1k Competition Entry (b0ingb0ing Gadgets)

"Today on the NewYou.com hour our guest is scientist, author - and until a recent press release, recluse - Doctor Joeseph Veriton. Thank you for coming on our show."

"I'm delighted to be here, thank you for having me."

"Doctor Veriton, how did you manage to encode an entire human genome into a single kilobyte?"

"The short answer is compression. The long answer is I didn't; the DNA did."

"Could you describe for us the theory behind it?"

"Sure. DNA has four ingredients, and those ingredients are mapped in a series in order to create the infamous double helix. What happens is: incredibly complex patterns begin to emerge, so complex that we can't see them -- but protein-based computers can, because they contain many if not all the same patterns, but in a different order. We don't encode the genome, we encode the patterns. The protein can 'unzip' the pattern, using itself as a sort of template."

"And what is your proof, doctor?"

With a nod, three more Doctors Veriton walked on, stage right.


This work by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Link to Contest

Alltop.com: Pretty Darn Awesome

I would like to introduce you to Alltop.com, your next new source for stumbling upon very cool things. Each main category is divided into popular topics, and the whole site has a very polished feel to it, despite its young age. Just from two or three days of use, I have already added nearly a dozen feeds to my Google Reader page. Thanks, Alltop!

It has fleshed-out subcategories such as lifehacks, extreme sports, and virtual worlds; but it misses some marks entirely, especially in the Culture topic. Notice there aren't any categories for poetry, fiction, or literature in general? Oh, sure, there's a books category, but most (if not all) of those feeds have to do with booklists, authors and authoring -- nothing about the content in and of itself, only the creators and marketing of content.

I sent an email today suggesting they include a poetry or literature category. It would help my goal of making their list if you also submitted a similar comment. Yes, all nine of you lovely, adorable readers. You can email Alltop here.

Alltop.com

Mother

Hold me, child.
Hold me sunny,
strange days ahead now.

Brack river underneath my bones,
child, you will be wont to drink it;
resist every temptation.

Hold the weak now,
hold steadfast a solder's mask
a deity's substance
hold fast now, child.

Coming miles up now and we forgave him naught.
Hold the line, child
Help me heal
wounds bandaged dirty
by the sun now

Hold the heals, child.
Hold me as you're breaking apart now
you're crazy if you want to make crazy
Hold the heals now.

Mend cracks in the skin
hold it together, child.
bleed the sun dry tomorrow

Hold tight now,
it's the sudden dancing macabre bodies underneath it all.
Secrets of secrets.
Hold me now, child,
if you want to see me.


Mother by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

This is the final revision for "Mother," a piece I channeled some weeks ago. It was performed for the first time April 22, at GaiaFest 2008.

GaiaFest 2008 Afterthoughts

In case you missed it, Gaiafest 2008 was a smashing success. We had a lovely turnout, great poets, free food, some improv saxophone, and many breaks with which to smoke cigarettes. I hope all that attended had as good a time watching/listening as I did reading/performing.

I did two new pieces which I've never performed before - "Mother" and "cloud" - and a well-oiled piece called "Migraine." I felt that "cloud" can use a little work on inflection and intonation; I didn't get it quite right for the tone of the piece, which is thick satire. "Mother," on the other hand, exceeded my expectations and was welcomed with some ego-boosting oohs and ahhs along with regular applause.

It is my intention to begin hosting some of my work as downloadable audio tracks in the near future, or quite possibly as micro video productions. I haven't figured out all the particulars, so bear with me, but I'll do my best to keep this site updated.

miracle

you never noticed me until
today.

I thought
I’d have to
tear out my femurs
with a steak knife
and borrowed fish hooks
for a
casual
glance



three
cheers
for small
miracles.


miracle by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

RAAF-1, Pelican-0

This F-111 made an emergency landing after colliding head-on with a pelican at 900m. The plane was said to be going in excess of 550km/h. The pilots were hailed as heroes for their landing effort; the jet was lauded as "unstable" with the damage caused by the bird - who was sucked into an engine. There was also a hole in one of the wings, I presume by debris from the initial strike to the radome.

Inconsequently, I think "unstable" is a poor word choice, and I wouldn't give a dime for it. If the expert had said untenable, though ... easily 50 cents.

Link. via Neatorama

These Dreams

These dreams

These vivid regurgitations of pandering emotions
Of elation in its ubiquitous frivolity
Of mourning, loss in shadows unknown
Of anxiety
Of yearning
Of aches and pains and

These static moments of reality
Claim more souls than there are stars in a clear night sky
The lifeless grasp their chests in their boxes
As if their hearts may at any moment leap from their
Ribs and do the meringue

The living wait in line at the slaughter house
Mooing and chewing their cud without
Remorse

These thoughts of recycled trash
Moribund and antediluvian
Smelling of fecal rot and horrifyingly pungent lavender

It seems as though this lifetime
Contained all the ingredients for abundant experiences
Wisdom
Ethereal knowledge

And the sieve that is the environment on which
I sink
Lets none of it keep longer than the
Very single moment of
Awakening.


These Dreams by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Horatio At The Diner.

There was no place to jack-in.

There was no crowd. In fact, he was completely alone in the dining room of the local Good Eats[TM]. The cooks and waitresses huddled near the coffee machine behind the counter, eager to leave or get ready for the day. The manager sat in his office, oblivious to the haranguing the staffers were giving each other. Occasionally a new face would appear, uniformed for the shift, sifting through the automatic doors, groggy-eyed and needing coffee and making a beeline for The Bunn.

Usually there were cops in the restaurant, but eerily none were anywhere to be found. No gamers, no coffee geeks, no drunks, no whores. No bums looking for a free cup, no suits conspiring in the corner. No late night dates that were just getting started or just winding down. Nobody but him.

And no place to jack-in.

Pissed him off, is what it did. Downright outraged him - appalled, aghast, and various and sundry other adjectives to describe his general behavior at 5 A.M. He sat at his table halfway back on the left, a laptop under his palms, typing reflexively and not caring to look at the screen - instead focusing on the oxygen pumping in through a vent above the front counter. It should have calmed him to know it was there, to feel at ease that some diner franchise should care so much about his well-being; but there was no joy in his heart for anything a corporation did, no matter how big or small. He inhaled deeply, reminding himself that if he at any time felt nauseated, he would send a form letter C&D and begin suing the pants off of them.

The waitress hag brought his food, gracefully sidestepping the coffee carafe, cup, laptop, and ketchup, and continued her morning saunter.

He took his mind off the oxygen and current conspiracy theory and settled down for breakfast. It was 5:22am.

Ahh, the morning gentlemen - five, nonsmoking; a table, please. Then another three-top, with someone he didn't expect to see … No, wait, never mind. It’s wasn’t her.

Halfway through, he had to take a break. His cold sore was acting up, and he needed to digest for a few minutes. He resumed moments later with the same shoveling action that made him the fastest eater he knew (Not that that was a good thing.). He stopped with several bites to go, surrendering at last to his overfull stomach.

He couldn't jack in. so he kept typing.

At least there was wireless. Not much of a signal, but it was there on the edge, both intermittently out of range and connected, but neither state for long. He grabbed what packets he could, while he could, and continued tapping away. Every site he visited he would read its source and copy what he liked. Any forum he found with one or two lines of object code he would take. He searched archives for strings and delimiters. He pirated bits from every Zombienet he could think of. Line 3095, line 3096 ... line 3195 ... line 3595 ... line 4595.

It happened on line 7127.

What happened was this: the cops came in around line 5000 and started asking questions to the wait staff. Around 6000 they came around to him, at which point he turned his wireless off (just in case of sniffers) and answered their questions. Most of the mini-interrogation had to do with a stolen car in the parking lot, and nothing to do with him or his laptop, which was just seconds ago chewing on the firewall at the building next to the restaurant. He pointed out his piece of shit car on the other side of the parking lot from the stolen vehicle, shook hands with the nice officers, and reopened the lid on his rig, watching them walk out the door.

He resumed typing, and with no other interruptions, contentedly sent a spybot to scan the wall. Shortly after the bot returned its report, only politely chiming in, he slowed his fingers from ludicrous speed to light speed. He switched focus to the bot report and glanced very intently on a few lines in the middle of the statistical model. A quick mumble about stupid honeycomb nets, and he sped his fingers enough to push out the final tweaks on his code. Line 7127.

He ran a quick compiler test, which passed flawlessly. Unflinching, he ran a stress test and vulnerability test on the pile of code at the same time. The rig made a yawning sound, but finished both anal examinations with a green checkmark.

Finally, he compiled the code. It took shape on the screen, a 3D representation of a simple grey stick figure arose from the swirling map of processed code. It stepped from the window of the compiler, and onto his desktop. Blue orbs shone on the topmost sphere on the creature, and then they blinked. The orbs focused at something beyond the screen.

“Thanks for bringing me back, Horatio. I sure have missed the jobs.” said the script through the rig's speakers. “And I see you've been hard at work upgrading my hardening and bruteforce.”

“Among other things,” Horatio said to no one.

“So what's the job?” said the code.

“What's the 'wall you're scanning say?”

“Blitten Bail Bonds. ECM --”

“Skip it,” interrupted Horatio. “What's two nodes over and lit like Chernobyl?”

“ECM 258e0f12a, unregistered with ICANN.” sputtered the stick figure, and with a flourish, added “Security ring at least level 7.” if a faceless stick figure with blue lightbulbs for eyes could give an evil grin, this code was doing it.

“Can you crack it?”

“Will there be a hardline?”

“Eventually. You’ll be stuck on this wireless band for at least 36 hours.”

“Yes. Maximum 17 days.”

“Get to work.”

And the code was gone, disappeared from the laptop entirely. The traces were being overwritten with 1s and 0s in alternating patterns 25 times, the processor busy purging access point logs of any mention of a computer being on or near the Bondsman's firewall.

Horatio shut the lid on his laptop and stood warily. He dug in his pocket for a few bucks for a tip, drank the last swig of cold coffee, lit a cigarette, took two puffs before securing it between lips, picked up the laptop, and left the restaurant.

Upon exiting to the parking lot, Horatio launched the notebook 30 feet straight into the air.

After it landed, he patiently searched for and collected the memory and hard drive, walked at a normal pace to his car, and drove away.


This work by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

rumor

In crisp silence there came starlight
wearing the bedsheets of my sin

we tumbled drunk into fashionable doilies

she clamored the throes of existentialism
put poxes on peas in mattresses
with just enough irony
to make my face crack at the corners

and we rolled spectacularly in harvest moonlight and
broken beer bottles

albeit the glass was sharp
and the moon burned our backs

we coddled the Devil into a deal
knowing one of us was going
to get one over on the other

or so I’m told …

rumor by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Bumblebee Yawns

the bumblebee yawns
dewdrops can't sparkle in mystical haze
tulips can't open without the giant yellow thing
wheat blades ripple from westerly breaths
the bumblebee yawns

the ant drives
through morning rushhour, pissed that he's so late
oak leaves heavy wet asymmetrical
forboding cargos
the ant drives

the earthworm gorges
i must get home, i must get home
prays for his family merely six inches below
gray nothing above looms a stressor
the earthworm gorges

robins do the traffic
flutter and siren their approach
if only so they don't hit one another
squabble wrens for the best parking spots
robins do the traffic

posies open for business
hunter gatherers dance the grand opening
scavengers have camped all night
now they can eat their tents
posies open for business

god sneezed awake, and it was good
eyes opened and a finger pointed to the east
there's the giant yellow thing
hopefully it brought a fan or two to clear this pea soup
god sneezed awake

The Bumblebee Yawns by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

click.

Television is the gateway to hell
and we are all of us hopeless
to quell its throngs while it blithely
holds membership drives hourly.
Makes empty promises via cathode rays
spreads candied viruses of apathy, greed, destruction

click.

And
I am diseased.
burgeoned polyps appear harmless until
they break and pus on yellowed skin.
Earth shatters over again like a Ronco infomercial
veins grow black, their pace slowed
as molasses death runs deeper
Thump. Thump.
Inside me.

click.

Clandestine armour bubbles, fizzes as
acid tongues spew vomitous words through ten inch woofers.
Vocal chords atrophy until
the mind pinches the fuse.

click.

it is merely a hiatus; rather should be

Claim the incessant thrall of civility
for the Queen of Spain
scream like an ice cream truck as it careens toward a murder of crows

click.

Maiden Mother, I plead for you
supplicate to your undead wisehood
inundated with megalomaniacs marching melodiously.
Mince meat Matriarchy mellows my
marauded methodology

click.

And
I
Pray
to high definition gods
from my TV tray altar
sacrifice the Hungryman(tm)
burn TV Guide incense

Bow to the remote control
Bow to the remote control



click.

click. by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

George's Steak House

i knew this guy once
i knew this guy
we would sit and roleplay terrorist movements
yeah
the looks were always scared
and welcomed.
it was either that, or simian behavior
throwing shit and sticks from our high thrones to their lojack booths

cowboys hate it when you laugh at them
because it's all true



i knew this guy once
i knew this guy
he called everyone nigger
rice-nigger sand-nigger niggermutts
this from the guy that
had a CB in his van
and would dileberately piss off truckers with moronic radio checks
and "what's your twenty, cuntrag?"

fuckin preachers' kids


there was one
who
would
robo for three days then streak down his road picking roses from the neighbors' yards
at least he never ran out of interesting things to say

even when he moaned the star spangled banner
that was fuckin profound




i knew this guy once
i knew this guy
he gave a waitress nine pennies
wrote a little note on the table
"because the service wasn't worth a dime"

yeah we got kicked out a lot.

they were the days
when someone asks, those were them.




you see how it works when you try and forget.

George's Steak House by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

GaiaFest 2008

barfly

yeah so
i'm sittin' in this bar and
i'm sittin' in this bar and i'm
jammin' out to Bob Dylan
like i'm
chillin' like Bob Dylan i'm
feelin' the thrillin'
wheelin' and dealin' of
things on the ceilin'
yeah
the paint on the ceilin'
is peelin'
it's a
hue
of rental property beige
just like everything else

so let's all just get stoned.

you know
the Beatles broke through after their
run-in with Dylan
yeah
it was the speed an' acid hiball
kicked it all into highgear
that and George pilgrimed in India.
if you doubt i have one thing to say
and that's Number 9?
Number 9?
Number 9?

Number 9?

numb-er than the bummer feel of sleeping on both hands
bummer than a D.C. hobo with a hummer
hummer like the blowjob
yeah

so i'm sittin' in this bar and
i'm sittin' in this bar and i'm
rockin' on the statler bros

'cause the nose knows that
to get the ho's you crow the
old skool shows
then close with prose that don't blow
yeah
gets em every time
and you won't count flowers on the wall
ever
again

you know
it's flowers that powers this coward
into giving up the word shower
you can glower for an hour
but my flower tower of power still shines
yeah
like finger candy

rest assured i am not alone

so i'm sittin in this bar and
i'm sittin in this bar and
i'm thinkin

Damn

this beer is flat

'spose i shoulda drank it

when i got here.

barfly by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Procrastinated Man

The Procrastinated Man
sits,
slathered in sonombulance,
slovenly soiled with sex

(ism)

only slightly strong slightly silly
sallow sanguine strutting cheap boots and a ten dollar haircut
He waits in the wings for no one.
He waits.

The uprising may
or may not pass
chaos math only works some
of the time

imagine. the perfect butterfly fart.

imagine the sun and the sea
ripples tear themselves across froth and kelp
white streaks roll in fastmotion
build us a temple in front
of the sun.

and as you float in great quiet on the perfect horizon
imagine life as The Procrastinated Man.
deepen it below the bottom of the sea.
heighten its awareness to the very edge of the skydome
and you may get an infinitesimal taste
only then if your taste buds are on their
tippy toes.

Mind you, the man isn’t lazy
Ask him, he’ll tell you.
The Procrastinated Man says:
" . . .
“…wait."

it’s the waiting makes any other sort of man crazy. They can’t seem to take
time and patience
He sees not all but most knows not most but some feels not some but none lies
well.
not none.

(And I do mean man. There is no such thing as The Procrastinated Woman.
That is an oxymoron.)

The Procrastinated Man ponders pot proliferation while he
reads clippings of pandering Norml members performing political hari-kari in
push -up bras and PB&J luncheons.
“At least,",” he thinks
“they could have served ramen."

The Procrastinated Man says
“Fuck the feather duster."
He slums in spit and mucous and eyesnot
fingers splayed, nails encrusted with mallow
lines already blackened with the day’s soot.
A ready fingerprint stares him in the face

He is envious of its
cold hard logic.

They come to listen for wisdom for insight for a pillow for a shoulder.
They come.
They come one by one seemingly endless singlefile down the throat
one by one they tell the truest stories the
real live ones
one by one they count the stars in minutes until they can no longer function
one by one they rest their souls on the table to breathe in
the smoke chamber
one by one the heartworn sleeve takes a salty bath or the
blade is twisted another degree or the
lemon juice drip is began again.

one

by

one

The
Procrastinated Man says

“time and patience.”

The Procrastinated Man
...
… waits.

The Procrastinated Man by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

br.o.ken

Mother flailed me with the Nine Tails this morning
right after my bowl of Special K.

we exchanged glances
like Medusa would Hercules
Cleo and Tony
Rik-Tik and the Asp

On your knees bitch, she seethed through
rootformed dirtpacked mouth.
(it passed for a mouth)
she broke through my right eardrum
with her Mack Truck soprano
knowing my left ear was already damaged
in a freak snowplough accident

it paralyzed me; and i pleaded
i am broken
i am lost
i am Matrix Fashion fallen by the wayside.

my wax paper cracked
under her fine attunement
of the weapon
i fell prostrated in front of
treesap and worms and fire ants
her oaken arms whisked thorn switches
as she called out my rap sheet

!
for your dimestore prickdom
!!
for your societal insubordination at town meetings
!!!
for intolerant postures at coffee tables
!!!!
for the insolent imperative you pass for ideology
!!!!!
for sloth
!!!!!!
for a forged certificate of impunity to the real world found in my sock drawer
!!!!!!!
FOR LIES SO HELLISHLY HUGE YOU COULDN'T FIT THEM ON THE MOON!
damn her beauty

my gashes seeped pus and retribution
and i am broken
she flogged harder
i am lost
she threatened the rack
i am Night Court fallen by the wayside

the Moon needs not my ink,
the waiting list itself a revered prominence
and the flowers are tired

she glowered brighter and clamped my jaw
yanking me towards her mass
a snake writhed free and bit my tongue
rivets to the mouth my capped molars melted
under vile consumption of fevered rage anguish
turmoilish despair despot dimming deepishly devoid of
harmony and reeking of desperation.

i think a groundhog took shelter in my stomach

i stared at the rats in her eyes
told her i am broken
i am lost
i am Dark Angel fallen by the wayside

i know, she said.
i'll be back tomorrow.

br.o.ken by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

cons id e r

dumber by the
day and I can feel it
creep down synapse eat
gray matter kill too many feed
the rest too much give the rest
of my mind a wonder a precarious
position a pretense of preposterous
ramifications



It’s killing me.



tendrils grasp; do not let go
barrel down my thoughts beat them
to plasma and I yet
turn another thought
into a grunt
and a nod of the lids
as an admittance of guilt
my breast yearns for such
filthy willpower to make itself
present to
…


…
and it comes to me like nike. Like my mother’s
cross-stitch
(just [do it) now]
my father’s voice inside the yellow hatred eyes he says
“Listen here, dumbass
you know you’re better than that”
and this is about the point
where the psychotic break
kicks down the door and grabs
me by the collar and threatens
to rip my fucking head off jesus
fuck
“so why aren’t you doing it?!”

and it sits there
in its bubble
mocks me with a raised eyebrow.
I shrug ala cerebus; walk in
brazen moonlight shone through quixotic
walls of nonimportance
while it follows me, above my head
a black thunderous light bulb of memo

So too, I walk in the garden of epochs while
the twinkled with dust faeries come
a glitterin’ across my nose
in blue angel fashion
take heed, tread with persistence, solidity
rock of the ages
resolve
to the myriad Technicolor
flashback
like communism, just misplaced in
practice; still just and
honorable in theory.

Re consider
Re confinement of sorts
a disjunction of Re configurement soul suckling naiveté

that is to say
shut the fuck up
and
listen

cons id e r by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

aroma

i thought of you today …

a concussion severely understated.

if i can escape
the soundproof cuffs

i might just be able to do

more than sniff your hair.

aroma by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Spoons

I made spoons with your pillow

ground my face into its back

... and in a deep inhale

(i can still smell your hair)

came a serene light of truth:

ironically, memory is a

not-quite solace

(and the fabric is cold)

Spoons by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Braxton Pipp

I had an idea while I was waiting for a friend and doing a little freewriting. What happens when you want a cybernetic implant but you don't have the money or credit to have it professionally installed? You go to the black market and gamble. Introducing Braxton Pipp, otherwise known as The Sparking Donut.

My second idea came later in the evening. I would make a journal of Pipp: A day in the life of an internet everyman. I reserved the blogspace for The Sparking Donut forthwith. Following is the first bit. Hit the link to read the rest. Enjoy!

I have too much electricity running to my headjack. It can be a common problem with unlocked jacks, since they're not tuned to a specific carrier, like most commercial headjacks. I knew this when I picked it out and found one available for little more than a song.

The problem is actually caused by the carrier rig, not the jack, but that's just semantics. The rig sends an unimpeded signal directly from the nearest host switch, as I understand it, because if it was filtered it at all it would be considered wiretapping.

Normally this would be compensated by resistors in a commercial jack, or in the case of an unlocked jack - a bank of tunable resistors. Obviously I did my homework, right?

Enter my lifestyle: I am an unwealthy researcher, and I get most of my kit used. This was something I purchased new, and I wanted to find someone top-notch to install it. I tried everywhere, but no one would finance me. I put my ears to the ground and started networking all my friends, until I found a friend that knew a guy that knew a guy. i told him to set it up.

I may as well have asked Stephen Hawking's wheelchair to perform the operation.

Read More.

Dizzy

I spun circles
in desperate search of North

... but all I got was dizzy

I scrubbed the same black-bloodcrusted spot on the floor for hours;
sought to blanch the tile white
with raw-white-knuckle-determination
and just a little lonesome

I've sung at stars
until vocal chords bent in half ...
some snapped in two

(open my mouth to prove it)

I railed and supplicated at false gods
rallied the long seventh inning stretch
with a glass of water and a slice of cold pizza

Ramified with a single planted seed in sallow Earth.

In the yonder of twilight and moonshine
a single nova caught
the silk net, lamented.

The incandescence shone brightest;
then immolated infinitely inward.

(Which struck my heart with a most disconcerting thud
As the dictionary lay open to page 1340.)


I spun circles
... until you.

Dizzy by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.