Sophia's List

Sailing Ships and Pirates

2009-02-27T12:02:00.001-08:00

I've been working on some new rules for table-top sailing ships after playing the Original NES Pirates! by Sid Meier for way too long.

Pirates!
NES Player - Pirates! - Main - An overview of the original game.
NES Player - Pirates! - Game Manual - high-quality scans of the official Pirates! game manual
NES Player - Pirates! - The Map - You can't sail without a map!
AddictedToPirates.com - Sid Meier's Pirates! - Live The Life - FAQ / Walkthrough
TextFiles.com - Sid Meier's Pirates! Game Summary

Movies
Internet Archive: The Black Pirate - The Black Pirate (1926), recommended by Jordan Mechner

Tabletop Gaming
Cianty's Tabletop Wargames Blog - Setting Sail: Collecting Ships for Tabletop Games, There are a TON of other pirate/sailing posts as well.
WizKids - Pirates of the Spanish Main - Packaged like a collectible card game, the cards can be punched apart to construct 3-D sailing ships. You can probably pick some up on eBay.
A New Merchantman In The Caribbean! - The process of building a balsa wood sloop for war gaming.

History
Pirate code - Wikipedia - The code of conduct invented for governing pirates
The Black Book of Corsairs - On a pedestal near an eastern window is a book with black leather covers. Golden frames secure the back cover of the book on the pedestal, making sure it is taken nowhere.
Pirates & Privateers - The History of Maritime Piracy - Articles and Links on all aspects of maritime piracy from ancient times to modern day.

Actual Sailing and Sailing Ships
What About The Junk Rig? - All about Junk Rigging
Ships - Aelyria - Ships of the Aelyrian Empire - even though it's fiction, it's based on the real thing
Rigging of American Sailing Vessels - Adapted from the Peabody Museum Publication:
RIGS of the Nine Principal Types of American Sailing Vessels.
Complete list of Ship Types - A list to help you to understand the differences between different types of sailing vessels
sailing-ships.oktett.net - Chronological register of 1106 sailing vessel
Pirates Ahoy! - Here be some pictures of Ships. Make sure to check out the other links on the right.
Brethren of the Coast - Basic Pirate Stuff
YouTube - Tall Ships - Standing Tall - Tall Ship sailing. Cheesy, but has some good shots of how to lower the sails, etc.
YouTube - SL Sailing Tutorial (Combat Ships) Part 1 - A very basic sailing tutorial.
YouTube - Tall Ships Cannon Duel - a collection of the best moments during tall ships cannon duel
YouTube - Ship to Shore Cannon Battle - Great movie showing a small ship turning.

Festivals
NorCal Pirate Festival - The Northern California Pirate Festival - Only Six hours away, woohoo!
Pirate Festivals .com - Find information about a pirate festival, pirate fair, or pirate weekend by area.

Building your very own Castle

2008-06-15T12:49:00.001-07:00

So; you want to build a castle, eh? - A Castle Design Blog

CASTLEMAGIC Castle builders - Bonafide Castle Builders, lots of tips, pictures and they have quite reasonable prices too.

Castle Book List - A nice list of books to get you started

Alternative House-Building Resources - Stone Masonry, Straw, Log, Rammed Earth, Adobe, Earthships, Papercrete, etc.

Thoughts on Building a Castle - Geared toward making a castle to live in

Medieval Castle Builders - A study of the medieval castle building techniques and how to apply them to building your own castle

Belarusian castles and fortification elements - the history of Belarusian Castles and Fortification Science through the ages

Traditional Masonry Magazine - Great resource for modern stonework practices

Digital Design Tools - ArchitectureWeek Online Library - A listing of architectural design topics

Building A Stone Castle - An overview of the process and the different roles involved

Spiral stair plans - Because every castle needs a spiral staircase. This site lays out the necessary math.

Google SketchUp - A free 3d program that works pretty well. At least enough for you to get some idea of the construction.

Drum Making

2007-12-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

Solo Drumming of Casamance
Making an Ashiko Hand Drum
Drum Building Supplies
How Drum Shape Affects its Sound

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

2007-11-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

I have a long-term relationship with MBTI, and i just found another great resource for it:

MBTI Wikibook

Those are the best descriptions I've found in a long time! (just the short ones - the long descriptions aren't all filled out yet)

Here are my other favorite MBTI page links:
Human Metrics - this page has the best test, imo.
Personality Page
Type Logic - I love their icon thing - it's a perfect way to think about personality types.
Blog Thing - in four questions
MBTI for Librarians
Typology.net - MBTI in pictures ...
Myers Briggs and True Colors Course - make sure to check out the awesome chart

Specific INTP pages:
INTP.org - an amazing INTP description
INTP Ccentral - an INTP community

Carl Jung Pages:
Why a mandala was used for the MTR-i

I can't find a page .. it discussed a suggested change to MBTI where the dominant trait is capitalized so that it could be denoted separately from the J/P classification. For instance, I would be an InTP and by husband would be an INtP. J/P really don't have anything to do with which characteristic is most dominant/extroverted even though it is assumed to be so in MBTI, and was invented by Myers and Briggs anyway. If anyone knows where that page is (it was very red) leave me a comment!

Other:
Emergance - interesting non-MBTI based site
Personality Theories
True Colors - A simplified MBTI

2007-12-17
A couple additions:
Personality Type and Prayer
Not your Typical Myers-Briggs - This describes the evil side of each type .. quite funny!

Rise and Shine!

2007-11-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

Here is the "perfect" version of the Noah's Ark camp song .. at least it's my version!

Rise and Shine!

The Lord said to Noah,
there's gonna be a floody, floody.
Lord said to Noah,
there's gonna be a floody, floody.
GET THOSE ANI-MALS
out of the muddy, muddy!
Children of the Lord!

CHORUS:
So, rise and shine
and sing out your glory, glory!*
Rise and shine
and sing out your glory, glory!
RISE AND SHINE AND
sing out your glory, glory!
Children of the Lord!

* And give God the glory, glory!

So, Noah, he built him
he built him an arky, arky.
Noah, he built him
he built him an arky, arky.
BUILT IT OUT OF
Gopher barky, barky!*
Children of the Lord!

* Hick'ry, Beaver

(Chorus)

The animals they came on
they came on by twosies, twosies.
Animals they came on
they came on by twosies, twosies.
EL-E-PHANTS AND
kanga-roosies, roosies!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

It rained and it poured for
fourty daysies, daysies.
Rained and poured for
fourty daysies, daysies.
DROVE POOR NO-AH
nearly crazies, crazies!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

Well, finally, yes finally,
the rain it did stoppy, stoppy.
Finally, yes finally,
the rain it did stoppy, stoppy.
LAND-ED ON A
mountain toppy, toppy!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

Then Noah, he sent out,
he sent out a dovey dovey.
Noah, he sent out,
he sent out a dovey dovey.
OUT IN-TO THE
sky abovey bovey!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

The sun came out and
dried up the landy landy.
Sun came out and
dried up the landy landy.
EVE-RY-THING WAS
fine and dandy dandy!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

The animals they came out
they came out by threesies, threesies.
Animals they came out
they came out by threesies, threesies.
MUST HAVE BEEN THOSE
birds and beezies, beezies!*
Children of the Lord!

* CROC-O-DILES AND chimpanzeesies-zeesies!

(Chorus)

So this is the end of
the end of our story, story.
This is the end of
the end of our story, story.
EVE-RY-THING WAS
hunky dory, dory!
Children of the Lord!

(Chorus)

Kabbalah Texts

2007-11-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Sephir Yetzirah
In Hebrew
Short Version
Long Version with Hebrew
A Page of Sephir Yetzirah Links

The Zohar (It's longer than I thought!)
Zohar Text - From the Kabbalah Center
In Aramaic - Pritzker Edition

Abraham Abulafia
Translation of his Light of Intellect
Light of Intellect in Hebrew

Planetary Talismans

2007-11-09T02:17:00.000-08:00

The Belief in Talismans - from H. Stanley Redgrove's Bygone Beliefs

Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition - by Chic and Sandra Cicero - Google Book

A Free Course in Making Talismans Online - by Karl Hans Welz

Something from Slopoke on Talismans - Planetary Talismans

Silver Jupiter Talisman - RenaissanceAstrology.com

Astrological Talismans and Amulets - RenaissanceAstrology.com

Traditions of Magic in Late Antiquity - Collected by Gideon Bohak

Why

2007-11-09T02:13:00.000-08:00

says a friend of mine: you should be on Jeopardy, you know everything!

says my husband: you should make a page about what you're reading, you're always reading such cool stuff.

says me: wow, I want to make a web page where I can make lists of links that I've found useful.

so ... here's Sophia's List. I can't guarantee that I will ever write anything insightful about what I'm reading (although, I might!), but I will say, that at least it will be interesting!