Abstract Nº 96

The first speaker said
Fear fire. Fear furnaces
Incinerators, the city dump
The faint scratch of a match.

The second speaker said
Fear water. Fear drenching rain
Drizzle, oceans, puddles, a damp
Day and the flush toilet.

The third speaker said
Fear wind. And it needn't be
A hurricane. Drafts, open
Windows, electric fans.

The fourth speaker said
Fear knives. Fear any sharp
Thing, machine, shears
Scissors, lawnmowers.

The fifth speaker said
Hope. Hope for the best
A smooth folder in a steel file.

Robert Francis, "Paper men to air hopes and fears".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 57

I'll clutch — and clutch —
Next — One — Might be the golden touch —
Could take it —
Diamonds — Wait —
I'm diving — just a little late —
But stars — go slow — for night —

I'll string you — in fine Necklace —
Tiaras — make — of some —
Wear you on Hem —
Loop up a Countess — with you —
Make — a Diadem — and mend my old One —
Count — Hoard — then lose —
And doubt that you are mine —
To have the joy of feeling it — again —

I'll show you at the Court —
Bear you — for Ornament
Where Women breathe —
That every sigh — may lift you
Just as high — as I —

And — when I die —
In meek array — display you —
Still to show — how rich I go —
Lest Skies impeach a wealth so wonderful —
And banish me —

Emily Dickinson, 427.

Abstract Nº 95

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art --
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors --
No -- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -- or else swoon to death.

John Keats, poem named after the first line.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Fish skeleton from outer space

Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.

William Butler Yeats, "The fish".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 56

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it —
It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

Stephen Maria Crane, poem named after the first line.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 55

If you live along with all the other people
and are just like them, and conform, and are nice
you're just a worm —

and if you live with all the other people
and you don't like them and won't be like them and won't conform
then you're just the worm that has turned,
in either case, a worm.

The conforming worm stays just inside the skin
respectably unseen, and cheerfully gnaws away at the heart of life,
making it all rotten inside.

The unconforming worm — that is, the worm that has turned —
gnaws just the same, gnawing the substance out of life,
but he insists on gnawing a little hole in the social epidermis
and poking his head out and waving himself
and saying: Look at me, I am not respectable,
I do all the things the bourgeois daren't do,
I booze and fornicate and use foul language and despise your honest man.—

But why should the worm that has turned protest so much?
The bonnie bonnie bourgeois goes a-whoring up back streets just the same.
The busy busy bourgeois imbibes his little share
just the same
if not more.
The pretty pretty bourgeois pinks his language just as pink
if not pinker,
and in private boasts his exploits even louder, if you ask me,
than the other.
While as to honesty, Oh look where the money lies!

So I can't see where the worm that has turned puts anything over
the worm that is too cunning to turn.
On the contrary, he merely gives himself away.
The turned worm shouts. I bravely booze!
the other says. Have one with me!
The turned worm boasts: I copulate!
the unturned says: You look it.
You're a d——- b——- b——- p——- bb——-, says the worm that's turned.
Quite! says the other. Cuckoo!

D.H. Lawrence, "Worm either way".

Abstract Nº 94

Beverly Crusher: Computer. What is the nature of the universe?

Computer: The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter.

Star Trek, The Next Generation; Season 4, Episode 5.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 54

the squid seller's call
mingles with the voice
of the cuckoo.

Matsuo Bashō.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 53

[...]

Into the deepest recesses of her heart penetrated the echoes of human thoughts and feelings. Now she heard the following words sadly sung,—

“Life is a shadow that flits away
In a night of darkness and woe.”

But then would follow brighter thoughts:

“Life has the rose’s sweet perfume
With sunshine, light, and joy.”

And if one stanza sounded painfully—

“Each mortal thinks of himself alone,
Is a truth, alas, too clearly known;”

Then, on the other hand, came the answer—

“Love, like a mighty flowing stream,
Fills every heart with its radiant gleam.”

She heard, indeed, such words as these—

“In the pretty turmoil here below,
All is a vain and paltry show.”

Then came also words of comfort—

“Great and good are the actions done
By many whose worth is never known.”

And if sometimes the mocking strain reached her—

“Why not join in the jesting cry
That contemns all gifts from the throne on high?”

In the blind girl’s heart a stronger voice repeated—

“To trust in thyself and God is best,
In His holy will forever to rest.”

But the evil spirit could not see this and remain contented. He has more cleverness than ten thousand men, and he found means to compass his end. He betook himself to the marsh, and collected a few little bubbles of stagnant water. Then he uttered over them the echoes of lying words that they might become strong. He mixed up together songs of praise with lying epitaphs, as many as he could find, boiled them in tears shed by envy; put upon them rouge, which he had scraped from faded cheeks, and from these he produced a maiden, in form and appearance like the blind girl, the angel of completeness, as men called her. The evil one’s plot was successful. The world knew not which was the true, and indeed how should the world know?

“To trust in thyself and God is best,
In his Holy will forever to rest.”

So sung the blind girl in full faith.

[...]

Hans Christian Andersen, "The philosopher's stone".

Abstract Nº 93

I am the people — the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I grows, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

Carl Sandburg, "I am the people, the mob".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 52

Another painfully boring waste of space has been open: Scenawry.
http://scenawry.blogspot.com/

Blame it on the rain.
Why? Because:

Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

John von Neumann, (quoted by Manfred Schroder in "Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise").

So, by the grace of ideological relativism, I'm not guilty.

Abstract Nº 92

Across our universe of steady stars,
Of maypole planets tethered to the sun,
Sometimes a wonder flies.
And this is dizzying –this is perfection:
Importunate body no more than a comet's tail
Following behind
The strong swift golden rushing of heart and mind.

Jan Struther, "The comet".

Abstract Nº 91

- Debbie Stone: We were up at "the top of the world" and we saw this shooting star and we decided to go look for it. But instead of finding the shooting star we saw this... this circus tent. And that's when we went inside, and that is when we saw those people in those... those pink, cotton candy cocoons. Dave, it was not a circus tent. It was something else.
- Dave Hanson: What? What?
- Mike Tobacco: It was a space ship. And there was these things, these killer clowns, and they shot popcorn at us! We barely got away!
- Curtis Mooney: Killer clowns, from outer space. Holy shit!

Dialog from the "Killer klowns from outer space" movie.

3D L-Systems - Image Nº 11

[...]
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view?
[...]

John Dyer, "Grongar Hill".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 51

It is full Winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The Autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane

[...]

Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,
The night that covers and the lights that fade,
The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.

Is this the end of all that primal force
Which, in its changes being still the same,
From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,
Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,

Till the suns met in heaven and began
Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man!

Nay, nay, we are but crucified and though
The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain,
Loosen the nails—we shall come down I know,
Staunch the red wounds—we shall be whole again,
No need have we of hyssop-laden rod,
That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is God.

Oscar Wilde, "Humanitad".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 50

When the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid
On the groaning spirit, victim of long ennui,
And from the all-encircling horizon
Spreads over us a day gloomier than the night;

When the earth is changed into a humid dungeon,
In which Hope like a bat
Goes beating the walls with her timid wings
And knocking her head against the rotten ceiling;

When the rain stretching out its endless train
Imitates the bars of a vast prison
And a silent horde of loathsome spiders
Comes to spin their webs in the depths of our brains,

All at once the bells leap with rage
And hurl a frightful roar at heaven,
Even as wandering spirits with no country
Burst into a stubborn, whimpering cry.

— And without drums or music, long hearses
Pass by slowly in my soul; Hope, vanquished,
Weeps, and atrocious, despotic Anguish
On my bowed skull plants her black flag.

Charles Baudelaire, "Spleen".

...but this is better because it's the original:

Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
II nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;

Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide,
Où l'Espérance, comme une chauve-souris,
S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide
Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris;

Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées
D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux,
Et qu'un peuple muet d'infâmes araignées
Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,

Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie
Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement,
Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie
Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.

— Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique,
Défilent lentement dans mon âme; l'Espoir,
Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique,
Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 49

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Ralph Ellison, "Invisible man".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 48

Since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art.

Albrecht Dürer, "The art of measurement".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 47

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Ernst Haeckel.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 46

Poore intricated soule! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthicall soule!

John Donne, Sermon XLVIII.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 45

We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn.

Robert Laurence Binyon, "Books as source of inner strength" (lecture).

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 44

[...]

Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff. — As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

[...]

Robinson Jeffers, "Carmel point".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 43

The boding sky was charactered with cloud,
The scripture of the storm--but high in air,
Where the unfathomed zenith still was bare,
A pure expanse of rose-flushed violet glowed
And, kindling into crimson light, o'erflowed
The hurrying wrack with such a blood-red glare,
That heaven, igniting, wildly seemed to flare
On the dazed eyes of many an awe-struck crowd.

And in far lands folk presaged with blanched lips
Disastrous wars, earthquakes, and foundering ships,
Such whelming floods as never dykes could stem,
Or some proud empire's ruin and eclipse:
Lo, such a sky, they cried, as burned o'er them
Once lit the sacking of Jerusalem!

Mathilde Blind, "The red sunsets II"

3D Genetic Algorithms - Some foliage

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, "Notebook C".



This is an example of growing plant-like objects in 3D using IGA's. The L-Systems in 3D are giving me a lot of trouble for now, so the images based on them are still delayed. Only triangles has been used to render this model, if actual 3D leaves would have been used, the rendering would have taken like a week to finish. The radiosity illumination algorithm gives some level of reality to the image.

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 42

Swiftly we float upon time's tide
Adown the stream of years.
Sometimes past hills of joy we glide,
Sometimes through vales of tears.

Age follows youth, which, ere we know,
Has vanished like a dream,
And takes its glamour from the glow
Of mem'ry's silvery gleam.

There is no halt; and more and more
There seems an open sea
Reaching us with its ceaseless roar--
It is eternity.

There is one Pilot that we need,
One who can safely steer,
One who at heaven's court can plead,
And all our journey cheer.

'Tis Jesus Christ; and all who see
In him the truth, the way,
Are in possession of the key
To heaven's eternal day.

Nancy Glass, "No other".

Abstract Nº 90

As we journey along, with a laugh and a song,
We see, on youth's flower-decked slope,
Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight,
The beautiful Station of Hope.
But the wheels of old Time roll along as we climb,
And our youth speeds away on the years;
And with hearts that arc numb with life's sorrows we come
To the mist-covered Station of Tears.
Still onward we pass, where the milestones, alas!
Are the tombs of our dead, to the West,
Where glitters and gleams, in the dying sunbeams,
The sweet, silent Station of Rest.
All rest is but change, and no grave can estrange
The soul from its Parent above;
And, scorning the rod, it soars back to its God,
To the limitless City of Love.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "The universal route".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 41

Sinne, like a Serpent.
Sinnes falshood glistereth like the Serpents kind,
(From whence it crept) and beares a sting behind.

On Drunkennesse.
The youngest of all vices (that I know)
Is Drunkennesse, which in the age of Noe
First reel'd into the World, and thus appeares
Like the Red Dragon, after thousand yeares:
Yet sure to Hell this sucking Vice hath spew'd
More soules, than all that ancient multitude.

Thomas Bancroft, "The Second Booke Of Epigrammes."

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 40

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.

John Keynes, "Essays in persuasion".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 39

A dead tree full of live birds.
Why should I set this down?
[...]

Lionel Abrahams, "A dead tree full of live birds".

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 38

For me, the greatest work of art in the world is also the human body. I'm not talking about an old body or an ugly one. I mean a really hot, sexy body. Man, to me, that's great art. And the greatest way to view the art is by hiding in the bushes, and hoping the art doesn't see you.

Jack Handey, "In praise of the human body" (for Outside Magazine, May 2005).

3D Genetic Algorithms - Abstract Nº 37

In the last analysis, ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

Ambrose Bierce, "The devil's dictionary".