haiku
Latest
OpenStreetMap Haiku project generates poetry about your location
Satellite Studio, a team of designers and developers, has created a fun way to make use of all the information people add to the OpenStreetMap database. It has launched OpenStreetMap Haiku, a website that generates a random haiku based on location -- all you need to do is drag the map around or click "Locate Me" to make a poem automatically appear on screen.
Poetry for aliens: NASA wants to put your haikus into space, but only three of them
NASA wants your words, preferably a haiku. It might go to Mars!
Cataclysm: Your reviews in haiku
I was doing my usual trick of idly passing time on the EU forums recently when I came across this fantastic thread. The poster was asking the forum to review Cataclysm in the form of a haiku, which I felt was an excellent way to mark the transition from the staid, western feel of Cataclysm into the Zen, peaceful feel of Mists of Pandaria. It seems that Blizzard Blue Vaneras felt the same, offering this haiku in response: Vaneras Thank you for posting your feedback is important be it good or bad source So let's hear your haikus! While the traditional Japanese form was probably far more free, the English version of haiku stipulates that they should be 17 syllables, five on the first line, seven on the second and five on the third. I've picked out some of the ones I liked from the original post after the break, and you should get to writing your own!
AAPL closes over $600 for the first time: We respond with poetry
For the first time in history, or at least since Apple went public on December 12, 1980, AAPL has closed at over US$600 per share. The stock closed on the NASDAQ exchange at $601.10, up a whopping $15.53 (or 2.65 percent) on the day. AAPL opened at about $598 due to off-hours trading in the wake of yesterday's announcement of the Apple cash call. This morning's news disclosing that dividends would be paid to shareholders obviously resonated with the markets. To celebrate, our very own Erica Sadun got all poetic and sent these sweet words of happiness throughout our virtual newsroom: "If in Apple's stock you invest, today it has achieved the best. Gone up past six hundred, in case you had wond'dred, now you can retire and rest." Or how about this "News in Haikus"? "AAPL Dividend. Stock is up past six hundred. Good investment, no?" And this final piece of limerick doggerel: "Up $15.53 on the day, investors all saying HOORAY! Most in after hours last night, still to their delight, dividends are soon on their way." Think you can do better with the poetry? Let's see your attempts in the comments.
The Game Archaeologist's fear and loathing in the Kingdom: The highlights
It is, in so many ways, the antithesis of a modern MMORPG. It has crude stick figure drawings instead of lush 3-D graphics. It limits your daily activities to a handful of encounters. It often mocks, belittles and berates you for your stupidity. It uses meat for currency and has a character class that dabbles in pasta-based magic. It's been in open beta for the better part of a decade now. And its endgame is actually an end-of-the-game instead of an eternal raiding grind. I speak, of course, about The Kingdom of Loathing, one of the oddest online RPGs on the net -- and one of the most beloved. When I mulled over the game for this month's retrospective, I found myself really wanting to talk about KoL but a little unsure whether it truly belongs in the pantheon of accepted MMOs. At best, it's on the fringe; while you do play in a world populated by hundreds, if not thousands, of other players at any given time, it's mostly a solo exercise apart from the chat channel. However, it is a persistent world, it does hold many of the trappings of MMORPGs, and the creators have come up with clever ways for players to interact within a turn-based RPG. I'm also a huge fan, having dabbled in KoL off and on for over four years now, and I love recommending it to friends. So what the heck -- we're doing it. Kingdom of Loathing is a great success story in its own right and has a lot to teach the rest of the MMO industry about unconventional methods of structuring and presenting these games. Hit the jump and we'll run down eight highlights that separate KoL from the rest of the pack and make it a game well worth your spare time.
Paragon Studios is sending City of Heroes fans to PAX Prime
Remember how it was mentioned that if you weren't already going to PAX Prime, you likely wouldn't be able to, which would mean missing out on meeting the team behind City of Heroes? Apparently, Paragon Studios had the same thought process, which is why they're giving fans a chance to get a free three-day pass to the convention. They're not including airfare or lodging, but considering how quickly the actual passes were sold out, the former is at least only a hurdle of money rather than availability. The contest, running until August 16th, asks for fans to write a haiku expressing their excitement for next week's launch of Going Rogue. Three winners will be chosen on the basis of originality and cleverness, and each will win a pass to all three days of the convention. That means not only seeing the City of Heroes team, but a pass to all of the other entertainment to be had over the weekend. So if you think you can express your enthusiasm in no more than seventeen syllables, take a look at the full rules for entry and start writing.
The Daily Grind: MMOre haiku for you
Just the other day We had a post about tanks It featured haiku That post was so fun We wanted to share the love With everyone here So today we have MMO haiku madness for all the games here Kudos or bitching On MMOs, in haiku Should be amusing
World of Tanks roars in with new screenshots
Screenshots of battle Offered up for your eyeballs It is World of Tanks! Wargaming dot net Hopes you will check them all out perhaps, preorder. If tanks sound like fun Leave a haiku about them Or we'll blow you up. %Gallery-96260%
Haiku Alpha 1 available now: BeOS lovers of the world rejoice
A mere eight years in the making, the Haiku Project has announced the release of Haiku R1/Alpha 1, the first official development release of the low footprint open source OS formerly known as OpenBeOS. Since it's an alpha release, you'll be expected to do your part identifying bugs and reporting glitches and the like -- but here's hoping that they at least got Firefox to run in relative stability this time 'round. We know you're too damned giddy at the prospect of installing this thing on your netbook for any more of our prattle, so why don't you just hit the read link and get started, then?[Thanks, Hawkje]
Forum post of the day: Tank Haiku
Kyleface of Garona started a thread in the tank forums on Tank Haiku. It seemed that some of the responders prefered to write Haikus abut how they don't like Haikus:Nancee of Dark Iron submitted a Haiku on Death Knights:Death and Decay time!Missing the cower-in-fear!Hit with the nerf bat... Avanaco of Misha added in a two verse lament on druid tanking:Q Q warriorAt least you have some properItemizationYour items may suckAt least you don't have to wearHunter and rogue gear There are a few other little gems in the thread. Take a moment to take a peek at it.
WoW Moviewatch: World of Warcraft -- Haikus
In honor of today's featured movie, I was going to write this entire post in haiku. It's possible, but I don't think it would have been convincing or effective. Still, I wanted you to know it was on my mind. You can share a little "ha ha" with me at our little untold joke.World of Warcraft - Haikus was created by John DeVeaux for his film class at Emily Carr University. The project was to use pieces of "found footage," and fit it together in the context of a haiku. John took pieces from official trailers -- some are based on gameplay, while others come from different sources -- and framed it inside several text scenes.The machinima is awesome, but it's all official stuff so I'm not really surprised. What impressed me, however, was John's sense of poetry. He pulled official game language to create several haikus, all with a very strong sense of urgency and epic intent. Each haiku lends importance and inspiration to the video, and I think ultimately created a much stronger experience. If John progresses into his own machinima, I think he could create some impressive stuff.
Cinemassively: Hosoi Ichiba
Cecil Hirvi created this machinima, Elegantly Forbidden: Hosoi Ichiba, to illustrate the lives of the residents of Hosoi Ichiba in Second Life. Through their normal activities, such as fishing and walking around the village, and with the help of haikus, he effectively captures the emotions that they're feeling. To us, this seems like a story of love that can never be. As for the video itself, Cecil does a great job of utilizing SL's features, including Windlight and bloom, to enhance his work.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Win a sketch of your TR character
The good folks at Tabula Blogger and TabulaCast (I can say that they're good now, as I'm no longer the host!) have managed to create an amazing contest this week, with a fantastic prize sponsored by NCsoft. The rules are easy: simply write a Tabula Rasa-themed haiku and send it along to the podcast's hosts John and Matt for judging. The winner will have the character of their choice drawn by a professional artist through the Draw the World Together charity.This charity has worked with NCsoft several times in the past, including an event at the Omega Sektor earlier this year. All the money raised at these events goes to help fund the work of the children's charity EveryChild and their work with street children around the world.Help support this charity, Tabula Rasa and these generous fansites through this wonderful contest!
[1.Local]: The week in reader perspectives
[1.Local] serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.Our readers are pretty cool. Oh sure, WoW Insider gets a fair share of senseless rants, immature finger-pointing and off-topic flaming in the comments area. But if you've never taken the time to dip into the reader comments, you might find you're missing something pretty special. It's not the Barrens in here. You'll discover a growing community of readers that looks forward to spending their day together, chatting and debating the latest issues in the World of Warcraft. Sometimes it's silly, sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's controversial – but I have to hand it to you, readers, it's always engaging.This week, readers pulled up a chair to a number of engaging conversations, from writing their own WoW-ku to analyzing their reactions to PvP Season 4 gear changes or to "subliminal" images in machinima. In the shadow of the coming expansion, many readers seem to be focused on rediscovering the joy of playing for the sake of playing – avoiding slogging through raiding or dailies as a dull, joyless chore. [1.Local] surveys a slice of all of it. As always, be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.
The Wow-ku challenge
So, you know what Haiku is, right? It's form of Japanese poetry. The most popular English version is 3 lines long. The first line is 5 syllables, the second 7, and the third is 5 again. All well and good, I'm sure you say, but what does this have to with WoW? Fimlys of the Asleep at the WoW blog posted a Wow-ku challenge a few days ago, asking people to make up Haikus based on our favorite game. Here's a few I whipped up:
Haiku brings back those BeOS glory days
If you haven't heard of Haiku by now, it's probably for good reason: as of a year ago, the OS could barely connect to the internet, and certainly wasn't anywhere close to replacing your Linux build of choice. Luckily the open source replacement for the gone-but-not-forgotten BeOS of yore is maturing nicely, and it just had a bit of a coming out party at the Southern California Linux Expo this last weekend. There are still plenty of glitches to iron out, with applications like Firefox crashing and glitching frequently, and a shortage of hardware support, but the core elements of BeOS are there and just as lovable as ever. For instance, that few second start time never gets old, same for that 60MB disk image, and the most excellent processor utilization. Check out the in-depth preview on Ars for a better idea of the past future (or is it future past?) of operating systems, or just download the latest nightly on Haiku to find out for yourself. [Via Ars Technica]
Forum Post of the Day: Class haikus
Who knew that Warcraftplayers were such poets? Here'sa thread of haiku.All classes are here,Even that class full of noobs--You know which that is.Pretty impressive,Forum posters. Next up, let'stry writing sonnets.
On the trail of Fake Steve Jobs
Everybody's favorite anonymous Mac commentator might be a little closer to becoming not-so-anonymous. If you checked out Fake Steve Jobs's site yesterday, you might have seen a short post about a marginally funny iPhone Haiku site. I've still got the post in my Google Reader, as you can see in the pic. Seems harmless, right?That's what FSJ thought. But apparently, the link was sent to him by the guys at Sitening (who also created the Haiku site as a lark), and the link he was sent was a specially created link, made up just for FSJ by the Sitening guys. See where this is going? When he clicked the link, they tracked his IP, and here it is: 68.160.21.224. That IP traces back to a Verizon service, which the Sitening guys say is in Boston, MA.And then the story gets even stranger. Diego Barros at the Radio Active Code Blog posted a comment on FSJ's post about the tricksey linkses, and then the post itself was removed completely. FSJ usually seems pretty easygoing about this stuff, so the fact that he actually took it down gives credence to Barros' suggestion that FSJ is on the run.So who does all this point to? So far, this evidence all says Andy Ihnatko, who lives near Boston, has written for both MacWorld and Playboy, and has worked anonymously before-- apparently he wrote parts of Roger Ebert's movie guides. TUAW dropped him a note asking him about the rumors, and we'll let you know if we hear anything back.Thanks, Diego!
The Narrow Way to the Dual Screens
Here's a really cool non-game from Success: it's a DS version of the Basho poetry collection Oku no Hosomichi, (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) in a form where you draw over each character as an actor reads the poem. Enpitsu de Oku no Hosomichi DS is based on a similar book release, which featured the poems in grey print for readers to trace over, thereby forcing them to think about each kanji as they read. It's a beautiful idea for a book release, and equally nice-sounding on the DS.We know that it's basically an attempt to cash in on the non-game craze, but Enpitsu de Oku no Hosomichi DS is such a great idea that we don't care. More importantly, it makes a pretty strong case for the e-book, not only on DS but in general, with features that improve on the traditional print version.[Via Insert Credit]
Forum post of the day: Shaman issues in haiku
In a sharp break from the normal way of expressing oneself on the forums (you know, via extensive use of capslock and ascii art), a number of shamans are expressing their problems potetically via haiku. Never has it been more interesting and downright pleasent to read about class complaints. I think my favorite must be this one by poster Vapid for its inclusion of traditional imagery: Shaman drop to ground Like the Spring Cherry Blossom When faced with stunlock So take a look -- or try your hand writing some shaman haiku of your own. (Remember, it's 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.)
