#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

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