On Roman Numerals

The Romans were active in trade and commerce, and from the time of learning to write they needed a way to indicate numbers. The system they developed lasted many centuries, and still sees some specialized use today.

Roman numerals traditionally indicate the order of rulers or ships who share the same name (i.e. Queen Elizabeth II). They are also sometimes still used in the publishing industry for copyright dates, and on cornerstones and gravestones when the owner of a building or the family of the deceased wishes to create an impression of classical dignity. The Roman numbering system also lives on in our languages, which still use Latin word roots to express numerical ideas. A few examples: unilateral, duo, quadricep, septuagenarian, decade, milliliter.

The big differences between Roman and Arabic numerals (the ones we use today) are that Romans didn't have a symbol for zero, and that numeral placement within a number can sometimes indicate subtraction rather than addition.

Here are the basics:

Cerebus said:

dJJ said:

Kom je ook naar de GKA, as maandag?

Het lijkt me leuk om je nou eens echt te ontmoeten.

Wat is GKA en waar is het gevestigd?

Ik ben aan de westkust van Amerika, al, dus waarschijnlijk niet.

Je lijkt me een leuk persoon zelf.

Gouden Kabouter Awards in Paradiso.

Ik dacht dat jij mij niet echt mocht.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4697911881400&set=vb.1102217172&type=2&theater

ここは夢の城　愛の楽園すべて　忘れておやすみなさい

Rococo said:

ここは夢の城　愛の楽園すべて　忘れておやすみなさい

Dit begryp ik net.

dJJ said:

Cerebus said:

Wat is GKA en waar is het gevestigd?

Ik ben aan de westkust van Amerika, al, dus waarschijnlijk niet.

Je lijkt me een leuk persoon zelf.

Gouden Kabouter Awards in Paradiso.

Ik dacht dat jij mij niet echt mocht.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4697911881400&set=vb.1102217172&type=2&theater

Oh, ja. Natuurlijk. Nee, ik zal niet aanwezig zijn dit jaar. U? Zo ja, gelieve huisdier de Golden Gnome voor mij. Het verdient het, ik ben er zeker van.

Google translate niet opruimen van de tweede lijn, dus ik weet niet zeker wat je zei. Sorry. Volgens hen, je 'dacht dat ik kon echt niet je'. Nou ik verzeker je, dat kan ik je echt

Rococo said:

ここは夢の城　愛の楽園すべて　忘れておやすみなさい

I love castles and dreams, but I'm not sure what the rest of it says.

Cerebus said:

dJJ said:

Gouden Kabouter Awards in Paradiso.

Ik dacht dat jij mij niet echt mocht.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4697911881400&set=vb.1102217172&type=2&theater

Oh, ja. Natuurlijk. Nee, ik zal niet aanwezig zijn dit jaar. U? Zo ja, gelieve huisdier de Golden Gnome voor mij. Het verdient het, ik ben er zeker van.

Google translate niet opruimen van de tweede lijn, dus ik weet niet zeker wat je zei. Sorry. Volgens hen, je 'dacht dat ik kon echt niet je'. Nou ik verzeker je, dat kan ik je echt

Shhhhh, but these are serious candidates for best newbies:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/olli-s-home-of-minimalschranz

(Oliver Weiss)

https://soundcloud.com/ici-sans-merci

(Ici Sans Merci)

https://soundcloud.com/haarbaarbaar/comments

(haarbaar)

Just don't tell amybody. Monday night the winner will be anounced.

Het geheim is veilig bij mij. ... je geheime ... eh, alle geheimen! Ze zijn veilig!

This thread is seriously lacking.

I'll introduce you to the universal language:

Cerebus said:

Stunning

kewlschool said:

This thread is seriously lacking.

I'll introduce you to the universal language:

You really should try to get some sleep!

iaminparties said:

Random Thread Booster

Boobs aren't random...

Especially at the Org...

However...

Seriously, people. There are enough threads filled with boobs at the Org...

...and try harder.

Tim Tebow and his cat do not believe your boobs are very Christian like.

Lichtenberg Figures: The Fractal Patterns of Lightning Strike Scars

Being struck by lightning is a dangerous and scary experience and can even be fatal. Sometimes, the electrical discharge can leave a tattoo-like marking or scar known as a Lichtenberg figure. The patterns created are known to be examples of fractals.

Lichtenberg figures are branching electric discharges that sometimes appear on the surface or the interior of insulating materials. They are named after the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who originally discovered and studied them. When they were first discovered, it was thought that their characteristic shapes might help to reveal the nature of positive and negative electric “fluids”.

In 1777, Lichtenberg built a large electrophorus to generate high voltage static electricity through induction. After discharging a high voltage point to the surface of an insulator, he recorded the resulting radial patterns in fixed dust. By then pressing blank sheets of paper onto these patterns, Lichtenberg was able to transfer and record these images, thereby discovering the basic principle of modern Xerography. This discovery was also the forerunner of modern day plasma physics.

Although Lichtenberg only studied 2-dimensional (2D) figures, modern high voltage researchers study 2D and 3D figures (electrical trees) on, and within, insulating materials [Souce: Wikipedia]. There is a video at the end of this post that shows a Lichtenberg figure being created.

Below will find a small gallery of people who were struck by lightning and the fractal pattern it left behind.

I actually hers (below) are kind of attractive (I was going to say hot, but I didn't want it to be misconstrued for a pun). She probably doesn't feel that way, though.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

From Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, 2010.

Richard Brautigan. Love Poem.

San Francisco: Communications Co., 1967.

Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows -
The dew-drops feed them not - they love the shine
Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress -
When night reposes, for they can do no less;
Then, to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer-day,
Now in the corn-fields, now in the new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

Insects by John Clare

English 50 – Intro to Creative Writing: Exercises for Story Writers

More Exercises:

1. Write the first 250 words of a short story, but write them in ONE SENTENCE. Make sure that the sentence is grammatically correct and punctuated correctly. This exercise is intended to increase your powers in sentence writing.
2. Write a dramatic scene between two people in which each has a secret and neither of them reveals the secret to the other OR TO THE READER.
3. Write a narrative descriptive passage in a vernacular other than your own. Listen to the way people speak in a bar, restaurant, barber shop, or some other public place where folks who speak differently ("He has an accent!") from you, and try to capture that linguistic flavor on the page.
4. Play with sentences and paragraph structure: Find a descriptive passage you admire, a paragraph or two or three, from published material, and revise all the sentences. Write the passage using all simple sentences (no coordination, no subordination); write the passage using all complex-compound sentences; write the passage using varying sentence structure. The more ways you can think to play with sentence structure, the more you will become aware of how sentence structure helps to create pacing, alter rhythm, offer delight.
5. Focus on verbs: Find a passage that you admire (about a page of prose) and examine all of the verbs in each sentence. Are the "active," "passive," "linking?" If they are active, are they transitive or intransitive? Are they metaphorical (Mary floated across the floor.)? What effects do verbs have on your reading of the passage?
6. Take a passage of your own writing and revise all of the verbs in it. Do this once making all the verbs active, once making all the verbs passive. Then try it by making as many verbs as possible metaphorical (embedded metaphors).

Characters: There are two types of characters: well rounded and flat.

1. Create character sketches. This is a good exercise to perform on a regular basis in your journal. Sometimes you can just create characters as they occur to you, at other times it is good to create characters of people you see or meet. Some of the best sketches are inspired by people you don't really know but get a brief view of, like someone sitting in a restaurant or standing by a car that has been in an accident. Ask yourself who they are, what they are about. The fact that you don't really know the person will free you up to make some calculated guesses that ultimately have more to say about your own vision of the world than they do about the real person who inspired the description. That's okay, you are NOT a reporter, and ultimately the story you intend to tell is YOUR story.
2. Write a character sketch strictly as narrative description, telling your reader who the character is without having the character do or say anything.
3. Revise the above to deliver the character to the reader strictly through the character's actions.
4. Revise the above to deliver the character strictly through the character's speech to another character.
5. Revise the above to deliver the character strictly through the words/actions of another character (the conversation at the water fountain about the boss).
6. Often when we call a character "flat" we mean that the author has failed in some way; however, many good stories require flat characters. Humor often relies on flat characters, but often minor characters in non-humorous pieces are also flat. These characters usually appear to help move the plot along in some way or to reveal something about the main character. A flat character is one who has only ONE characteristic. You can create whole lists of these and keep them in your journal so that you can call upon them when you need a character to fit into a scene.
7. Young writers are prone to write autobiographical pieces. Instead of writing about people like yourself, try writing about someone who is drastically different in some way from you. Writing about someone who is a good deal older or younger than you will often free up your imagination. It helps to make sure you are delivering enough information to your reader so that the reader can clearly see the character and understand the character's motives.
8. Write a scene of about five hundred words in which a character does something while alone in a setting that is extremely significant to that character. Have the character doing something (dishes, laundry, filing taxes, playing a computer game, building a bird house) and make sure that YOU are aware that the character has a problem or issue to work out, but do NOT tell your reader what that is.

Go back to the previous page? Go to poetry?

Cerebus said:

Lichtenberg Figures: The Fractal Patterns of Lightning Strike Scars

Being struck by lightning is a dangerous and scary experience and can even be fatal. Sometimes, the electrical discharge can leave a tattoo-like marking or scar known as a Lichtenberg figure. The patterns created are known to be examples of fractals.

Lichtenberg figures are branching electric discharges that sometimes appear on the surface or the interior of insulating materials. They are named after the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who originally discovered and studied them. When they were first discovered, it was thought that their characteristic shapes might help to reveal the nature of positive and negative electric “fluids”.

In 1777, Lichtenberg built a large electrophorus to generate high voltage static electricity through induction. After discharging a high voltage point to the surface of an insulator, he recorded the resulting radial patterns in fixed dust. By then pressing blank sheets of paper onto these patterns, Lichtenberg was able to transfer and record these images, thereby discovering the basic principle of modern Xerography. This discovery was also the forerunner of modern day plasma physics.

Although Lichtenberg only studied 2-dimensional (2D) figures, modern high voltage researchers study 2D and 3D figures (electrical trees) on, and within, insulating materials [Souce: Wikipedia]. There is a video at the end of this post that shows a Lichtenberg figure being created.

Below will find a small gallery of people who were struck by lightning and the fractal pattern it left behind.

I actually hers (below) are kind of attractive (I was going to say hot, but I didn't want it to be misconstrued for a pun). She probably doesn't feel that way, though.

That is cool. The patterns are almost crrystaline like, like snow flakes.

I was almost struck by lightening. I was walking by one of the spires in boy's town on Halstead when lightening struck it.

Cerebus said:

Apologies if anything that ends up in this thread has been posted before.

(And it probably has.)

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1. The plastic table-like item found in pizza boxes is called a box tent and was patented in 1983. Most people in the biz now call it a pizza saver.

2. Ever look at a familiar word for so long that it starts to look—and sound—completely strange? That feeling of seeing something for the first time, even though there's nothing new about it, is called jamais vu.

3. Paresthesia is that tingling sensation when your foot falls asleep.

4. The string of typographical symbols comic strips use to indicate profanity ("$%@!") is called a grawlix.

5. The small, triangular pink bump on the inside corner of each eye is called the caruncula. It contains sweat and oil glands that produce rheum, also known as "eye crispies," "sleep," and "tear rocks."

6. Another word for playful banter is badinage.

7. What do you call a group of rattlesnakes? A rhumba.

8. To waste time by being lazy is to dringle.

9. An agraffe is the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne. Tell all your classy friends!

10. Those back flaps on a bra are called wings.

11. A single slice of bacon is called a rasher.

12. The web between your thumb and forefinger is called the purlicue (and is pronounced just like "curlicue"). Acupuncturists say pinching it will make headaches go away.

[Edited 3/8/13 20:02pm]

i have those all the time

^^ No, I did not know that.

_________________________________________________________

Cool Guilloche line desin...aste time.

I liked this one...