Open Writing

Victor Hugo once wrote that, "The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity." That's never been more true than right now as Internet start-up companies jockey for clever, memorable names.

"Clever Startup Names Giving Way to Too Cute," a Seattle Times article from last April, quotes a business-branding consultant who remembered that only a decade ago, "everything was very 'dot-commish,' with punchy, short names like Yahoo. But when the bubble burst, a lot of the more frivolous names went out of vogue and suddenly sounded very dated."

New businesses then began using more traditional names that are combined in odd ways, like the online comics, "Octopus Pie," "Exploding Dog," and "Tiny Kitten Teeth." Recently, the Times continued, "the world has gone back to a more dot-com sort of feel, out of necessity because everything normal is taken." Now catchy names are sought that are spelled strangely enough to not already be under someone else's corporate control. So vowels are dropped (Flickr.com), spellings are reversed (Xobni.com), punctuation is gratuitously inserted (Centerd.com), and sometimes bizarre or shocking terms are chosen. For instance, according to Caterina Fake (the actual name of a Flickr.com, founder) "We wanted Flicker, but the guy who had it wouldn't sell. So I suggested to the team, 'Let's remove this 'e' thing.'"

Cuteness and particle physicists aren't often associated, but it's time to start. A press release from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says some of their researchers are using "a cloud chamber to study the possible link between galactic cosmic rays and cloud formation … this is the first time a high-energy physics accelerator has been used to study atmospheric and climate science … Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest they may have an influence on the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed clouds)."

What's so cute about that? They call the project "CLOUD," which is contorted out of Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets. Now, I have nothing against clouds, for the most part. Just a few evenings ago I spent a pleasant half-hour admiring a magnificent mare's tail cirrus formation that harkened the 80-degree warm front that arrived a few hours later. Cirrus clouds appear only above 23,000 feet, and they come in two species: Cirrostratus fibratus and Cirrostratus nebulosus. The library's "Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate" says "mare's tails are made from Cirrus fibratus cloud that appears as long, wispy strands … Their appearance is wispy partly because they are too thin to obscure the sky above them fully and partly because the ice crystals of which they are composed are carried by the wind. This is what sweeps them into long streamers." Those frozen streamers are a type of "virga," which Alaska's Division of Forestry defines as "moisture falling from clouds but not reaching the earth's surface."

A new type of cloud of interest is the "word cloud." Also known as a "tag cloud," word clouds take a piece of text and make the main words larger or smaller depending on how often they are used in the overall piece. A cute website called Wordle.net allows you to load some text for free and have it create a cloud of your words. Cuter still, you can even change the layouts, colors and fonts. You can also use it to get a quick read of the main thrust of a piece of writing. For example, I downloaded our public library website's opening page (FNSBLibrary.org) into Wordle and had to hunt for the word "library." By emphasizing that particular term more in the page's text, it now appears on the page more often and shows up the largest term on our library's word cloud.

The U.K. newspaper, The Independent, used word clouds to compare the manifestos, or platforms, of the Labour and Conservative. The ruling Labour party's statement accentuated "continue," while their Conservative challengers stressed "change." I like clouds, but clarity's good, too. As Cavett Robert said, "When it's foggy in the pulpit it's cloudy in the pew."