Notices by Algot (algot@mastodon.art), page 19

#WordOfTheDay

cuddlesome

/ˈkʌdls(ə)m/
adjective
Endearing and pleasant to cuddle.

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It really helps when you see your significant other as cuddlesome.

#WordOfTheDay

cranky

/ˈkraŋki/
adjective
crankier, crankiest
1 British informal Eccentric or strange.
2 North American Bad-tempered; irritable.
3 (of a machine) working erratically.

Origin
Late 18th century (in the sense ‘sickly, in poor health’): perhaps from obsolete (counterfeit) crank ‘a rogue feigning sickness’, from Dutch or German krank ‘sick’.

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Relax. There is no need to be cranky about it, You have a recent backup, right?

Sleep deeply,
Awake cheaply.
Sleep shallow,
Awake hollow.
Sleep as best you can
That's always a good plan.

#SmallPoems

To the Sea

The mind's drain is open
And all my new ideas
Are on their way down
The long line of pipes
Eventually to the ocean
To join the many tons
Of also useless plastic
Thoughtlessly waiting there.

#SmallPoems
#Doubts

#WordOfTheDay

cordwainer

/ˈkɔːdweɪnə/
noun
archaic
A shoemaker (still used in the names of guilds)

Origin
Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French cordewaner, from Old French cordewan, ‘of Cordoba’ (see cordovan).

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Alec aspired to be a cordwainer. He settled for becoming a shoe designer and shoemaker so he could be, at least, contemporary, if not avant garde.

Enjoy every breakthrough,
Be they many or few.
This one thing is always true.
They bring creative joy for you.

@lazarski

#SmallPoems

When you're seeking grace,
There's no need to chase
Or be the one in first place.
Finding grace is not a race.

#SmallPoems

#WordOfTheDay

precursor

/prɪˈkəːsə/
noun
1 A person or thing that comes before another of the same kind; a forerunner.
1.1 A substance from which another is formed, especially by metabolic reaction.

Origin
Late Middle English: from Latin praecursor, from praecurs- ‘preceded’, from praecurrere, from prae ‘beforehand’ + currere ‘to run’.

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I hope it will not come as a surprise that the precursor is the one who arrives first. In a race that person is called the "winner".

hot dogs on the grill
happy family gathered
hope the sun shines bright

#SundayHaiku
#CLMOOC
#SmallPoems

#WordOfTheDay

yarra

/ˈjarə/
adjective
Australian
informal
Mad; crazy.

Origin
1940s: from the name of a psychiatric hospital at Yarra Bend, Victoria.

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I've never been to Yarra Bend in Australia. I'm often close to going 'round the bend, from doing these yarra daily words!

#Creativity is a self-filling pitcher. No matter how often we pour our ideas onto the page, the blog, the fediverse, new ones or, at least, provoking variations fill the temporary void.

As a corollary, avoiding the step of pouring out the ideas can have the effect of merely bottling and capping the output, trapping the creative process itself.

Moral: Don't hold it in. Pour your ideas freely. Who cares if nobody else cares! And there's a chance someone will make something useful in the end!

Self analysis is meta!
How else to make ourselves better?
Just don't overdo it.
And become a tied-up regretter.

#SmallPoems

Mornings are generally brighter
Than the preceding night.
Structure somewhat tighter
Than a dream state, right?

Enhanced experience of day
Interactive time with others.
No absurd overlays in play
With online sisters and brothers.

I'm reaching out with thanks
To those of you out there
Who build my day with planks
Nailed solid and cut square.

#SmallPoems
#Gratitude

@clarjon1

How about Pandoc?

It is a format converter for Markdown/HTML/EPUB and others.

#WordOfTheDay

suffrage

/ˈsʌfrɪdʒ/
noun
mass noun The right to vote in political elections.

Origin
The modern sense of ‘right to vote’ was originally US (dating from the late 18th century).

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The phrase "universal suffrage" has the implication that we humans would be allowed to vote on any planet, not just our poorly maintained sphere.

@guephren

The plants are there every day.
And it's just one more way,
Without a tight focus
That my mind's at play.

#SmallPoems
#Reality

@feoh

#WordOfTheDay

argonaut

/ˈɑːɡ(ə)nɔːt/
noun
A small floating octopus, the female of which has webbed sail-like arms and secretes a thin coiled papery shell in which the eggs are laid.
Genus Argonauta, order Octopoda
Also called paper nautilus

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Here Jason was in his ignorance, thinking argonauts were some group of adventurous sailors out of ancient Greece. Instead he finds they are little octopus critters with a shell. [Wasn't there even a movie?]

#WordOfTheDay

azimuth

/ˈazɪməθ/
noun
The direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.

Origin
from Arabic as-samt

Isaac Asimov explained how to set a telescope precisely using azimuth and altitude angles. Asimov made it easy. (In spite of that, nobody called him Isaac Azimuth.)

#WordOfTheDay

shack

/ʃak/
noun
A roughly built hut or cabin.
verb
[no object]
shack up
informal
Move in or live with someone as a lover.

Origin
Late 19th century: perhaps from Mexican jacal, Nahuatl xacatli ‘wooden hut’. The early sense of the verb was ‘live in a shack’ (originally a US usage).

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A tiny house is generally built with care and precision, though its size might make you think it is just a shack.