tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post202413528637584864..comments2023-10-14T03:58:59.333-06:00Comments on The Tao of D&D: Towns Dropping Through CracksAlexis Smolenskhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-86697719445592699842018-01-18T09:14:00.708-07:002018-01-18T09:14:00.708-07:00Yep, been doing that for years.
When I've bee...Yep, been doing that for years.<br /><br />When I've been completely stumped for elevation, I've gone to GoogleEarth, found the settlement and used that number.<br /><br />There were several "towns" that were listed in my 1952 atlas for the Sahara desert region, some of which were French forts, some of which were villages that existed in the Sahel at that time that have been made non-existent by desertification. For some of these places, I did not even have latitude and longitude numbers. I had to measure the location with a physical ruler, against meridian lines on my map, then hunt around on GoogleEarth until finding the actual ruin caught on the satellite image. Sometimes, from a note on GoogleEarth, I was able to confirm that this was, in fact, Bordj Oullet #5 or some such place, and sometimes I wasn't; it was just an unnamed ruined village, that I would have to designate as the one I was looking for.<br /><br />After all, this is only a game. It's not like I will be held accountable for picking the wrong village. But I do try to be as accurate as I can, because it matters to me.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-27436264454514795882018-01-18T08:42:57.752-07:002018-01-18T08:42:57.752-07:00So I arrive month later and I'm fairly sure yo...So I arrive month later and I'm fairly sure you've already thought of that, but as long as you have a latitude and a longitude finding the altitude is quite easily done through a variety of website (for instance : http://www.advancedconverter.com/map-tools/find-altitude-by-coordinates).<br /><br />This doesn't solve the problem, as one still has to find latitude and longitude (which usually are on wikipedia, and may be accessed from google map by clicking), but that removes one atlas from your process: fallingrain.com .<br /><br />Hope this somehow helps.Rob Munrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10092570070263437683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-26955946859652756982017-07-18T11:11:15.143-06:002017-07-18T11:11:15.143-06:00Cyrilic and Arabic (as Latin and Greek) are both p...Cyrilic and Arabic (as Latin and Greek) are both phonetic and derived from phoenician. In these four scripts, you write what you say (or kind of).<br /><br />China and its neighbours have a very old cultural baggage involving writting and in Chinese you write what your speech meant not the sounds you have made. How you speak 红 doesn't matter, what matters is that you understand that 红 means the color of red.<br /><br />In truth, there is no Chinese language. China has as many languages as the whole Europe.<br />You can find some of them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese<br /><br />What you are seeing in maps is the name of places in various "languages", that is why none of them agree exactly. You don't need to go that further to see a place with many names. Just go to Germany, Deutschland, Allemagne, Tyskland, Saksamo, Vokietija or whatever you want to call it...<br /><br />Some eastern languages (like japanese and korean) have less troubles translating because they have a sylabic writting system.<br /><br />And sub-saharan languages has trouble because they don't have writting systems or have poor writting systems (mostly derived from egyptian hieroglyphs).<br /><br />I just want to say write the way you want. Beijing, Peking, whatever...If you really, really want to have standards and write the names correctly it should be 北京 or "Northern capital" (because it is what it means).G. B. Verashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07321019711309446662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-21653355135371442842017-07-18T10:03:06.971-06:002017-07-18T10:03:06.971-06:00I know.
But it is strange that we have agreed on...I know. <br /><br />But it is strange that we have agreed on standards for Cirilic text and Arabic text. Sub-Saharan Africa has issues as well; but it is a question of things like French masters spelling "wa" with "oua" ~ we can find that in the United States, too, with places like Oachita. Yet still, I could find details on Wikipedia that associated the names together, so that a given place would have five or six names linked together on the page.<br /><br />China is a whole new level. There may be some attempt to recapture Chinese sound, but it is also because different dialects/languages have completely different names for the town. And strangely, very little effort is being made to link these different names to each other. Each source seems to give this name as though it is the only real name; and Wikipedia matches up only two or three alternatives.<br /><br />It's funny. Before 1979, every atlas and map I can find agree 100% on the names of places: Anglo-British standards. Then linguists got involved.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-54776192123056696762017-07-18T06:18:59.074-06:002017-07-18T06:18:59.074-06:00You will never find a definitive name using wester...You will never find a definitive name using western letters. That is not how Chinese works. If you want to know more how Chinese works, I recomends this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY0AMmLuiqk<br /><br />TL:DR Our letters cannot write all Chinese sounds, that is why no one agree how to write the names...G. B. Verashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07321019711309446662noreply@blogger.com