Nice Reference Site(s)

Petike

Petike

I continue to work on my Native American Languages database for our wiki.

Loads of information added there since last year's summer. I'm hoping it can help people with writing stories and timelines set in the Americas. I've tried to provide as many links to useful dictionaries and vocabularies as I could, both current and archived, and even some audio examples to get a feel for some of the languages. The North American section is almost finished now.

I was working on a prototype of a timeline set among Native American cultures, but I figured last spring and summer we could really use a separate resource page for these particular linguistics topics.
 

Gog-Clocthoth

jack_donaghy_is_the_shado said:
I'm unsure if this is the right thread, but, where would I go to find out who all attended a presidential inaguration?

I'm tired of getting the run around on Google.
Click to expand...
Granted it was a few years ago, but I did have a minor role (limited to infoboxes and research) in the development of AccurateWorldWar's TL "Open the Gates!", which revolved around a dirty bomb at the 2009 inauguration, killing President Obama and a slew of major politicians and celebrities (and allowing Robert Gates to ascend to the Presidency, hence the name). If it is of any interest to you, I would suggest checking the previously linked TL thread as there seem to be some other members who provided lists of celebrity attendees, though these are not sourced and it was never something I needed to look into for my role in the TL.

I can empathize with your feeling of "getting the run around", as most of my time with the project was spent figuring out vacancies in Congress resulting from the attack. I spent hours looking through footage of the event on Youtube, comparing stills to pictures of politicians to figure out who they were, and so on. I did not find a complete list, and while I focused on the 2009 inauguration, I have not come across one for other years either. I'm not sure what you've found yet, but at least for recent American inaugurations, I had a bit of luck searching the term "inaugural seating chart". While they aren't complete lists, the individuals named are done so accurately and they get a lot of large (and some more obscure) names out of the way.
Third-party Seating Chart for 2017, and 2013 by The New York Times.

I found it easier to find which politicians weren't in attendance, as they generally made a statement about it or it was otherwise newsworthy. You may find some merit in working backwards as I did, but of course I was looking for active officeholders who would've lived or died in a hypothetical mass murder scenario; that won't help with most private citizens, guests and others who have no need to release statements on their attendance. Even in politics, most would not have a use to look into someone like former Mayor of Medford, MA, Michael J. McGlynn, who apparently attended both an Obama and a Clinton inauguration. Who would be able to find this man based on a picture alone, assuming he appears clearly enough in a photograph of the events? How comprehensive of a list are you looking for? Would the widow of a long gone city councilor be important enough? Or the current Bristol County, MA Sheriff Thomas Hodgson (along with more small-time figures) in an article about the doling out of tickets for the 2001 Bush inauguration?

Compiling a list of attendees at each inauguration could be a valuable project, though it would probably require crowdsourcing in some form. I found it very easy to get lost in the weeds and I was overwhelmed when I tried to do it alone for one inauguration. I know that idea doesn't do you much good here and now. If you like, I could send you what few notes about 2009 I have left on my PC. They're far too rough to deserve a post as a reference here, but maybe they'll fill in a few blanks in that particular year. Best of luck on your research.
 

Bureaucromancer

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Petike

Petike

Petike said:
Just to let you guys know, I'm still regularly adding new resources to our wiki, even if I rarely talk about it in this thread. Nevertheless, some of my recent excellent finds and additions:
Ancient Scripts - This site, man, this site ! :cool: Awesomesaucesupermegacool. :)

Online Conversion - Convert between units of measurement from the international system (metric system), the imperial system, customary units and many more. Offered types of measurement include lenghth, area, mass and weight, temperature. All are available in different units of measurement, past and present.

Online Calculators - Similar to the Online Conversion site. Choices offered are a scientific calculator, statistics calculator, "Exctcalc" calculator, a simple calculator, a simple calculator with an added "paper roll" results display, an RPN calculator, abacuses, simple math calculators, and a percentage calculator.
Click to expand...

An addendum to this old post of mine. :) Mostly a list of further online calculator and converter sites. Hope you find them useful. ;)

RapidTables.com - calculators, conversion tools and more

MetricConversion.org - very well-designed site, basically for all your measurement unit conversion and calculation needs

UnitConverters.net - fairly humble unit conversion site, but with plenty to choose from, including more advanced physics units

Calculator-Converter.com - calculators, conversion tools, etc.

TheCalculatorSite.com - mainly calculation programs
 
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wietze

Petike said:
An addendum to this old post of mine. :) Mostly a list of further online calculator and converter sites. Hope you find them useful. ;)

RapidTables.com - calculators, conversion tools and more

MetricConversion.org - very well-designed site, basically for all your measurement unit conversion and calculation needs

UnitConverters.net - fairly humble unit conversion site, but with plenty to choose from, including more advanced physics units

Calculator-Converter.com - calculators, conversion tools, etc.

TheCalculatorSite.com - mainly calculation programs
Click to expand...
here is another one:

Unit Converter - Digital Dutch Unit Converter

The Digital Dutch Unit Converter - Online conversion of area, currency, density, energy, force, length, mass, power, pressure, speed, temperature, volume and bytes.
www.digitaldutch.com www.digitaldutch.com

 

Timmy811

I recommend this blog by a Roman & Medieval Era historian. Lots of wonderful analysis of pop culture from a historical lens. Particularly good are his analysis of The Battle of Helms Deep and The Siege of Gondor (both book and move), as well as his recent analysis of Europa Universalis 4.

acoup.blog

A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

A look at history and popular culture
acoup.blog acoup.blog
 
Petike

Petike

Constructed Languages playlist

I would like to share a linguistic resource for writers, be it for inspiration, writing or worldbuilding. This is a video playlist of videos looking into various constructed languages, created by various authors. Most of the conlangs featured are artistic conlangs, developed for literature, entertainment and other artistic media.

Besides videos explaining the languages and their grammar, phonology and vocabulary, I've also included videos that feature the languages in action (usually in TV series or films, sometimes also in music), analyses and reviews of these languages, even basic courses for some of the languages featured. There are also interviews with the various conlangs' creators and lectures by those same conlang creators.

Last but not least, the last third or so of the playlist features David J. Peterson's detailed, accurate and very accessible course on constructed language development, titled "The Art of Language Invention". Hopefully it can prove useful to a number of people on AH.com as well, or in their private writing endeavours and creative endeavours.
 
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Catsmate

Catsmate

Fairly specialised but Weatherspark is an absolutely fascinating (to me anyway) compilation of weather data, searchable by time and city.

Did you know that on Thursday 08MAR1951 in London:
  • The day started foggy, until around 10AM, turned smoggy with poor visibility, with light rain starting around 5PM.
  • It was almost totally overcast with poor visibility all day.
  • There was a moderate wind, averaging about 25km/h from ENE.
  • It was cold, around 5°C all day, cooling to 4°C by 5PM.
  • Sunset was at 17:51 and it was a moonless night.

A rather miserable day for an appointment outside the British Museum at closing time....
 
Petike

Petike

I found some nice resources on production design utilised in behind the scenes film-making stuff.
Might give people ideas when developing popculture timelines dealing with film, television and theatre works.
 
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