Search found 282 matches

by Torco
21 May 2022 06:51
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: Notes on the music of China and Japan
Replies: 14
Views: 13841

Re: Notes on the music of China and Japan

Jupiter's balls, what wealth of musical insight have I found after going 'I wonder what's up in the cbb'. thank you so much for this thread, and I look forwards to moar. And the chinese are so... writy! I bet their musical history is relatively well documented. The first thing that Westerners tend t...
by Torco
21 May 2022 05:04
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: Introduction to Arabic Music & Theory
Replies: 17
Views: 17033

Re: Introduction to Arabic Music & Theory

Man, I'm loving this thread. and yes please do share examples of this or that maqam. there are some things on the web, but it's hard to know which is good and which is fake. As I kind of hinted, in some ways it might actually make more sense to think of Western music as a variation of Middle-Eastern...
by Torco
20 May 2022 20:45
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Has anyone ever reinvented something for a conworld? (ex: numerical system, religion, music composition, etc)
Replies: 10
Views: 2419

Re: Has anyone ever reinvented something for a conworld? (ex: numerical system, religion, music composition, etc)

Oh, I've been doing this for a while <with very little to show for it, but I guess I do mostly enjoy the process, plus I always procrastinate the documenting. I've made alphabets, syllabaries, calendars, religions, ideologies, most of the regular things I think. I'd like to feel confident enough as ...
by Torco
18 Jan 2022 02:01
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Inheretance Question for a conculture
Replies: 10
Views: 2433

Re: Inheretance Question for a conculture

You know what could be cool? just make it insanely complex! like, I don't know, say you have longs and short trunkers: you could have a system by which. > long trunkers inherit from other long trunkers unless the son doesn't have a long parent. (it may be taboo, but then again, it's going to happen)...
by Torco
09 Jan 2022 22:37
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds
Replies: 201
Views: 152061

Re: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds

What we call a 'religion' is not just impulses and rituals, you're right - a 'religion' is usually just a name for a certain way of life, including certain collective ritual gestural language but certainly not limited to it. so mythology, gesture, membership -and position!- into a real or imagined ...
by Torco
30 Dec 2021 05:07
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds
Replies: 201
Views: 152061

Re: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds

I kind of have a difficult time imagining what's on people's minds when they do all these funny things like praying, taking mythology literally, going to church and the rest of it. If you're serious, then I'd suggest considering it from a Wittgensteinian perspective. The foundation of religion - mu...
by Torco
28 Dec 2021 18:49
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds
Replies: 201
Views: 152061

Re: Conworlders' religious influences on conworlds

I hope I haven't replied to this and forgotten, but at the risk of repeating myself... I think that if anything, my atheism has made me more concerned with religion in my conworlds because, well, I don't understand religion. more importantly than an atheist, what I am that's odd, I think, is sort of...
by Torco
13 Dec 2021 16:25
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: How NOT to Conworld.
Replies: 275
Views: 87185

Re: How NOT to Conworld.

Very true, tbh.
by Torco
06 Dec 2021 18:05
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: How NOT to Conworld.
Replies: 275
Views: 87185

Re: How NOT to Conworld.

❓Humans leave for the stars, forget all about Earth, and rediscover it later. I don't think this is bad: Scalzi did it quite well in his Interdependence series (basically FTL rides on weird sciency connections that open and close of their own accord, and so from the perspective of a few world the p...
by Torco
01 Dec 2021 17:26
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...
Replies: 8
Views: 2018

Re: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...

Ooooh, cool. it makes sense, I suppose, that the fields covered by 'what particular ethnic groups seem to be very good at' and 'what sports there are in the 21th century' line up rather randomly, and so some ethnicities are good at marathons while not being the absolute best endurance runners simply...
by Torco
29 Nov 2021 22:31
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...
Replies: 8
Views: 2018

Re: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...

Yeah, and this extends to some very particular physical capabilites as well: nilotes are pretty tall and lanky, which is good for some sports, ethiopians (and probably just a specific group of ethiopians, i don't know which) seem to be really good at marathons. certain germanic peoples seem to be ve...
by Torco
18 Nov 2021 23:05
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...
Replies: 8
Views: 2018

Re: The Werra challenge: questions, questions ...

werra looks big enough, so... any kind of culture you want could evolve in it, I think. Okay, not *any*, you're not gonna have a transatlantic slave trade in a single island, but other than that... the interesting question, methinks, is what kind of humans the werra are, and which of the things we u...
by Torco
10 Nov 2021 05:26
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: The Conworldology of Vagrancy
Replies: 7
Views: 1920

Re: The Conworldology of Vagrancy

Humans who didn’t build homes could find them in e.g. caves etc. They still can and still do. …. So much for homelessness to be our natural state! I mean, sure, in a way, but also: people who live in the way early cave-dwellers lived, for example, would need special legal accomodation under capital...
by Torco
10 Nov 2021 04:55
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: How would space travel change directionals?
Replies: 15
Views: 8653

Re: How would space travel change directionals?

don't ask a Kerbal space program geek about directions in space, it could get geeky. so in order for a language to be like grammatically changed by space travel the speakers would have to be people *of* space, not just a spacefaring civilization: for most of us, nautical or aeronautical terminology ...
by Torco
07 Nov 2021 08:12
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: Creature concept
Replies: 4
Views: 1493

Re: Creature concept

an obvious answer is: horses. a cool answer is: dinosaurs. there actually were two-meter tall predatory birds on earth at one point, and at least some of what they ate was horses: they call them terror birds. they also ate rhinos, elk, deer and probably smaller things too, but those don't require yo...
by Torco
07 Nov 2021 07:51
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: The Conworldology of Vagrancy
Replies: 7
Views: 1920

The Conworldology of Vagrancy

so homelessness, huh? we have a lot of feelings about it, that's for sure, but when you're aiming for a naturalistic conworld we don't want to just import random stuff from your own culture into it without thinking about it, we call those nooblangs when it comes to naturalistic conlangs. So if you t...
by Torco
24 Oct 2021 07:44
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: The NEW Resources Thread
Replies: 19
Views: 242169

Re: The NEW Resources Thread

it could be interesting to play around with phonology

https://dood.al/pinktrombone/

it's an online toy that emulates the mouth as it produces various sounds.
by Torco
24 Oct 2021 05:59
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: Imperial Statistics (NP: Wei through Chen dynasties)
Replies: 25
Views: 16609

Re: Roman Emperor Statistics

That's like the default position in historiography, yeah, but often such consensuses (consensa?) are wrong. I was literally taught in uni that modernity consisted on, amongst other things, the invention of politics out of a supposed premodern attitude that social structure was just what it was and t...
by Torco
22 Oct 2021 03:15
Forum: Teach & Share
Topic: Imperial Statistics (NP: Wei through Chen dynasties)
Replies: 25
Views: 16609

Re: Roman Emperor Statistics

cool analysis, Sal. with regards to the Romans, it's possible that not having an institutionalized method of succession was, rather than a problem, a strength of their system: it might not be an accident that their best years* were the ones with what we might call free or undetermined succession, up...
by Torco
20 Oct 2021 01:49
Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
Topic: How to choose an architectural style?
Replies: 14
Views: 3029

Re: How to choose an architectural style?

An easy to overlook thing here is climatization . this is the reason buildings exist in the first place. like, sure, ziggurats are nice and all but almost all buildings are houses and/or workplaces, and they exist because being outside is inconvenient. Of course, this means people use more buildings...