THE (ALMOST) UNDELETED

Is a brother site to many of the people here, and lots of us, who used to be Dreamers, go there from time to time. It is currently up for an award, so please vote for it!

Just scroll till you see the name Worms Sci Fi Haven and click

http://www.arwz.com/award.php#vote

www.wormsscifi.com

Thanks all!

I love the site. I think I voted already. (I say I think because I went there, and I think that is all you have to do? Or do I need to click on something too?)

Click on the Worm's Sci Fi Haven name in the list of who you can vote for.

Pardot Kynes wrote:Click on the Worm's Sci Fi Haven name in the list of who you can vote for.

Done

Do you think we could be nominated next year for our treatment of Hyppo? I personally think it makes for a great read.

Don't know

Voted.

(Even though it's too image heavy for me to confortablY view much from home. )

Are you on dial up at home, Chig? I am surrounded by cow pastures so I am stuck with it for now.

No, ISDN, but it still takes forever.

I mean, I really like the look, and know that most of the component image files are really small, it's just the total package.

I just realized I've never looked to see if he offers a lightweight default theme....hmm.

SandChigger wrote:No, ISDN, but it still takes forever.

I mean, I really like the look, and know that most of the component image files are really small, it's just the total package.

I just realized I've never looked to see if he offers a lightweight default theme....hmm.

Wow. The average Japanese cell phone is faster than your computer.

The images don't take so long to dl for me, but all the other stuff the site connects to takes forever. Paypal, the Scifi webring, and Statcounter all slow everything down. I should say the site's images don't take too long.. some of the sigs and avatars take forever. I adblock the ones that are animated or just have a huge file size.

Theres a bare bones skin for all you people stuck in the stone age.

Thanks. I'll pop over by later and change my settings!

(Then again, do I really want to become more active on another site where than loon can PM me? Why does she do that?)

Pardot Kynes wrote:Theres a bare bones skin for all you people stuck in the stone age.

Aw come on man, the stoneage rocks dude

SandChigger wrote:Thanks. I'll pop over by later and change my settings!

(Then again, do I really want to become more active on another site where than loon can PM me? Why does she do that?)

I ain't seen hide nor hair of her there in months. I get the feeling something happened over there and Worm ran her off, but I'm not entirely sure. Worm sent me some cryptic PM's about it, but if you read between the lines, she has been made unwelcome there.

Pardot Kynes wrote:Theres a bare bones skin for all you people stuck in the stone age.

No there isn't. There used to be, but not for a long time now.

Well, the option is still there

Yeah.. I tried both of them If Duke Leto would start coming back around we'd probably have some options. I think he's tied up with his job a lot lately. I'm going ask for a plain skin anyway.

If Worm needs help with that stuff, I could.

Hey Chig, Worm made subsilver an option without any extra images.. so no banner or anything, but it's much faster!

Mandy wrote:Hey Chig, Worm made subsilver an option without any extra images.. so no banner or anything, but it's much faster!

So that is working for you. Which skin are you using here, Mandy? How is that working?

Omphalos wrote:

SandChigger wrote:Thanks. I'll pop over by later and change my settings!

(Then again, do I really want to become more active on another site where than loon can PM me? Why does she do that?)

I ain't seen hide nor hair of her there in months. I get the feeling something happened over there and Worm ran her off, but I'm not entirely sure. Worm sent me some cryptic PM's about it, but if you read between the lines, she has been made unwelcome there.

You should send me those

Omphalos wrote:

Mandy wrote:Hey Chig, Worm made subsilver an option without any extra images.. so no banner or anything, but it's much faster!

So that is working for you. Which skin are you using here, Mandy? How is that working?

I'm using subsilver here too. I don't have problems with other skins if they haven't had a lot of stuff added to them, though.

I'll go check it out later, then. And thank him proper.

(I ended up not going over the other day, after reading that there weren't alternatives.)

Anyone else having trouble getting into Haven? The server is probably down for maintenance, it happens now and then.

EDIT: it's back up.

Whoa.. it's been awhile since I've been here.

You all talkin' 'bout me an my ears never rang once.

Yes I made an easy option template for the folks that don't like all that other junk clogging their modems and processors.

Oh, bother. You spelled "worm rider" in Arabic in your sig pic.

But you realize the writing it supposd to go from right to left, right? Looks so wierd this way.

I actually didn't make this banner. A nice young lady made it for me a long time ago at DoD. She said she used the "Fremen" font, but I think she used the words in the wrong order as you suggest.

How should it look, cuz my Arabic is really rusty?

Ah fuck it, there goes my post.

I'll try again...

It should look something more like

(read from right to left of course).

That's in "literary" or "classic" Arabic, mind you.

You can take out the small lines and circles that show the vowel movements.

It should read wu-rm ra-i-dar since Arabic is a bit limited in vowel movements AFAIK(only "ah", "oo/u", and "ee" AFAIK, though I bet they twist it around a bit in actual speech).

whoa

that's some wild stuff. I'll never understand how people can read that and Chinese.

I have no clue how to fix it, so let's keep it our secret.

Worm wrote:whoa

that's some wild stuff. I'll never understand how people can read that and Chinese.

Other than the magical dissapearing vowels (which quite a few languages do) I don't know that it's much different from reading english. Helps a bit if you speak the language.

Mind you, my Arabic may not be 100% accurate(though that's kinda easy and even looking at Wiki' for the letters will help...even though I don't think they show connected letters there like I did in the middle of the second word), and my handwriting of it is quite horrid.
It can actually look somewhat nice, but I just can't draw it fluidly enough.

This is why I love my Mac:





(Maybe link the yaa' and daal?)

Although you can spell out the vowels of every word in the Arabic alphabet (using those marks above and below the line), they usually just include the vowels whn thr s th pssblty f ambgty (r th wrtr uss n uncmmn wrd...lk ambgty?). Hebrew also uses a system of points and lines, mostly below line, but there was an older system of using certain of the consonantal letters to indicate vowels that remains in the spelling and that maybe makes Hebrew a wee bit easier to read than Arabic...??? (I defer to the expertise of the native on that, of course. )

Chinese is a whole other kettle of fish. You have to memorize the pronunciation of most characters. (There are a few hints, with characters sharing certain parts often having similar pronunciations.) Japanese is even more fun: the kanji characters all have at least one "Chinese" reading (on-yomi) and at least one "native Japanese" reading (kun-yomi). But more often several of the later.

Take the name Yamamoto, for example, composed of two Japanese "words", yama "moutain" and moto "origin, base". These are written with the kanji 山 and 本, which have the Chinese-style pronunciations SAN and HON (the same as in Nihon "Japan"). Words borrowed from Chinese in different historical periods can use the same kanji with different pronunciations...so it can get pretty crazy. And then there are the two syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) developed from kanji and used with the Japanese-style readings to write the inflections given to native Japanese words.

I love this shit.

SandChigger wrote:
Although you can spell out the vowels of every word in the Arabic alphabet (using those marks above and below the line), they usually just include the vowels whn thr s th pssblty f ambgty (r th wrtr uss n uncmmn wrd...lk ambgty?). Hebrew also uses a system of points and lines, mostly below line, but there was an older system of using certain of the consonantal letters to indicate vowels that remains in the spelling and that maybe makes Hebrew a wee bit easier to read than Arabic...??? (I defer to the expertise of the native on that, of course. )

Chig, you might know this - are Hebrew and Arabic (and Tibetan while I'm on the subject) descended from Sanskrit? Obviously modern Indian languages like Hindi, Punjabi, etc are related to Sanskrit, but I've been told that Arabic Hebrew and Tibetan are not. I always assumed that they were because A: they all leave out vowels and B: they all look related to Sanskrit to me (I know, that's weak). I'm pretty sure Sanskrit is older than all 3, but I may have this backwards and inside out.

Care to shed some light on this topic for an ignorant westerner? Am I completely out to lunch?

Yes.

And could you grab me a bagel and some baklava while you're out?

Um...let's see...if you mean the languages and not the writing systems...

Sanskrit is one of the Elder Tongues, up there with Latin and Greek...and actually related to both and, ultimately, English as well: it's Indo-European. What puts the "Indo-" in Indo-European, in fact!

Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic, related to Ancient Egyptian and Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian, etc. They're originally unrelated to the IE languages above.

Tibetan is now classed as Tibeto-Burman evidently; used to see the term Sino-Tibetan as well. Unrelated to anything above.

I'd have to drag out the books to figure out which is oldest. (Were the Indians writing Sanskrit before the Hebrews were writing their scriptures? I forget!)

As for writing systems, the Hebrew (and our alphabet...alpha and beta from aleph and beth!) comes originally from Egyptian hieroglyphics via Phoenician; the Hebrew is older than the Arabic. (It probably ultimately derives from the same source.)

I'm drawing a blank on the origins of the Sanskrit devanagari. I think it was taught to the Indians by whale-toting Sirians. (Not Syrians, mind you!)

From a quick tool around da WP it looks like the Sanskrit system may have also developed from a Semitic script.

Don't quote me on this, but I think the places where writing has arisen completely independently are Egypt (hieroglyphics), Sumer (cuneiform) and China (Hanzi/Chinese characters). Oh, and Central America?

Hope that clears things up a bit...even if it is rather foggy.

SandChigger wrote:Yes.

And could you grab me a bagel and some baklava while you're out?

Um...let's see...if you mean the languages and not the writing systems...]

Sanskrit is one of the Elder Tongues, up there with Latin and Greek...and actually related to both and, ultimately, English as well: it's Indo-European. What puts the "Indo-" in Indo-European, in fact!

Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic, related to Ancient Egyptian and Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian, etc. They're originally unrelated to the IE languages above.

Tibetan is now classed as Tibeto-Burman evidently; used to see the term Sino-Tibetan as well. Unrelated to anything above.

I'd have to drag out the books to figure out which is oldest. (Were the Indians writing Sanskrit before the Hebrews were writing their scriptures? I forget!)

As for writing systems, the Hebrew (and our alphabet...alpha and beta from aleph and beth!) comes originally from Egyptian hieroglyphics via Phoenician; the Hebrew is older than the Arabic. (It probably ultimately derives from the same source.)

I'm drawing a blank on the origins of the Sanskrit devanagari. I think it was taught to the Indians by whale-toting Sirians. (Not Syrians, mind you!)

From a quick tool around da WP it looks like the Sanskrit system may have also developed from a Semitic script.

Don't quote me on this, but I think the places where writing has arisen completely independently are Egypt (hieroglyphics), Sumer (cuneiform) and China (Hanzi/Chinese characters). Oh, and Central America?

Hope that clears things up a bit...even if it is rather foggy.

Clears it up quite a bit. Thank you. I'll take your word on the subject (matches up with some of what I've heard/read before too) though it seems weird that a country all the way over in South Asia has the same roots as mediterranean languages, while languages from countries inbetween have roots in Africa. The Hebrew/Arabic from Egypt makes sense geographically, I'm curious as to why the Indian sub continent has European ties... Anyways... I'm sure that gets a hell of a lot more complicated and I should probably send some time at the library or searching the internet and stop bugging you with my crazy questions.

This image (linked)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IE_expansion.png

kinda illustrates the hypothesized area of origin and migration routes. (It's 151 KB, so I didn't fix it to load here!)

Here's the explanation:

Indo-European expansion 4000–1000 BC, according to the Kurgan hypothesis.

Even within the Kurgan hypothesis, there is considerable uncertainty, mainly depending on assumptions about the Tocharians, the Corded Ware culture and the Beaker culture.

The central purple area is supposed to show early Yamna culture (4000–3500 BC); the dark red area could show expansion to about 2500 BC, and the lighter red area expansion to about 1000 BC.

The Hittites (in Turkey; their empire clashed with the Egyptian) and the Persians were also Indo-Europeans.

The Assyrians were aliens, of course. Their name is from Babylonian asz "from" + Surians "Sirius".

though it seems weird that a country all the way over in South Asia has the same roots as mediterranean languages, while languages from countries inbetween have roots in Africa.

I think it was because of Marco Polo, but I'm not entirely sure.

Nah. Definitely nekhroid pants whales.

Marco Polo? What did he ever do? Brought home da pasta and ended up in gaol. Some hero! Phooey!

Interesting. I have a lot of brushing up to do on early human migration, but this would be long, long after the rest of the world had been populated by people correct? A second/third/fourth/so on migration? I'm going to stop bugging you about this, I can't be asking you every question that pops into my head (this map just begs more questions from me, and trust me, I already had a lot on this subject )


I'm thinking of taking some post-secondary this year, maybe I'll take some classes on linguistics and ask you more questions when you don't have to explain the rudiments to me. Thanks again.

Seriously, one of the things I love reading about most in history is mass migrations of peoples. I don't know what it is about that topic, but I'm a complete sucker for any book about it.

I forget when it was we were supposed to have come out of Africa. ("I had a farm...?") WP says 60,000 years ago.

Ooh! Small enough to embed: Map of early human migrations according to mitochondrial population genetics:



(This one's even more impressive, but nearly 300 KB:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ations.jpg )

The oldest date associated with the IE migration map is 4000 BCE. So the people who became the Indo-Europeans could have been there for a long time.

Or not, as the case may be. Writing wasn't one of their many talents, unfortunately....

Imagine the history that has been lost...150,000 to 200,000 years. Imagine the peoples, the languages, the kingdoms and wars. How sad...how wondrous.

I think humans came out of Africa long before that, but the first wave of North Americans migrated starting about 60K yrs ago. B, can you enlighten us?

That third map (only linked to) shows something like 35,000 to 25,000 years ago for arrival in the Eastern US. 70,000 to 60,000 years seems to be the range for coming out of Africa in the articles on WP.

Where's B?!

I love this stuff.

Actually, I meant that I thought 60K years ago was when dem ancient homo types crossed the land bridge. I took a while to get to Maine and Tierra del Fuego. Proably not 30K+ years, but I think there was not just one wave.

Omphalos wrote:Actually, I meant that I thought 60K years ago was when dem ancient homo types crossed the land bridge. I took a while to get to Maine and Tierra del Fuego. Proably not 30K+ years, but I think there was not just one wave.

I was under the impression that was about 25K years ago.

SandChigger wrote:This is why I love my Mac:





(Maybe link the yaa' and daal?)

Well, that's what I did(unless you meant Worm's image), since they're supposed to connect.

I got rid of the Alif since I don't really see any elongation of the movement thingy...it's a short "ra", not "rah".

I must say though that your image is a bit misleading, Chig.
First, the "waw" and "ra" seem to be connected due to their curvature, and second, the "m" letter(forgot the name for it) should actually be a closed circle/elipse with a line dropping, not so open at the end like that.
I blame the font...kinda the official "print" font though.

Although you can spell out the vowels of every word in the Arabic alphabet (using those marks above and below the line), they usually just include the vowels whn thr s th pssblty f ambgty (r th wrtr uss n uncmmn wrd...lk ambgty?). Hebrew also uses a system of points and lines, mostly below line, but there was an older system of using certain of the consonantal letters to indicate vowels that remains in the spelling and that maybe makes Hebrew a wee bit easier to read than Arabic...??? (I defer to the expertise of the native on that, of course. )

Yes. I for instance can't read any Arabic(well, the little I actually can) if it doesn't have Harakat(?), that system of vowel dots and lines.

In Hebrew(as the Wiki' page also explains...search for "nikud") we can either use similar dots and lines(mostly for kids/books where there's a foreign term/name, like in Dune, then the word would have it the first time it appears then without it), but for practical writing you do it without, just add vowels in some words(chtiv ma-le, as they would call it in Wiki' I believe).

orald wrote:

SandChigger wrote:(Maybe link the yaa' and daal?)

Well, that's what I did(unless you meant Worm's image), since they're supposed to connect.

You're right, you did connect them. But you used a form of yaa' that doesn't exist.

I got rid of the Alif since I don't really see any elongation of the movement thingy...it's a short "ra", not "rah".

That's the Fremen usage of the alphabet from The Dune Encyclopedia. Alif is used for 'a' and there is only one form variant for each of the letters.

I must say though that your image is a bit misleading, Chig.
First, the "waw" and "ra" seem to be connected due to their curvature, and second, the "m" letter(forgot the name for it) should actually be a closed circle/elipse with a line dropping, not so open at the end like that.
I blame the font...kinda the official "print" font though.

Right. Take it up with the font maker, not me. However, neither waaw nor raa' join to following letters, so even if they touch and appear to join, no one familiar with the writing system would mistake them for something else.

Although you can spell out the vowels of every word in the Arabic alphabet (using those marks above and below the line), they usually just include the vowels whn thr s th pssblty f ambgty (r th wrtr uss n uncmmn wrd...lk ambgty?). Hebrew also uses a system of points and lines, mostly below line, but there was an older system of using certain of the consonantal letters to indicate vowels that remains in the spelling and that maybe makes Hebrew a wee bit easier to read than Arabic...??? (I defer to the expertise of the native on that, of course. )

Yes. I for instance can't read any Arabic(well, the little I actually can) if it doesn't have Harakat(?), that system of vowel dots and lines.

In Hebrew(as the Wiki' page also explains...search for "nikud") we can either use similar dots and lines(mostly for kids/books where there's a foreign term/name, like in Dune, then the word would have it the first time it appears then without it), but for practical writing you do it without, just add vowels in some words(chtiv ma-le, as they would call it in Wiki' I believe).

Yes. I was referring to the old, pre-nikud system whereby aleph, yodh and wau were used to indicate approximate vowel qualities, as mnemonics of a sort.

Argh, I think I gave the yaa' an "s" like curve in the begining like the connected final form has(IIRC)...You're right, it's supposed to be straight.
But hey, learning stupid, primitive, camel-fucking languages ain't MY job.

No, your job is pumping gas.

So... I'm confused. How should the Fremen writing in my sig look?

Good question!

I'm winding down here (it's 3:00 AM), but I'll have a look through the Encyclopedia when I get back up...in about five hours!

(I'm assuming the direction of writing was kept the same as in Modern Arabic, but that's one of the details to check. It currently reads left-to-right, or backwards, as I think Orald might have pointed out above.)

SandChigger wrote:No, your job is pumping gas.

Better and cleaner than what you did to get the money for your uni/collage.

orald wrote:

SandChigger wrote:No, your job is pumping gas.

Better and cleaner than what you did to get the money for your uni/collage.

I don't know what it is here the last few days, Orald, but I'm not finding you very amusing at all. I mean, I don't know what this silly example of attempted innuendo is supposed to achieve, seeing as you know nothing at all about my college years or how my education was paid for.

I have only your word that you are working part-time pumping gas at a station, but I can't imagine why you would fabricate something like that. I worked at my uncle's truck stop/gas station the last summer before I entered uni, mostly just to help out and for some extra spending money. It's not the most pleasant job in the world, and some customers are real idiots, but it's not going to kill you, either. After that summer, I was fortunate enough to get by without having to do it again. I certainly don't look down, in general, on people who have to work to pay for their own schooling and living expenses. For you, though, I'll make an exception, since you seem determined to be an ass about it.

For your information, I did really well in high school (without even trying that hard) and as a result received a couple of academic scholarships. Also got some money from the Veterans Administration because my father died of a condition incurred while he was in the Air Force, and some grant money because I came from a single-parent home with a limited income. I was never rich or rolling in money, but I wasn't hurting too bad, either. Then I had a University Fellowship my first year in graduate school and research and teaching assistantships all the time after that.

Think about that while the gasoline fumes are curling your no-doubt copious nosehairs. And if you can find something in that to make further fun of, well then knock yourself out.

And, um, by the way: learning the languages of superstitious, vindictive racists is something I do FOR FUN. Hebrew, for example.

Ahem. Sorry...seems I have a low patience level today for idiocy.

Worm wrote:So... I'm confused. How should the Fremen writing in my sig look?

I had a look at the "Fremen Language" article in The Dune Encyclopedia. On p. 237 in the section entitled Graphemics there's a table of the modified Arabic alphabet used by the Fremen and an example of Fremen writing (Innama nishuf...the words used in that one song, perhaps?).

The script is still written right-to-left, so basically, Worm, the letters in your sig image need to be rearranged in the reverse order of what they are now.

(If my mood improves and I feel frisky later, I may try giving editing your image a whirl. No promises at the moment, though.)

SandChigger wrote: And, um, by the way: learning the languages of superstitious, vindictive racists is something I do FOR FUN. Hebrew, for example.

I was trying to think of the right way to word that sentiment.

Gee...I was pissy, huh?

(I put the computer to sleep and went back outside and weeded and messed around in the "yarden" all afternoon. Much happier with the world now. )

Looks like I'm a member at Worm's now.That could be fun.

SandChigger wrote:Ahem. Sorry...seems I have a low patience level today for idiocy.

Worm wrote:So... I'm confused. How should the Fremen writing in my sig look?

I had a look at the "Fremen Language" article in The Dune Encyclopedia. On p. 237 in the section entitled Graphemics there's a table of the modified Arabic alphabet used by the Fremen and an example of Fremen writing (Innama nishuf...the words used in that one song, perhaps?).

The script is still written right-to-left, so basically, Worm, the letters in your sig image need to be rearranged in the reverse order of what they are now.

(If my mood improves and I feel frisky later, I may try giving editing your image a whirl. No promises at the moment, though.)

That is awefully nice of you. If I have time, I'll give it a whirl too. Thanks for the info, now that I know what it should look like, that makes it all the more easier.

Nekhrun wrote:Looks like I'm a member at Worm's now.That could be fun.

**Insert evil Emperor accent here** "Excellent!"

For someone who claims not to look down at people having to work for their schooling money, you spend alot of time commenting about me pumping gas, breathing the fumes etc.

And it's not a part-time job, it's full time, 8.5(officially, it's a bit more IRL) a day, each day of the week(well, Saturdays I've only been put in the "secondary" slot so it's only 5 hours then).
These past two days(and tomorrow too) I've had a 10.5-11 hour work day because we're short of workers ATM.

As long as you keep mentioning it as some kind of a joke I'll keep saying my stuff too.

Chig wrote:And, um, by the way: learning the languages of superstitious, vindictive racists is something I do FOR FUN. Hebrew, for example.

And Japanese?

Worm wrote:**Insert evil Emperor accent here** "Excellent!"

Don't you mean "Mr. Burns accent"?

orald wrote:

Worm wrote:**Insert evil Emperor accent here** "Excellent!"

Don't you mean "Mr. Burns accent"?

I never knew till now how much those two look and sound alike. Pretty scary...

SandChigger wrote:And, um, by the way: learning the languages of superstitious, vindictive racists is something I do FOR FUN. Hebrew, for example.

Or American English.

chanilover wrote:

SandChigger wrote:And, um, by the way: learning the languages of superstitious, vindictive racists is something I do FOR FUN. Hebrew, for example.

Or American English.

Hey, this is fun, my turn! Or.... British english. Or French. We can go on all day!



Sheesh people.

Yeah, probably better to let it die, since everything's a competition and some people hate to lose.

Losing is for losers.

I don't mind letting chicks win.

And I don't mind winning