Well, hello stranger…
I’m getting worse at this blog updating business. I have had a draft sitting around for months now, but I need the right tools before I can finish the job. If any of you lovely, lovely readers out there know of a runic font (TrueType, OpenType, that sort of thing) that will cover both the Elder and Younger Futharks, please let me know. Conversely, if you don’t know what a Futhark is, I will hopefully be writing a piece about it soon. If you can draw (which I can’t – even if my life depended on it) I’d be glad to hear from you too. With the begging and grovelling out of the way and an apology for being a complete slacker, here is a collection of sites I have found interesting and/or useful recently:
Oxford Dictionaries: This site has had a real facelift of late. Already a bookmark of mine, it goes from strength to strength. Updated and improved, there is, of course, the dictionary, -plus sections on better grammar, English as a foreign language, children’s sections and word games and puzzles. If you’re a word fan (and, having read this far, you probably are) there’s a lot to lose yourself in. As far as I’m aware, it’s all free to use, but please let me know if this isn’t the case. http://oxforddictionaries.com/
Word Finder: If you’re a fan of crosswords as I am, you will probably want to avoid this site. Well, you might if you think that the dictionary is the last bastion of a coward and a quitter, as I do when it comes to crosswords. As a tool, it is very effective, however. If you need to know a word beginning with ‘N’ and ending in ‘T’ which contains the letters ‘R’ and ‘G’, this tool will be right up your boulevard. The order of the internal letters can be randomized and the length of the word restricted. It’s pretty quick and has a world list af some 167,000 words. It also solves anagrams. In case you’re interested, the only word fitting the above description (according to this tool, at least) was ‘nonconvergent’. http://www.design215.com/toolbox/wordfind.php
Wolfram Alpha: An interesting one, this. It’s a “Computational Knowledge Engine”. This is explained by the site’s FAQ thus: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links. If this is true, it’s a pretty smart cookie. Naturally, I was interested primarily in the word database and the information supplied about words and phrases, but I soon discovered that it knows an awful lot more besides. I was impressed that it knew the pilot hole sizes for a number 10 screw and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Lithuania (they’re doing pretty well, if you’re wondering). I tried to be clever and ask it the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow. Recognizing my attempt at being funny by paraphrasing a Monty Python sketch, it told me “there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant).” Well, that told me.
It seems to be pretty unfazeable. Asked “how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”, it quoted the paper ‘The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers’ (Paskevitch & Shea), who theorized that the amount would be 361.9237001 cubic centimetres per day. Another thing I love about it is its knowledge of plant and animal taxonomy. Typing in ‘quail’ – which it will ask if by ‘quail’ you mean the species or the word – it’ll tell you the species and sub-species, gestation period, egg size and wingbeats per second, as well as listing other members of the quail family and showing you a diagram of the full taxonomy. Type ‘potato’ and it will assume you meant the food, but will also provide data on the species, the word itself, the agricultural data pertaining to spuds and many other references you may not have considered. Today (25 May) being Towel Day, in honour of Douglas Adams, I asked it the meaning of life. It sensibly replied ’42′, citing its sources, naturally. http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Thanks for reading this stuff, and please don’t forget that I need a decent runic font, or at least need to make contact with someone who doesn’t draw like a chimp who’s been given a set of crayons. Until next time.
Tom
I’m all agog to hear about Futharks. To my prosaic mind, it suggests “waiting for the other boot to fall”.
You may be in luck there, Autolycus. A Swedish friend of mine – who not only shares the distinction of being this blog’s other reader, but is also a typeface fiend) may have found the very thing. Once I have done the necessary jiggery-pokery to make the font work, I’ll get onto it.