ClockwerkMao

Sum of all Nucors

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Science Sexy by ClockwerkMao, literature

Science Sexy

ClockwerkMao

Cukace

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Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 1 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 1

The greasy sunlight streaming in the window is an unpleasant sign of the morning seconds before the alarm goes off. I sit up in bed, groaning and rubbing my head; the alarm is on the other side of the room to force me awake. The wood floor of my flat is a sort of cold that only wood gets, not enough to jolt you awake, but just enough make you squirm, and I sneeze as soon as my bare feet touch it. That's a thing I've been doing since I was a kid; I don't know why. By now the alarm has set up a good-natured grating buzz, and my hand is not gentle when it comes down. The clock and I have a love-ha

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 5 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 5

The bell on the door rings when I leave and as if on cue, there's Bapa, walking to Kurna's cafe, mumbling something to himself. I can't tell what he's saying, but it must be something deep and important because his face is locked on the ground and his feet. Those same feet seem to know the way to Kurna's without thinking about it. “Good morning, Bapaga,” I say. It seems right to address him respectfully, even though he doesn't take notice of me. My granny tells me that respectful address is better than I know; she would be appalled if she knew how I talk to Tseko. &

Himo Biology : Targo Taxonomy by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Himo Biology : Targo Taxonomy

In the Menu Calendar equivalent of the Gregorian 18th century, a Kirno biologist, inspired by the work on heritance performed by the Ontargan Mlea Hrotzl and by his own observations of animal husbandry, derived the first version of the Theory of Altered Descent. Unlike Darwin's similar theory, Altered Descent made little splash among the Menuists, who already ascribed something like it to God. Instead, Miko Targa is chiefly remembered for being a pleasant, quiet man, and for producing Targo Taxonomy to make sense of Altered Descent. He concluded that a Linnaean-esque ranking was incompatible with Altered Descent, and instead described a s

Himo Biology : Sharkapods by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Himo Biology : Sharkapods

Scattered through the forests, fens, and temperate scrub of Himo are critters that look like paralizards and paramanders, but have boxy skeletons of cartilage instead of bone. These are sharklizards and sharkmanders, members of the enigmatic sharkapod group (Targo node Czeto), itself a part of the parachond group (Targo node Pahato). Sharkapods evolved around the same time (~370 Ma) as paratetrapods, but in the northern supercontinent of Betogoczogax, well away from them; soon enough, though, they began interacting. It's difficult to tell what happened, because sharkapod skeletons rarely fossilize, but a rise in paratetrapod fossils world

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 2 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 2

I don't have a hard time getting dressed in the morning because the bank has a dress code; there are some things I have to wear, some things I can't wear, and since I don't have many clothes separating what's allowed from what's not is the work of seconds. It's a few more seconds to put the right things on; what's allowed at a bank is simple and clean and doesn't leave any illusions about who's really running the show. I take another peek out the door, but Tseko is the only other person who seems awake, and he's still showering. This is a small blessing. Many days I walk to the stairs with cat-

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 4 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 4

My mouth is full so I don't answer, but she's right. I always hated that about old women. My granny is also right all the time, probably because she's from the same generation as Kurna. “Anyhow,” she says, “no need to get bitter about businessmen when we're not businessmen ourselves.” I swallow. “Kurna, you run a cafe.” “That doesn't make me a businessman. Makes me a matriarch.” “You sound like Bapa,” I say, and take another bite of muffin. Kurna makes a noise of dismissa

Multilingual Fun by ClockwerkMao, literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 6 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 6

“Don't worry so much; it's just a bus,” I say. “Not to make you mad, but it's not the cleanest place right now. So dingy.” Asto grunts. “This is my dingy, unclean bus, so you watch what you say.” He is a funny man; I think he derives real pleasure from the act of eating. If you see him when he is not working you are probably seeing him at one of the cafes he frequents on Grand Passage, eating a boulga or sipping soup from a spoon with a tenderness unusual between a man and his food. I don't know that he eats more than is normal, but he won't let go of it once he has eaten it. Perhaps it i

Tsemo War - These Days by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Tsemo War - These Days

War teblas ra dakorris, t'ebedos dolo nilrado War anuke xerris du asda arse War t'ohmes omres xi dakorris ralredo War ta teblas czugaso, ti yorge morris Tsemo war sugbas, xi tsemo ar nisas Translation: Now we sit in the filth, the great buildings fallen Now we hear alarms when once we heard birds Now foreigners conquer while we sit weeping Now we are the refuse of the earth and the homeless These days we are beggars, but once we were kings

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 3 by ClockwerkMao, literature

Literature

Once We Were Kings, Excerpt 3

Kurna grins at me. “Now, wait; I said he doesn't eat bran muffins, you know, not that he doesn't eat bran. Pancakes are surprisingly good when they're branny.” “You're a sly one, Kurna. I'd hate to be on your bad side.” “Isn't that smart of you.” She twirls the dishcloth that is always draped over her shoulder. “I'd hate to have you there, too. After I killed you, who would laugh at my jokes?” I laugh knowingly. “Wait, though. If you make Tseko eat his bran, why does it matter what my appetite is?

About ClockwerkMao

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Deviant for 17 years

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ClockwerkMao

May 24, 2020

Short summary of issues

2 min read

So look guys, you're wrong about Eclipse. Of course it's not great, but the reality is the DeviantArt site has had a number of persistent flaws and issues for as long as I've been here, and Eclipse didn't actually make those flaws worse. For example, I use ad-blocking and NoScript, and for quite a while in the previous UI, that caused a layout break where an invisible ad box would cover the little remove buttons on deviation sets from users I was watching. "That's not a real bug!" you might want to say, but it was typical of the kind of rigid thinking that has always characterized DA's web development. They had lots of little bugs like that, like the one I mentioned in the comment of a sketch I made for an orthographic-only conlang. But here's the thing guys, and I'm saying this as a professional web developer in a small IT shop in a small-ish state government agency: there are always bugs, and you never get them all caught, and there's a really good chance that you don't have the

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ClockwerkMao

Jul 1, 2019

Oh look! Parallax scrolling! That thing you shouldn't do by default because it triggers vestibular disorders! GG DA, your devs still don't do basic accessibility.

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ClockwerkMao

Jan 27, 2018

Not Surprised

0 min read

Suddenly the styling is dreadful, and horrific, and seriously bad. I'm sure if I enabled all of the advertising scripts, this wouldn't happen. And you know what? That kind of inconsiderate, thoughtless, customers-aren't-the-customers pseudo-design? Doesn't surprise me.

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Profile Comments 31

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Hi there.

Hey.

I'm trying to map the tense, aspect, mood system for Classical Nahuatl, and some of the tenses are actually combos between a base tense with a certain aspect. I'm also trying to do the same for Choctaw, but none of the PDFs that show up in the search results are helping, and others cost me money. I still need to learn transactions and digital payment.

ClockwerkMao

Apr 23, 2021

Did you start with the summaries and the external links at the Wikipedia Choctaw language article? It seems likely that if you want something more comprehensive than that you'll have to buy Broadwell's "A Choctaw Reference Grammar", but at least one of the external links looks like it's the beginnings of that book.

Hello?

Yes?

I think you might like this idea of mine for a conlang: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iF8CHdTknMhBJiCBnzkEIRg_KbTqLXEOCOkIY2iHtxc/edit