A week of no post. I know, unprofessional of me.

The deckle did not work as it was laid out to, however I think this is a fault of my inferior mold. I was able to pull a couple of test envelopes by covering the deckle in screening, thus making it into a shaped mold, but they are not of the quality I require. More thought must go into this.

I have been watch Star Trek. The Next Generation, not the original or any of the more recent ones.

I prefer Picard to the other captains, plus this one has Data, a much favoured character of mine. Perhaps because of a philosophy class in which (while discussing metaphysics) we watched "The Measure of a Man" an episode from the second season.

I started last Monday, and am now half-way through season three of seven.

I crafted some communicator pins out of sculpey, but I believe they are too brittle for the job I wish them for. I hope them to be costume pieces for a friend of mine. She has a greater interest in Star Trek than I, and I vaguely recall suggesting I make one for her.

I need to find a less brittle substitute, or perhaps bake the sculpey longer, I'm not sure.

The construction is coming along well. By then end of today I anticipate the drying of drywall mud precipitating the beginning of flooring.

I have been pixeling. I think that I have made some progress, and that my time away has allowed me the confidence to see that.

The other day (Thursday) I was waiting for the bus (it is to become a common occurrence as a way to bring me closer to home after work.) on the Queen's campus.

There were graduation ceremonies, I believe, going on.

I thought I saw someone who was once greatly important to me.

However this is unlikely, but it stirred feelings in me that I am evaluating. It is a good notch on a stick of reference.

Anyway, I tire of this entry. Another episode is in order.

More Paper stuff

Ugh, yes, yes, I've'nt posted anything since Thursday. Yes it's Sunday.

There just isn't much to say.

I got a piece of MDF-like board to make a deckle out of (A whopping 2.09$).

A deckle, for the uninitiated, is basically a mold for the paper pulp to follow (though there is something else called a mold, so it would be confusing to call them both that, ne?)

My mold (a frame with screen stretched over it instead of canvas) is about 11x14" on the inside, meaning that if I pull it straight (with no deckle on top) it give me sheets with a wavily-flurry-soft... uhm... not-straight/smooth edge that are about 11x14". Which is nice, there are a lot of things you can do with an 11x14" sheet of paper. (Folded in quarters it makes a nice size for a notebook sheet)

But sometimes I want something else. Like an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet (Letter) (Or 8 1/4 x 11 3/4" (A4) if you are not Canadian or American. Though I wonder why the International sizing of paper isn't in metric?)

Or, in my case, ENVELOPES. Yeppers, I'm making envelopes. I hope to be selling paper things, and past notebooks and plain paper, envelopes are a good start.

And for that major project I mentioned, I need about 100 of them.

Yup. Count em, 100.

And do you know how tedious it is to cut an envelope by hand?

Very.

That's all you need to know.

So doing 100 of them? No. Nuh-uh. Not happening.

So by using a deckle I can restrict the paper pulp from covering the whole mold, and pull envelopes out of the vat on their own. Yay.

Now if I could couch(lay out) more than 11 sheets at a time, this wouldn't take shy of a week to do.

I'm thinking I'll get two more boards and a bunch more fabrics (and possibly more clamps) so I can at least couch about 20-25 at a time.

I want to try out some textured fabrics, like canvas for drying on.

Add that to wanting to try denim paper, lint paper, plant dying, plant fibre paper, embossing, additives, and more notebook styles, and you've got a lot of things I hope to accomplish.

My main point of pursuit right now is colour. The way I've gotten colour before is by starting with colour papers.

Which is great.

If you have coloured recycling.

And right now I'm lucky to get any recycling that isn't box card or cardboard.

So I have a lot of brown going on.

But this project (which I swear I will go into more later) requires purple.

I've been trying to find ways of dying paper, and it's a hard thing to research for some reason.

Right now it is looking like I am going to be trying out a red cabbage dye.

I hope to find some kind of commercial dye, or at least something more reliable than my plant works.

I've got mum asking on Freecycle for recycling paper so I can at least have a good amount of pulp going.

I also just did a test of "fixing" paper (making it more water fast, so it won't run as much if you use inks on it) by adding a heap of cornstarch to the water. I don't know how much is needed, but it felt simultaneously like a lot and not much at all. (You use so little in most cooking things, but this vat is about 2 1/2' x 3 1/2' x 1 1/4', and half-full. So to make a mark in that much water?

Whatever.

Anyway, I've ranted enough for now, I've got books to read and a deckle to cut out.

Good luck, have fun, don't die, I'll miss you.

Life, update, yay?

I was trying to think of a witty portmanteau of "Life" and "Update" but I couldn't so you get what you got and you'll be thankful for it, dangit.

Anyway. Life is as life does around here. I've been going to work, coming home, dicking about, sleeping and starting over.

And I'm tired. Not excessively to the point of hypersomnia like I've hit before (46 hours of sleep is not normal, no matter how you justify it!)

Just, worn out from the day. I feel active and good while at work, and then after work rather quickly die down to kinda sore, kinda tired, before going to bed at a reasonable hour.

It's odd. It's so normal, it's odd.

And I'll tell you a secret. I kinda like it.

Now if it weren't for the drive to/from work, and the constant tension between family members, I'd be at a great place.

But as it is, I'm kinda just coasting. I feel good and strong, albeit a bit unhappy. But I'm not depressed like I was. I'm hoping that carries through the school year next year. Maybe I don't need to be on anti-depressants anymore. I'm doing well without them now.

Then again, maybe I just need more instant satisfaction like work can give me.

Oh, I pulled another eleven or twelve sheets of paper the other day; they're flattening out... somewhere. (Oh dear, where did I put them...). I've cleaned the vat out and frozen the pulp; I want to start a more major project... I don't know when. You'll get some updates on that when I know more. However I hope to put pictures of the love-note set I made up soon, I think they are nice.

But moving on; I've been to the library today after work, and picked up a few books. So I've reading. (I finished a shorter novel already- a teen fiction)

And I realised keeping the Books in My Arsenal blog going is silly; so, if I can work it, the old posts from there will be merging over here. If I can't, we'll be getting some updates here of those posts.

As for the conlanging series, don't expect that to be drifting into nothingness; I'm just taking a bit to figure how I want the next part to go.

I've been playing with pixels again, to the detriment of the conlanging work, I'll admit.

Whelp, with that, I'm tired and I have books and pixels to work on. I shall see you tomorrow!

Conlanging and you, part two!

Alright, after that crash course, I'm going to go through how I work with you. This will likely be long, so it'll probably get cut into more than one post.

I am one of those people that usually starts with a phonology, or a set of sounds that I want to put into a language. A basic idea of how I want it to sound. This usually means I start by saying a random sentence like thing out loud, then try to write it down using my dialect of English.

So something like "griskle neff twandr-ikka"

This has the plus (or minus depending on how you look) of only making sounds that I can pronounce available to me.

Another way I've done this is to pound my keyboard and try and pronounce what came up, adding vowels or word breaks where I just can't do it

" dgxfhcgvjhugbm "

becomes

"Dgzf hucgiv jhug bem"

Which I can pronounce (albeit rather haltingly).

A third way is to think of a language (or a couple, though more than three or four would get difficult) that you like the sound of, and mash them together, either by yourself, or through the use of a program to help you.

I used to have links to programs like these, but I rarely do things like this (read: once), so I've long since lost them. If you find one, will you throw it my way?

After I have something that sounds kinda how I want it, I'm going to use that to extrapolate.

I'm going to use my current language in process, Torete, to explain the following things. It will become a major fixture in these kinds of posts because it is my most complete work.

So I start with something that sounds kinda like this:

"ela fokomo de nena eska no fala make. ina feza salopa yutese"

Which, using XSAMPA, sounds almost exactly as it is written.

/el.a fo.ko.mo de ne.na es.ka no fa.la ma.ke i.na fe.za sa.lo.pa ju.te.se/

From there I notice that I have a great affinity for vowels, and I greatly despise consonant clusters. The only one that showed up was "sk" which is a cluster I find every easy to say.

So I decided that words in this language will have no consonant clusters, and that all words end in vowels.

I also get a good idea of what kind of word length I am looking at. I prefer four letter words.

I also prefer words that start with consonants. This leads me to say that words starting with a vowel are being modified in some way, a prefix.

It also gives me an idea of sounds I like:

/f k m d n s l z p y e i u a o/

From there I decided to look through IPA to see if there were any sounds that I don't have day-to-day exposure to that I would enjoy.

I mostly found them to sound too similar or to be unpronounceable, so I left it alone.

Splitting these up into vowels and consonants I have:

/a e i o u/

and

/f k m d n s l z p y/

I don't feel like that is enough, so I'm going to add

/b v r/ to the mix, as I like them too.

A quick way to see if you are getting words you like is to play with Awkwords. Their help button is really helpful, but I can answer some questions if you have them.

Okay, this is long enough. So.... To be continued. Likely tomorrow or the next day.

Conlanging and you!

Alright, yesterday I explained through examples what a conlang can be at some of its highest peaks. If you're still with me you are likely insane or really bored. Both are acceptable.

You see these examples and think to yourself, hey, I want my own language! It'll be great for my book/my diary/confusing the hell out of teachers/profit/etc.!

While I give little hope to the last one, the others are a yes. Other neat things that can come from it are relieving boredom, procrastination, pure fun, the admiration of your peers(again, little hope), and gaining friends.

So let's get started, you yell. And I jump, because I startle easily.

Where, oh where to start when conlanging. It is different for a lot of people, some like to start with basic syntax, others have a random sketch of an intransitive verb combining with a noun in holy matrimony, still others start with a script, and a lot of people start with a phonology.

Wait, wait, wait. What? Intransi-whoey? Synta-what? Phrenology?

Okay, so I think it would be best to start at the top. Linguistics! Otherwise known as More Than Your Average High School English Class!

If you are groaning already and can't stand the thought of spending time on Grammar, then perhaps this is the wrong past-time. Maybe try cryptology? (Not to be confused with the science of crypts) (I hope to cover codes and ciphers another day, but for now that link should do)

So. Linguistics. Where to begin? Well, you certainly don't need a doctorate in it, but it would sure help. So if you think you can do it, go forth. I can wait.

No?

Okay. You don't need to know a lot of linguistics to start with, just a few basic terms and you should be rolling:

Phonology: Basically the set of sounds possible within a language. English allows "sss" "ch" and "sh", but does not allow "sch" (Unless it is "school" but that is more of a "sk") We also don't allow things like "ts" or "zx"

Morpheme: The smallest linguistic unit (word or word bit) that has definable meaning. Think "un-" "break" "-s" These are pieces we can tear out of other s=words and hold up as having meaning. I can break "break" into "br" and "eak" but neither has independent meaning, so are not morphemes.

Phone: the tiniest definable sound, such as one possible pronunciation of "b"

Phoneme: the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. So the entirety of possible pronunciations for "b", including "allophones" or sounds that all mean the same thing.

Syntax: The way that all the other things are put together to form coherent thoughts, the rules dictating order of things.

Parts of Speech: Noun, Article, Conjunction and a slew of others, you might want to get re-familiar with these.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): A set of letters based on the Latin alphabet that is intended to be used as a standard representation of all sounds used in spoken language (by anyone, anywhere).

Having at least the ability to know what the symbols are is a great start. Being able to move things back and forth with it is even better.

X-SAMPA: At the most basic, a way to use IPA using ASCII characters. I use it as I find it easier to remember.

Everything else is probably okay to learn as you come across it.

Ugh, that got long quick. Okay, splitting this into two for today.

Other worlds, other languages

Remember how I apologised in advance for that rash of papermaking posts? The ones that never showed up? Yeah, I have a feeling this will be the same way, but just in case, I apologise for a rash of conlang/worlding posts to come.

Now that that is done, and I have a yummy banana ice lolly to eat, I thought I'd do a quick post about what I've been up to these last few days.

I'm a conlanger. Well, I prefer geofictionist...

A whosit? A whatsit?

If you don't already know, lemme throw some definitions at you. Stand still, this shouldn't hurt:

Conlang: A constructed language

Conlanger: A person who makes a constructed language

(Not to be confused with a canlang, or a Canadian language. Those are infinitely more frightening)

Geofiction: fictional worlds, geographic fiction

Geofictionist: A person who makes geographic fiction

Conworld: A constructed world

I'll let you figure out consports, conreligion, etc.

So yes, there, I've admitted to this oh so secret of vices. I know one other person, personally, that does it, along with a slew of internet folks, maybe two or three thousand as an upper guess (compiling all the numbers I know from a few forums and mailing lists, some of which are likely duplicated (like me!)), but I know there must be more lurking in the shadows.

So when you hear constructed language, what should you think of?

Well, think of Na'vi as a current example. The language spoken by the blue cat-people in Avatar? Yup. That's a constructed language. The people making that language hired a professor with a doctorate in linguistics to make a language for the movie. If you want to read more, wiki is a good start: Na'vi Language.

Want something a bit less current, but still alien? Reach only so far as Star Trek. The Klingons of that series have their own language which has become a major player in the field of conlangs. The language wasn't really intended, they mostly used nonsense "words" to get a feel of an alien tongue. But leave it to Trekkies to blow that up and out. Klingon is now a full fledged language with speakers around the world. You could even take classes at some point (This may still occur?) I unfortunately never really got into Star Trek, so my info is a bit dusty. However I have studied Klingon in a cursory manner, as it has structures similar to my conlang. You want to learn more, try the Klingon Language Institute.

So we want less current, but not alien. How about Tolkien? There's a reason that the secret vice quip was linked.

Tolkien made Elvish, and it seems that one reason he made the Lord of the Rings was to not seem crazy when putting forth the language. Neat, mm? Now Elvish I know as much of as anyone who never read the series (don't shoot!), but there are certainly a lot of resources about for it. So why don't we just direct you to the wiki, and you can put the knives down: Elvish Languages.

One more, then I swear I'll move on.

Esperanto. No, that's not some Spanish cowboy. It's a language developed by L. L. Zamenhof (Quite the mouthful, mm?) and his goal with this language was to have Esperanto be a politically neutral language spoken everywhere, allowing people of different nationalities to make an equal play towards peace.

A lofty goal.

And while it never reached that height (they don't teach you Esperanto in international business courses!) it is still the most widely spoken auxiliary language. There are 10,000 to two million fluent speakers, some of which are native speakers (that is, Esperanto is, or is one of, their first languages) Pretty big for something some guy just made up! Though, it has been around a while, the first book about it was published in 1887.

There is obviously tons of material about Esperanto out there, so I'mma leave you with just a Google search for Esperanto.

Now that you know a little bit about conlangs, I thought maybe I could share some information about how to go about making one, but I've kinda run out of space, plus you've probably wandered on to thinking about your dinner plans. That's okay, I ran out of ice lolly a paragraph and a half in, and I'm thinking about food too.

So I think I'll say:

ĝis la revido,

Qapla'

Mára mesta

kìyevame

or goodbye, in Esperanto, Klingon, Elvish and Na'vi respectively.

Banana Nut Cheerios

So as many of you know, I love bananas. They are my favourite fruit. Aside from their unfortunate phallic connotations, they are definitely the best.

So it should come as no surprise that my mum bought me Banana Nut Cheerios the other day(along with some banana ice lollies, yay!) so I'm going to try them.

But what is the point of trying new things if it can't be a SCIENCE EXPERIMENT?

Overall expectations: Low.

I mean, there are so few banana flavoured things, and a lot of them suck. There must be something about bananas that make them difficult to work with or something.

Opening the box, first comes smell test:

They smell like cereal. No distinct banana or sugar smell. Just Cheerios.

Look:
Dude, they're Cheerios. However they seem to have a skinnier, less puffy, opener look to them. I may just have not seen Cheerios in a while, but these ones look a little skinny.

Dry taste:

They have a... something to them. Kinda like banana bread? Sweeter than regular Cheerios, and a surprisingly pleasant taste.

Texture:

Think Cheerios. Exactly.

With Milk:

Unfortunately we are out of milk. That is just depressing.

However, we have 10% cream, and water. So with a splash of each in my bowl, let us proceed:

With Creamy-water:

Good. They have that banana bread taste, in a more pronounced way.

Texture:

They seem to sog down faster than other cereal, and feel a little slimey, though that might be the cream-water.

Smell:

They smell like baking banana bread! Except colder? (Does it make sense that I can smell temperatures?)

Overall reaction:

Pleasantly surprised. They taste good, smell good, and are easy to eat. I like them.

For next time:

Milllllllk!