Flat Earth Catalogue

2003-08-15

cccp

CCCP is a Cyrillic Code Conversion Program that runs from the command line, looks at a file as short as 32 bytes to determine which Cyrillic encoding it contains, and spits it back out in the encoding specified by command-line switch. Very neat. This may be useful until the world gets hip to Unicode.
18:21

Janko's Keyboard Generator

Janko's Keyboard Generator (supports Windowses with 16-bit characters; i.e., through Me, but not 2K, NT, or XP) is very cool-looking. Potentially, this is what I need in order to develop a Dvorak-style Cyrillic layout that covers my languages and doesn't shut me out of English. I don't think much of the QWERTY-based homophonic systems (because I don't think much of QWERTY), but they are better than the native Cyrillic layout, which is a koshmar to type on. Still, I'm a better and happier typist in something approaching Dvorak. Janko is developing a keyboard generator for the Unicode-aware Windowses -- check back chas vid chasu.
18:06

Self Defence with a cane part 1

Self-defence with a walking stick and fencing-like poses. This is sort of cool. It's a pity so few people carry walking sticks anymore. (via Rebecca's Pocket)
05:25

Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names

This is amazing. Some of the names are rather plausible. (Some are not.)
03:48

2003-08-14

The Changes - Chord Progressions on Songtrellis

The Changes - Chord Progressions on Songtrellis for Practice, Improvisation, Composition and Study. Taking advantage of the fact that chord progressions cannot be copyrighted, this site presents over a thousand standards. I will go back to it. (Whether chord progressions can be trademarked is a question which I hope Metallica wishes they'd never asked. It's stuff like this that's talked me out of being a lawyer.)
18:23

2003-08-11

Germanic Language Resources

Indo-European Language Resources actually, but mostly Germanic. Several primers for archaic forms of modern Germanic languages, and some grammars also.
Related: a Mennonite Low German Dictionary.
20:37

2003-08-10

Alternative alphabets

The Moon alphabet (Moon is the name of its inventor, not its origin) was devised for embossing, to be read by touch. It is essentially a code of the English alphabet, but its plain geometric letter forms are interesting. Had someone with that graphic sense been on the Deseret Alphabet committee . . . who knows? (No, it still wouldn't have flourished. And it wouldn't have looked as cool. I take it back.)
The Gothic alphabet I find very handsome, and not too hard to read. I'm not saying I'd like my newspaper to adopt it, but . . .
In fact, while you're at that Gothic page, browse the rest of omniglot.com. It's fascinating and beautiful.
04:57