vanderwal.net

Prototopia Diner Shared Out

A little over a week ago I hit a creative writing stride and knocked out a small scene in about an hour. I honed it a bit and I shared it with a few people. I had some editing discussions with James and cleaned it up a bit. Even though it is posted it still may be an edit to fix a couple of things, but Prototopia Diner is shared out. Go read it if you wish.

Prototopia Diner is sitting in a new Creative section for my site. I’m not yet adding it to the full site navigation. I’m likely going to move poetry here in some way at some point. I have some other writing I may add in here as well. I wanted a place that I could post creative fictional writing and pull in more poems that I wrote in the mid–90s.

The posts in the Creative section will have a look that is a little different from the rest of the site. On Prototopia Diner I’m using a serif font (Georgia) for easier reading and as a first separation from other portions of the site. I may do something different for each offering, but I’m not fully sure yet.

Affinity for the Canva Affinity

I’ve been a long-time fan of the design apps by Affinity. When they were bought by Canva I had a little concern (just a little as I know some of the people behind Canva (Canva), but also I have confidence in them to do the right thing). When the updated Affinity Studio app (Affinity) came out from Canva that collapsed all the paid design apps (and more) in to one app and it was free, I was really curious and have become quite impressed.

Over the last many months I’ve been playing with Affinity and trying various things out that make the combined app really interesting. I’ve loved the standalone photo app, but that is one I’ve had the toughest time getting my mind around the new dynamics of it. But, I love the typography focus as it gives a lot of control. The publishing app and its integration have me using typography and components of the publishing app to do interesting small projects.

One of the things I did with the Affinity combined app was a series of playing with a capital letter A. One of my favorites turned out to be one I call “mallard A”. Mallard A is simple, and uses the vector tools to some frayed feather touches to the bottom of the bend to serif. But, I also liked the ease and control playing with the gradient.

An AI Site Content Statement

Others have added AI statements on their sites to state or explain the use or non-use of AI. With AI bots popping up in group chats and Zoom, it may be time to make a declaration here.

All writing and images that you read and see here are all made and edited by the human Thomas Vander Wal.

With that said, I have worked with and used artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML), along with natural language programming (NLP) since 2008. I started learning it and using it to learn and understand. Professionally, I’ve been on many projects starting in 2010 with AI/ML (NLP) for surfacing patterns in large data sets or feeding it large sets of documents to identify patterns, what may have been missed in review, or as one triage method.

So, I don’t use AI for writing, as I write to understand what I know and I share things out to find others with similar interests. I enjoy making and creating to get things out into the world. The creative part is something I really enjoy and I have no interest in handing that over.

The Magical Wonder from Powerful Summer Storms

Moving to the Washington, DC area to start grad school had me arriving with my dad from a cross country drive from San Francisco that took 4 days and arriving in mid-August. We parked the car at my apartment complex and unloaded and went into Georgetown to get something to eat. My dad suggested Houston’s (now gone) and my dad was a foodie and knew places with all types of good food most everywhere, so a suggestion was rarely not taken as a must do meal. As we were walking down the block toward Houston’s, the dark sky became an utter torrential downpour. Raindrops the size of small watermelons (okay, that is what they seemed like, but may have been more like grapes given the surprise of such a storm where it was sunny 15 minutes prior) soaked us and the streets filled with water rushing down toward the Potomac.

That was my introduction to August summer storms in DC. It was also my introduction to take your breath away humidity. In the many dog years since arriving I’ve grown accustom to both the storms and humidity. I now (don’t repeat this) rather like both of them now.

This afternoon as the skies darkened and the litter of warning notifications for a hazardous storm popped up on all the digital screens that are within an eye’s blink of us now. I opened the balcony door and mixed the abundantly chilly air conditioned inside environment mix with the robustly damp and hot air outside as I peered to the dark quickly moving and growing clouded skies. A quick white flash beyond the corner of a building and a low rumble of approaching thunder built the anticipation of a good romping storm.

Soon the wind would pick-up and you could hear the mutter of “we’re not in Kansas anymore”, not that we ever were. No witches would fly by, but leaves, small plastic bags void of the Gatorade or sandwich it may have held at some point is now making fun of gravity was it floats, twists, and collapses and fills moving up 40 to 80 feet in the air. Soon a flash of lightening blitzes from nowhere and the storm is officially on. The winds increase more and the large raindrops hit anything in their way hard and splash on what was perfectly dry a nanosecond before. In fractions of moments everything is soaked and the lightening and thunder are nearly simultaneous.

The ambient air temperature has dropped. In ten minutes the air is not only much cooler, but the humidity feels less like a warm hug from a sweaty large monster with slobbery skin and more like a puppy’s tummy. In about 10 more minutes the sun is peeking through and the necks of people are turning to find the rainbow and take in the blue sky before the sun fades from day to night.

How could somebody not deeply appreciate this?

What to do with My Phrases and Snippets

Going back to just after I graduated grad school, when I started writing poetry (as I had time to think a little more freely), I started keeping phases and snippets. Some were in notebooks and some in text notes on my computer. Often these were things that would pop to mind and wouldn’t clear my head until I captured them. Some turned into poems (a sliver of what I wrote is on my Poetry :: vanderwal.net page). Some turned into short stories that picked up a few of the phrases and snippets, some of these were rather micro-short stories or scenes (I enjoy the output of the scenes and dialog).

Over the years I tried to pull the snippets that I hadn’t used into digital notes. Up until around 2010 I had many different note apps and each had a snippets note. In the last two to five years I’ve been pulling them into a handful of notes. But, I have taken a note I stared around 2008 with phrases and snippets and that is my live phrases and snippets note. When something pops into my head I tuck it in there. In Obsidian I keep that note open in a panel so it is easy to slide to and read through or jot something down.

When I read through them I often chuckle or laugh, and some get me thinking more deeply. Some have turned into scenes again and short pieces, which I also haven’t shared.

The phrases and snippets are brain prompts and idea fodder for creativity. Some are turns of phrase, some playful word play, others are snarky, some play with time and reality shifts, and others are just prompts for “tell a story about this”. I have over 200 of these and for a long time I’ve thought of wanting to keep them to myself for my use. But, lately I’m really curious what someone would do with the snippet as most can be taken in many different directions.

I’ve thought about a challenge or carnival a month for a phrase or snippet to see what comes back. Also thought about a postcard subscription service with a phrase or snippet a month (more than a few of the items on a postcard could get a knock at my door), but also thinking of these routing openly through the mail service for anybody to read and get their mind going in a different fun direction.

I have also considered just making them public on a page, or a page each.

What Would You Do?

If given the following snippets, what would you do with them?

“I am going to need to go to an AA meeting, as I need to understand how to develop a drinking problem, as I think that is the only way to get through this.”

Oh, I don’t cook I just make leftovers

The plague of the minor maladies

They had all the traits of being a non-conformist

beige ficus genre

I lost my site’s 404 page, which seems a little more than ironic

candle lit dinners in the McDonalds parking lot