shorttermism #research #neuroscience #VideoEssay #doomscrolling #metaphor #Zombies

Matt Taibbi Loses His Vexatious SLAPP Suit As Judge Explains What A ‘Metaphor’ Means

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/06/matt-taibbi-loses-his-vexatious-slapp-suit-as-judge-explains-what-a-metaphor-means/

I am writing an open #letter to all #political sides as an #introduction to #hope I wish to turn #hurt away from and closer into as such through #affirmative #action accordingly if at all possible.

Let me start out by saying, that I #believe in the #power of real human prayer as #unbound #energy finding its way through us. And in turn, I'm no #religious #person by and large, but I am going to send this #prayer out there anyways because I feel it needs to be #said as is.

This will be a prayer covering several #topics of conversation that I #feel are important and significant enough to relay as one broadcast.

#extremism

To all #people I #pray that:
You realize living on your own #political #island sounds great in theory, be it on the #left or the #right of the spectrum. Or even at the #top or #bottom of it as well. But being unable to find or care for the #center of it, leaves you #vulnerable to #attack more so than anything else. And that is not a state of things I #desire for you to have to #live by.

#awareness

I pray that:
As #individuals you #collectively and #personally #understand that there are differences between the #perception of how you come across to others, and how others #perceive you in turn. It is okay to have a #difference of opinion, but to be #blind sighted by this, leaves you open to being #weaponized and I do not #wish that for you to have to #experience at all.

#sovereignty
I pray that:
You can #recognize how someone wants to be able to experience #respect without having to diverge or divulge your #interest in a #potential #conflict as such. In order for us to be able to #trust each other, we have to #remember how to #treat one another as #equals rather than constantly #competing for #dominance based on denying that there #exists a spectrum of #agreeability at play that we are all apart of.

#CommonSense
I pray that:
We keep building upon #frameworks that do not need to become a totally separate #foundation that exists just to serve you. But rather, exist as #modular #blocks that can join and detach from one another as already built #structures full and complete. This way, we are not trying to conflict over what block we have to share space with someone else in prioritizing. Because the entire thing is ours to shape in our own way. And so as a #metaphor, I feel it is #important to attach to the idea of having a sense in common, as opposed to a common sense where applicable, of things that cause us to #fight over how #relevant it is to most of us around the #actual or #planned #change currently in motion.

#battles
I pray that:
We are able to tell when to be #still and when to #move upon any #focus that #captivates us in part. Whether it exists as apart of a #whole or not. Doing so will help us make the best #impact #possible for the change we want to make a #reality for the #cause we are #concerned for.

And ultimately, I pray that we can move past the blatant need to have an #existential #crisis be on full display at the #crossroads of #agendas being carried out as they are each in turn, #instigated by #georegional #tribalism that serves nobody accept to put #humanity as a whole last, not first, as I intend to do.

All of these things are #real and can be #fixable and #doable as such. And I want to make sure, that this reality does not have a chance to get far out of #control the way it currently has.

For it is #outcomes like this, that #incomes should never have appropriately #manifested into #place that I want to #avoid and keep #preventable from ever #happening again.

To me, I find it very #unfortunate that we are living through #times of such blatant #hardship that should not have to be so unnecessary in today's day and age. For in this latest #protest #style #news #video we see this very inteersection of mounting, preventable #activities #culminating all at once in a display of #violent #behaviour best #repurposed for other #interests in my #opinion acordingly.

#posted by #YouTube #reactor and #media #podcaster #RebelNews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjT3kK5lHKk

In #America #israel and #Canada or anywhere else in our #world we should not have to worry about #migration #problems at home #effecting the #symptom of #indifference at the #core of #ineffective #deference as such. Rather, if we simply #agree to #adapt our time towards #focusing on the #things we can #bear #witness to as our own #personal #legacy then I say we have done enough for our #community be it or we tied to a particular #faith or not.

I say this, in my own #human name for all it is worth. Because that is who I am now, and if any #guardian #angel believes this to be #true then all I ask, is that you add yours to this prayer and pass it forward.

Thank you for your #attention to this #matter as such. I #appreciate it and you very much for the #blessing that you are.

how art happens

#Abstract #Surreal #Landscape #Pigments #Sky #Clouds #Mountains #Valley #Colorful #Metaphor
#Img2img #AiArt #AiArtists #AiArtCommunity #StableDiffusion

on real things: https://aieris.art/featured/how-art-happens-eris-and-ai.html

Это великолепно
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obh8JOLbIAo
#ReFantazio #metaphorrefantasio #Metaphor

Laplace's demon. Entry X-0: THE UNSEEN FLAW

https://friendica.world/display/84b6ef2b-8768-6194-6423-d85260939288

SYSTEM FAILURE _

https://friendica.world/display/84b6ef2b-1968-5438-5db5-565737913797

2. Cyber Demon: The Flesh Protocols : Chapter 1.02

https://friendica.world/display/84b6ef2b-1668-5297-ab1f-a8a475378550

1. Cyber Demon: The Flesh Protocols : Chapter 1.01
-------------------

They gave him a body.
Not out of mercy — but necessity.
They wanted a weapon that could walk.

https://zotum.net/item/7f6f630b-34b1-493b-98ef-1971c599a2fa

#cyberpunk #Horror #digitalart #underground #Fantasy #digital #mirror #fantasyart #consciousness #gothic #gothicart #awarness #blackmirror #GothicHorror #ai #agi #metal #mystical #killerbot #murderbot #cyborg #apocalipse #postapocaliptic #cyber #metaphor #artifical #psychedelic #artificialintelligence

2. (DEMONIC) MIRROR OF REALITY - Chapter 1

https://friendica.world/display/84b6ef2b-1768-4229-4cba-d60346599810

#EricSchwitzgebel - What is #Belief?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFhD8mJk18

#Philosophy #Metaphysics #PhilosophyOfBelief #Eliminativism #Representationalism #Memory #Metaphor #Behaviorism #Behaviourism #Dispositionalism #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

tech in a bottle

#MacroPhotographyStyle #CircuitBoards #Bottles #Technology #Metaphor #Traditional #Encased #Img2Img #AiArt #AiaArtists #StableDiffusion

(8/8) Sorry to post such a long thread, but hopefully some interested academic-type people will read it! Here’s a concluding list of tags that give you an idea of the areas I do reading in in order to help formulate my ideas:

#Ecology #ComplexSystems #Emergence #Metaphor #EmbodiedCognition #Aesthetics #Gesture #Symmetry #CategoryTheory #QuantumTheory #Evolution #Relativity #Semiotics #ProcessPhilosophy #Pragmatism #Design #CareEthics #BuddhistStudies #Decoloniality #BlackFeminism

Did you know #dementors in #HarryPotter are a #metaphor for #depression, created by J.K. Rowling, because she herself suffered of one?

#dementor #fantasy #book #novel #movie #dyn #til

https://www.quora.com/What-was-J-K-Rowlings-inspiration-for-dementors-in-Harry-Potter

Bullet the Blue Sky*

I went outside 
to watch the 
stars.

It is as if 
all the bullets 
from the war 
have been fired 
into the sky,
tearing holes 
in the black velvet 
for a little bit 
of heaven 
to shine 
through.

Every once 
in a while 
the fabric rips 
as a shooting star 
races across 
the sky,
but then 
it quickly 
mends 
itself.

November 2, 1988
La Esperanza, Nicaragua

Part of the continuing Ugly American series, a selection of writings from my travel journals from Central America in 1988

*From the U2 song of the same title