#compact graphs

[todays-xkcd]

People may complain about readability, but even with jpeg compression, extracting the data points is usually computationally feasible if there aren't too many of them.

Compact Graphs [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Left: graph of points plotted along two axes, headered by:]

Variable 1: X Axis

Variable 2: Y Axis

[A arrow pointing to the right.]

[Various semi-transparent numbers in different colors stacked on top of each other, headered by:]

Variable 1: Hue

Variable 2: Label

[Caption underneath:] Design tip: you can make your graphs more space-efficient by using hue and label for the first two variables, instead of only turning to them once you've used up the X and Y axes.

[jayther]

Compact Graphs

Subtext: "People may complain about readability, but even with jpeg compression, extracting the data points is usually computationally feasible if there aren't too many of them."

[race-week]

After a boring race everyone screams for smaller cars. Today, in the Monaco post race interviews, some drivers suggested smaller cars may be of benefit. Is there a reason the cars are still this big? Even the 2026 cars are only marginally smaller, when the "we need smaller cars" narrative seems to be close to a decade old by now. Is the hybrid era simply not able to fit cars that aren't this size?

Also, I'd love to hear your opinion on whether smaller cars will actually fix anything, if you have one.

The cars are the size they are because of safety (predominantly), the fact that they have to be able to carry 100kg of fuel (no refuelling), and aerodynamics

This graph shows the length and width of F1 cars from 1950 to 2022

The current F1 cars are wider than my road car (Hyundai i10 - a compact car) but so have all of the cars since the 60s

To have cars small enough to race around Monaco you’d need 1970s era cars, even in the 1980s Piquet described the track as riding a bike in your living room, and other drivers in the 70s and 80s mentioned that in order to win in Monaco you just have to stay in the middle of the track (and block)

Below is the number of overtakes for each Monaco GP from 1984 to 2024 compared to the average number of overtakes per race for that season (the colour coded blocks are the different engine regulations)

There are some years where Monaco had more overtakes than the average number of overtakes per race whether that’s due to weather or incidents, but on average each Monaco GP has had less than half of the average number of overtakes per race for each season.

The turbo hybrid era has had less overtakes than previous regulatory periods but I don’t think that’s due to car size so much as car speed, honestly modern F1 cars more so than being too big for Monaco, they are too fast. The fastest lap of the race was a 1:13.221 and most drivers fastest laps were around 1:14, in comparison the older cars have much slower lap times, the fastest lap in 1993 was 1:23.604, 10 seconds slower.

This is also why Formula E typically have exciting races around Monaco despite their cars being only slightly shorter and narrower than F1 cars, their lap times around Monaco are around 15-20 seconds a lap slower, specifically the cornering speeds are lower which means that a driver spends more time in the corners aiding the opportunities for a lunge or an overtake.

Reducing the size won’t fix things unless they got go karts out there, the best way to improve overtaking opportunities is to either reduce the grip (wet races have higher overtaking numbers), give the cars worse brakes (so they have to slow more before the corner), increase degradation on tyres

Size isn’t the problem, as we’ve seen with wet races around Monaco and the one off random theatrics (and what we’ve seen from FE) it’s possible to overtake, even with cars nearly 2m wide, narrower cars wouldn’t be a magical fix, they would still need help. Formula E can overtake because of the slower speeds, more nimble cars and less downforce and grip, so it’s a matter of finding a balancing act.

[techav]

Sharing a Computer with More Friends

A few months ago I built an I/O expansion board for my homebrew 68030 project with a 4-port serial card to go with it, and got BASIC running for four simultaneous users. It worked, but not as well as I had hoped. I wanted to be able to run two of those serial cards to support 8 total users, but it had proven unstable enough that with just the one card I had to slow down the whole system to 8MHz.

So I designed a new serial card.

I had previously been running this computer without any issues at 32MHz with a mezzanine card with FPU & IDE as well as a video card. The main board by itself can clear 56MHz. Having to go all the way down to 8MHz just didn't sit well with me. I want this machine to run as fast as possible for its 8 users.

I put extra time into reviewing worst-case timing for all components and graphing out how signals would propagate. The 16C554 quad UARTs I'm designing around are modern parts that can handle pretty fast bus speeds themselves — easily up to 50MHz with no wait states on the 68030 bus — assuming all the glue logic can get out of the way fast enough.

Signal propagation delays add up quickly.

My first draft schematic used discrete 74-series logic for chip selection, signal decoding, timing, etc. At slower bus speeds this wouldn't have been a problem. But I want this thing to run as fast as possible. By the time critical signals had made it through all those logic gates, I was looking at already being well into one wait state by the time the UART would see a 50MHz bus cycle begin.

I needed something faster. I was also running low on space on the board for all the components I needed. The obvious answer was programmable logic. I settled on the ATF22V10 as a good compromise of speed, size, availability, and programmability. It's available in DIP with gate delays down to 7ns. Where discrete gates were necessary, I selected the fastest parts I could. The final design I came up with showed a worst case timing that would only need one wait state at 50MHz and none for anything slower.

It ended up being a tight fit, but I was able to make it work on a 4-layer board within the same footprint of my main board, putting some components on the back side. (It may look like a bunch of empty space, but there's actually a lot going on running full RS232 with handshaking for 8 ports).

New problem. I had blown my budget for the project. As much as I love those stacked DE9 connectors, they're expensive. And there's no getting around the $10 pricetag for each of those quad UARTs. Even using parts on-hand where possible, I was looking at a hefty Mouser order.

[jbevren] suggested using ganged RJ45 connectors with the Cisco pinout instead of stacked DE9, to save space & cut costs. [Chartreuse] suggested buffering the TTL serial TX/RX signals to drive the LEDs that are frequently included on PCB-mount RJ45 connectors. Both great ideas. I was able to cut 20% off my parts order and add some nice diagnostic lights to the design.

Two weeks later, I received five new PCBs straight from China. I of course wasted no time setting into starting to assemble one.

I really set myself up for a challenge on this one. I learned to solder some 25 years ago and have done countless projects in that time. But I think this might be the most compact, most heavily populated, most surface mount board I've ever assembled myself. (There are 56 size 0805 (that's 2x1.2mm) capacitors alone!)

After a few hours soldering, I had enough assembled to test the first serial port. If the first port worked then the other three on that chip should work too, and there's a great chance the other chip would work as well.

And it did work! After some poking around with the oscilloscope to make sure nothing was amiss, I started up the computer and it ran just fine at 8MHz.

And at 16MHz.

And at 25MHz.

And at 32MHz.

And at 40MHz.

And almost at 50MHz!

Remember what I said about my timing graphs showing one wait state for 50MHz? The computer actually booted up and ran just fine at 50MHz. The problem was when I tried typing in a BASIC program certain letters were getting switched around, and try as I might, BASIC just refused to 'RQN' my program. It was pretty consistently losing bit 3, likely from that signal having to travel just a tiny bit farther than the others. A problem that will probably be resolved with an extra wait state.

Good enough for a first test! A few hours more and I finished assembling the card.

I did have some problems with cleaning up flux off the board, and I had to touch up a few weak solder joints, but so far everything seems to be working. I've updated my little multi-user kernel to run all 8 users from this new card and it's running stable at 40MHz.

I need to update my logic on the 22V10 to fix a bug in the wait state generator. I would love to see this thing actually running at 50MHz — a 25% overclock for the 40MHz CPU I am currently running. I also want to expand my little kernel program to add some new features like the ability to configure the console serial ports and maybe even load programs from disk.

I hope to bring this machine with a collection of terminals and modems this June to VCF Southwest 2025 for an interactive exhibit that can be dialed into from other exhibits at the show.

[rikanescence]

mdni (3.7k) [heavily feminised reader] sweet summer air was for lovers, the love they made, and the sweat it produced. rolling down your back as you rolled forward, looking down at a foreign face. you liked the way he smiled and the birds chirping outside, maybe the whistling of the trees, made it all feel cinematic. a still frame of you in your prime, messy hair, head thrown back, mouth open (stuck in a smile), doing what you were best at, being a whore! for charity, of course and totally. you made the world a better place, left every man satisfied. the crime rate probably went down, too. your pussy had magical powers! you'd make a graph if you could understand one, maybe you'd ask leon to do it. maybe you'd catch your step-brother in a good mood.

step-asshole, his little ‘manly man’ cosplay with a compact tee and sweatpants as if it stopped him from being a total lame. who was he trying to impress with his stupid room? it looked like he single-handedly funded the military with all those damn guns he got from his dad, just being there for the short minute it took you to call him for dinner had you antsy. it felt like one wrong step could turn you into swiss cheese. leon was such a damn try-hard, you heard him through the thin bedroom walls and he was panting heavy from his workouts. he smelled like sweat, gunpowder, and strong tones of egoist. this summer, hot with life and opportunities, could not be ruined by your step-brother. you'd do everything in your power to avoid that, to avoid him. 

you were in a hurry to be outside all summer in nothing but miniskirts and cropped tops, anything else would have you sweating to death. anything else would be a disservice to yourself and your world, hiding way too much of the temple that is your angel-crafted body. today, this awesome afternoon was for a date. he'd pick you up, take you at the mall, carry all your bags, and then you’d let him it in his cool car! totally awesome! you wondered if that was what would help your step-brother and his temper, too, if you just gave him your magical pussy you could totally save him!

your bouncy hair swayed with your hips, stepping towards the front door. there was no one to call out to when you left, your step-parents were enjoying their summer holidays just like you. and your step-brother, well, that—

“fuck are you going?” didn't involve him anyways. you whipped your head back, scrunching your face up and looking to the side. the houseplants were so pretty.

“out,” you kept your answer as vague as possible, your hands behind your back, hoping for leon to believe you despite… everything. the way your bottom lip was jutted out and quivering, how the ends of your mouth were curled down, you couldn't even look at the guy and you hoped he wouldn't be suspicious. as if. leon was leaned against the wall by the stairs, brawny arms crossed below his broad chest. how long had he been there? you bet he was staring at your ass the whole time, that creep. sure he had looks, but with that personality there was no way one self-respecting woman on earth liked him.

“like that? hell no.” your step-brother marched towards you, his footsteps loud as hell. did he do that on purpose? he didn't give you time to react before grabbing your forearm, hold tight so you couldn't tug it out.

“no one ever teach you how a woman is supposed to dress?” you didn't answer, and he took that as a no.

“that's okay, because i'm here now. i'll tell you straight up: modest.” you scoffed and leon tightened his hold. 

“you think you can do whatever you want when mom and dad aren't home?* too bad, cus that's not how it works. i'm a man, you'll listen to me.” your eyes twitched, you held back a smile, leon was going to make you giggle.

“uhm, like hell i will,” you refused, leon didn't laugh. when you tried again to get your arm out of his grasp, he jerked you away from the door and towards the couch. your back hit the wooden framing inside and it hurt like hell.

“ouch.”

“you're so lucky i didn't slap you. fucking bitch,” he spat, hovering over you as you used your hands to push yourself off the couch. you looked good from his view, spread legs hindering your skirt from covering much, he could just about make out your lacy thong, pink and being swallowed between your pussy lips. leon would be lying if he said he wasn’t close to cross-eyed trying to tear his eyes off the exhibition.

“you'll listen to me, yeah? i don't wanna make you cry, so be good for me and answer the damn question.”

you would fight with the devil in your head telling you to provoke him with a stupid response, but the pain in your spine dissolved that argument before it could begin.

“date,” you pushed yourself to answer, “i have a date, leon.” 

he clenched his teeth, clicking his tongue. he was pissed. like usual. you were a fucking whore, but never with him. never with the one guy who actually deserves you. honestly, you were perfect for him, so damn pretty. god, why'd you have to be a damn slut? leon was about to chastise you before he heard the doorbell ring, his features portraying a shock he tried to mute. 

“what, is that your date? the dumbass is picking you up?” you nod your head to your step-brothers discontent and he continues, “that's weird, don't you usually go meet your ‘dates’ at some random place like a hooker?”

how rude! that leon, oh how he was lacking in the manners department.

“what do you mean, stupid? i'm obviously not a hooker! now, are you gonna let me open the door for my date? he's waiting for me out there!”

you looked at him like he was stupid and leon's face tightened, his fists clenched around nothing and he remembered he wasn't touching you. your cheek was reminded, too, when his hand came to greet it.

“easy. i said i don't wanna hurt you,’ he insisted in an admittedly docile voice, “don't make that hard for me.” you looked into his eyes, saw the shaky teal pupils and the wrinkled eyebrows.

“don't you get it? i'm so fucking good to you, more than most men should be. you know how fucking embarrassing it is to have the town slut for a step-sister?” his pupils weren't shaky, it was that he kept looking between your face and your body. you were slow to comprehend that.

“so quiet now, huh?” leon observed with ridicule, your pouty lips were separated, but no words left from them.

“i'm a better teacher than i thought,” he laughed, “got the brattiest bitch i know to learn how to speak when spoken to and only in a couple of minutes.”

leon all but beat your head when he petted it, conceited grin on his face as he did. it wasn’t even going to take him half a summer to train you, by the looks of it.

“all this,” he started, sight limited to your underclothed body and the tight fabric hugging them. a day during which leon could see your nipples through your shirt was a lucky day. today, leon planned to get lucky. “this is a cry for attention, isn't it? it's what girls like you who aren't all there—” he pokes your temple with his middle finger. “—do when you want a man to pay attention to you, but you're too shy to ask for it. i'm sorry i didn't get that till now.” you couldn't believe your ears, leon didn't understand your cause at all! once he made that graph, then he'd see your one cause was to make the whole world smile!

“i get you now. all this time, ever since you moved in, you've been screaming–” he mocked your voice with a higher pitch,”-’pay attention to me already, leon!’” he laughed and patted your head again. your hair was due for a wash. 

“if all you wanted was me, you should have learned how to use those cock-sucking lips of yours to communicate, dumbass. not usually, but for you, i'm open to save a hoe. you don't have to go looking for men you can pretend are me while they give you some mediocre dick anymore. you can just be a real sweetheart and help get your big brother off, yeah?”

his hand spread on your head to force it up and down, emulating a nod.

“there we go,” he praised, “i knew i could get you to come around.” he tugged at your hand.

“now stand. get the door for that stupid date you're oh-so desperate to go on. come on, i'll walk you there.”

leon pulled you to stand on the ground, feet guided by him as you made your way to the door. you checked yourself in the doorknob, reflective from its clean shine, twisting it open after confirming you still looked good. behind you, your step-brother made a blurred sound between a scoff and a cough.

the man on the other side seemed…. surprised, to see leon standing behind you with such a daunting face. seemed shaken to the core. his name slipped your mind, but you were sure it started with a ‘c’. plus, you could ask him later during your date.

“you dragged out a cheerful, ‘hi’ as you waved at your date with a welcoming smile, your tone-deaf and carefree nature bringing for a laugh from C despite himself. 

“hey, you look fantastic.” 

“fantastic?” leon butted in, portraying disbelief “that's all you can say?”

you watched the man before you shrink as the one behind you condemned him.

“jesus.” leon took a step forward, turning your face to his. he did not look impressed.

“these are the guys you let fuck you?”

two out of three people looked uncomfortable, with leon being the outlier.

“well, aren't you gonna let him in?” leon parodied your cattier cadence from earlier. invite him in? that wasn't on the plan for your totally awesome date, but you figured leon would be a meanie again if you didn't listen.

“you wanna come inside?” you reached your fingers out to hold your date's hand, allowing him to follow you inside like a dog on a leash. leon frowned at the sight. losers like the one you held by the hand would do anything to get their dick wet. a heavy cloud of tense awkwardness floated down on you all, brought in by your step-brother's presence, and you felt its weight when you could hear your date breathing close behind you. his breath tickled your skin and— that's probably it. it's not a cloud, it's his continuous breathing on your neck that's making you feel all weird. you roll one glossy lip beneath the other.

“um—”

“you wanna continue what we were doing earlier?” leon put his hand on your bare shoulder. close to the base of your neck. you wondered if those rough fingers were there to protect you from the cloud or take  you from it. 

“on the couch, you know? i was actually getting kinda into it.” leon wasn't looking at you as he spoke, but behind you with a strained smile one would give a friend. playing innocent. if he were to open his eyes, they would look down at C with disinterest as though he was beneath leon in every aspect. they didn't know each other, did they? you never mentioned even having a step-brother to begin with. aw no, C must be so confused!

“leon, what are you talking about?”

you felt leon's fingernails dig into your skin, making it sting like a wasp would. not that it's lethal, but that he was on the lookout for reasons to put his hands on you. when everything and anything you did could be seen as provocation, the reasons were too many to count.

“sorry, my step-sister here never really had anyone teach her to speak when spoken to,” he laughed, “she's kind of annoying. fuck that, she's an irritating little whore. man-to-man, what do you even like about her?” 

ouchies. both leon's words and his fingers on your neck were totally ouchies, but he still smiled like he was chatting about something trivial. did he really want to know that?

“you shouldn't—”

“is it her ass?” always with the interruption, speaking over people was his specialty. he waited for an answer, ignoring the weird mood he set in the room.

“i won't judge you, c'mon.”

“no, man. she's a sweet girl,” C insisted. his voice was weak, he sounded intimidated. 

“a sweet girl,” leon scoffed, “a sweet girl? don't sugarcoat it.” his strong hand on your weak shoulder turned you to face your date, showing you off like a one big, shiny trophy.

“be real. i already said, man-to-man. what's your favourite thing about her? is it her cute little face?” leon pinched and pulled at your cheek.

“her tits?” his hand enveloped your breast through your thin top with a firm squeeze.

“ass?” you braced for the impact, but a yelp was forced out once leon smacked your ass instead of letting you off with more groping. when you opened your eyes again, the face before you was contorted with… disgust? oh my god, he probably thought you were totes weird! you had to let him know this wasn't a normal occurrence at all, your step-brother hated you! he'd never even touched you until now! well…

“pussy?” leon's hand crept down your midriff and the eyes before you shot wide.

“fuck, no. dude,  stop touching her.”

leon found that an amusing reaction. the faces a man made when jealous were quick to make him laugh. how could someone be jealous of what they didn't own? your step-brother had his hands on his property, that was all. not a crime in the slightest, unless C could stand straight and say it. but he wouldn't. leon wasn't an easy man to confront, he knew that well, but a sight like this really stroked his ego. made his dick real hard. leon's fingers prodded past the elastic of your panties to move them to the side and he was met with no objection because who could challenge him? now you looked down at the floor in shame, feeling how fat your tongue had become in your sealed mouth. bloated with the burden of silence. shame and disappointment fixed your gaze to the ground. you thought maybe C would speak up for you, but maybe he knew it too. knew this needed to happen, for leon's sake! it made your palms all sweaty and your tongue all fat and the room all weird, but at its core you were happy for an opportunity to turn your step-brother's frown upside down!

“you gonna get on the couch for me now?” leon spun you towards him, peeved by the shaking of your lowered head. 

“nuh uh,” you dismissed, “that… really hurt my back.” it was true, you still felt it.

“aww, really?” leon ruffled your hair, not moved at all by your complaint. 

“princess used to getting her pussy stuffed on a silk mattress? too bad,” he grinned, “you’ve been getting treated good, but you haven't been getting it good. let me fuck you how you deserve.” leon kicks at your ankle. “on the floor.”

you stumble onto it. first your knees, then your back. your hair cushioned your head from the impact. but now you'd need to comb it to be neat again.

“ouchies, leon,” you grumbled, scratching the back of your head as your eyes adjusted to your new position. it wasn’t long before your pupils were honing in on a blurry face, made clear by its brash expression. leon wasted no time getting into you while you were dazed and confused. your miniskirt, panties pushed to the side underneath it, all mouths shut, no objections. your step-brother couldn't be asked to take his pants off, only to yank his dick out from the border and stuff it inside his favourite thing about you. the curse, ‘fuck', left your lips in tandem with his. yours a squeak, his a husky groan. you didn't like it when you weren't eased into it, getting dick forced inside your cunnie kinda hurt! it made your eyes all watery, too. leon above you had a grin that rivalled the joker's. yay, your magic was working already, he was so happy! you were happy, too, for the most part. those weren't sadness tears and the sweat collecting on your skin was a byproduct of the action. nothing to do with the burning sensation of being watched, two sets of eyes trained on you. it wasn’t a rare occurrence, being the center of attention, but it had never happened in this kind of scenario. it was new and new was exciting. like a phone, or a hairstyle, or a boyfriend. new pumped your blood with stimulation and made you stupid with light-headedness, a smile growing on your face as your clingy hands reached out to clutch your step-brother's shoulders. that smile of yours broke, face twitching each time the drawstrings of the sweats he refused to discard, hanging low off his hips, connected with your ass cheeks. leon kept the stained trousers on, wasn't that stupid? his brain was emptied and taken over by the dumbifying drug of something new, but what had also been his for a while, the first time trying you out.  your walls clenched around his dick, that fucked-out face you were giving him, how you so wholly embraced him now when you were so standoffish a few minutes ago. it didn't take time at all for him to break you. leon lowered his face, his mouth touching your ear as he spoke between grunts. 

“that good, huh? nothing to say to me?”

your nails scratched leon's back as he bruised you with careless thrusts.

“thank you, leon,” you whimpered, the wetness of your eyes boldening the wisps of your eyelashes. leon felt his balls tighten. a thank you? he'd cum right there if you had offered an apology alongside it.

“feels good, huh? it's cus you were made for me. this is how it's supposed to be.” when you looked at him with such doting eyes, the eager sucking in of his dick by your lovesick cunt, he was sure he could get through to you. 

"yeah, that's it. a misguided woman like you… shit,” he panted in a whiny pitch, “you needed a man like me to break you in. remind you of— shit!– your fucking place.” his blushing face grimaced between words, trying to downplay how your pussy affected him.

“huh, leon?” was that dirty talk? you couldn't focus on his words, deafened by your own moans. you'd cry out every time leon reached a spot you'd somehow never felt before. your vision was blurred by ever-bubbling tears and leon could only thank god you weren't a snotty bitch.

“you. born to be under me,” leon huffed, simplifying his language to an extent that mocked your intellect. though it was also possible he couldn't go on spiels with all the sounds you were bringing out of him. sure he hadn't got some in a while, but had it ever been this good? to skip the formalities, to have you cling on to him like he was life itself, how stupid he'd made you to the point you hadn’t glanced at your little date even once. it was too good. with your brain functions paused, leon’s eyes glazed over as he thought of all he could make you do. no more alarms, he'd get you to ride him till he woke. any time he sat on a chair, he'd have you on your knees licking and sucking. his heart was racing. he could hold a gun to your head as he did it. if they were careless earlier, now his movements had dissolved to erratic, messy assaults. you cried out his name a multitude of times, pleading for him to slow down whilst your pussy drooled around his stingy dick. you didn't really want that.

“take it. c'mon, take it for me like i know you can. didn't i…” your hands had fell to his heaving chest now in hopes a slight push might slow him down. it couldn't. you were atleast glad he was enjoying himself, he could testify for your cause after this since he has first-hand experience now.

“didn't i tell you? you were born to be beneath me, so do what you're fucking best at and take it,” he demanded, slapping your thighs to bring a whine and nod from you, then using that same hand to swipe the tears off your face. they were starting to ruin his view if not bother him.

“stop crying before i shove it up your ass,” leon menaced, making you clench around him harder. you weren't sure it would be any fun with such a brute-force kind of guy, but it would be new.

“okay, i'm sorry,” you squeaked, and that mousey apology just about did it. it took less than a day. it only took some good dick could get you to listen to him. leon was too fucking good to you, this only reaffirmed that, a fact that had his dick twitching deep inside you. comforting, familiar warmth flooded you as leon emptied himself into your snug and magical cunt, he couldn't resist the urge to give your would-be date a boastful winner's simper as he finished. guys with no backbone get cucked. what, they don't teach that in school anymore? who was he kidding? you were made for step-brother to have, you just got confused. he came in his property, big deal to him. though, that would make a real mess of things for you. who'd still want a girl after knowing she gets it from step-bro and takes it with a twinkle in her ecstatic eyes? too bad for you, those endeavours would be forced to a halt.

leon understood now, as he watched your form twitching beneath him, his load staining your inner-thighs as it trickled down, your face frozen with such an obnoxious smile. the joy of ravaging a woman. the satisfaction of fucking the slut out of his step-sister. you’d obey him now. leon pushed back his blond, sweat-soaked hair. he'd really been missing out. 

thank you for reading, i really appreciate it ♡

[talenlee]

Dal Raeda, The First And Greatest

I’ve written about Dal Raeda, before, in parts and in places. I’ve run games there. I’ve used it as the 0,0 of the great graphing calculator of the world, and it sets the ‘normal’ in Cobrin’Seil (my own D&D setting I’ve used for a long time) for me. It is obviously informed by the way I see the world, and the world I’m used to, and it is very much an attempt to do something for the baseline of European Fantasy that doesn’t just copy England or the edge of France the way that so many fantasy nations do. In this case it’s an enormous land mass with huge barely-connected provinces and an island off the southern edge, which I, an Australian, came up with independently and on my own.

However, prior to now there’s never been a comprehensive article explaining Dal Raeda as a nation; its outlook, its divisons, and the way I think a player should look at that part of the world.

Warning: This is a long post, and it’s about a place that does not exist. This is straight up just game lore and you might not even be playing a game that can use this kind of lore.

Dal Raeda

Very large continental, near-imperial nation, the First Empire, the Centre Of The World

Dal Raeda is a multiprovincial megadiverse nation roughly 3,500 km north-to-south and 4,000 km east-to-west. Its shape is roughly comparable to a wide diamond, and its northernmost edge is south of the tropics, while its southern edges routinely deal with hard, cold, snowy winters. It is situated in the southern hemisphere and experiences its seasons opposite to most of the rest of the mainland of Bidestra.

In building Dal Raeda, I tried to get away from just ‘England 2’ that I think is too common in Dungeons & Dragons settings. I wanted something that could be familiar to the style of European fantasy that I enjoy comfortably, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just renaming something I was familiar with.

To that end, Dal Raeda’s naming scheme, from the top down, is built out of Old Irish words, mostly gleaned from Wiktionary. The actual provinces aren’t trying to be real specific places but are more informed by thinking about these spaces as ‘a type of guy who wants to be the king’ and then imagining a culture that might give rise to that kind of guy.

Obviously it’s all going to be very similar to British colonial culture, because that’s what I grew up in. Still, when you see things that you assume would carry obvious colonial tropes, many of these points are where I explicitly don’t want it to be that way. For example, Dal Raeda calls itself the First Empire, but strictly speaking it isn’t either the first Empire, nor is it actually an Empire – it refers to itself as an Empire to elevate the notion that the provinces are each equally as valid as nations to themselves, instead of the interdependent components of a large nation.

Dal Raeda is divided into Provinces, of which there are four, five, six or seven, depending on who you ask and when. The comprehensive list is:

Brin Proper

Danube

Deilahn

Glotharen

Sanders

Virett Keep

Willowsebb

Some consider only Danube, Glotharen, Sanders and Willowsebb to be ‘true’ Provinces, in that they were the four provincial powers that were present in the compact that made Dal Raeda into its own multinational power. They’re also large land masses that more or less divide up the mainland into four roughly-equally sized chunks (though three of them are happy to point out that Danube is the smallest of them).

Deilahn, the fifth is added to the list because it was a semi-independent nation-state that sued for entrance into that compact, and is considered culturally contiguous with the provinces next to it. It has land and people, and those people are basically the same as the people from the mainland, and that’s why people think it counts.

Virett Keep is the next admitted to the list, and it is notable for being a province that has very little of what can be considered ‘territory.’ They have the legal claim to the castle Virett Keep and a host of holdings on the coasts. While absolutely made up of people culturally connected to Dal Raeda, Virett Keep tends to get excluded because it’s hard to argue you’re a Provincial Power when your population can fit in a large sports stadium.

Finally, the ‘barely counts’ Province is Brin Proper, which is one city, situated in the near-centre of the landmass. It’s the capital of the nation, and it only exists to ensure that the King’s own palace is not in any province where a provincial power may try and use mundane resources to exert power over the crown.

Cultures

Dal Raeda is technically, sparsely populated. This is not because there aren’t many people living there, but because it’s so big. Small towns in Dal Raeda have and sustain a lot of people, and they are connected through different transport networks, usually a variety of different roads maintained by different authorities. There’s an aphorism that from anywhere in Dal Raeda, you can walk in a straight line for two hours and find some kind of settlement; obviously, this isn’t true, there are large expanses of empty space in the country, and huge dense population centres in each province. Around one in four people in Dal Raeda live in one of these cities.

The cities are extremely metropolitan, with a lot of heritage variety, but the basic infrastructure of Dal Raeda is made for Humans and humanlike people, including Half-Elves and Half-Orcs. Abilen are common in trade centres, and most urban places have Halflings. Tieflings and Eladrin can be seen in the cities, normally enough that they are commonly part of the language. More rural areas tend to be more homogenised with heritages, just because people are more likely to be operating within a small community.

Oh, and Goblins are everywhere. Even rural communities often have one or two Goblin families. This isn’t actually new, despite what older people think — reforms that made Goblins whole citizens of Dal Raeda just made it legal for the Goblins to be seen and counted. Before those reforms, the Goblins were there, they were just prone to running and hiding (and stealing, because they couldn’t do legal trade).

There are numerous settlements in Dal Raeda for pocket cultures; Dio Baragh, Orc, Kobolds and Eladrin all have their settlements within the borders, and for the most part they operate within the constraints of the government of the provinces, with trade and research exchanges. There are also Beastfolk communities in Dal Raeda, with a number of Gnoll Paths (the territorial trails Gnolls march) which different provinces handle in their own ways. Even within these pocket communities, though, there are normally members of other heritages. In Dal Raeda, even the Gnoll Packs have Goblins, Orcs, and Tjosen members.

Reputation

Dal Raeda is the cultural empire. The common language of the Bidestran continent is called Common because it’s named for the Dal Raedan word ‘Common.’ The language was called that because it was the one language all the provinces of Dal Raeda had ‘in common,’ in that language. Dal Raeda is one large country sometimes and seven still-pretty-big countries in a big coat the rest of the time. Dal Raedan culture is omnipresent in the Bidestran continent but fascinatingly it’s almost always referenced as the traditionalist background that the other cultures update. The population of the Eresh Protectorate will talk about the laws and regulations in Dal Raeda as backwards, and assume that they have better versions of the same.

This is in some places, pretty accurate — Dal Raeda is a nation of kings and crowns and lines of inheritance and noble titles and peerage that has been accumulated through centuries of ad-hoc laws being turned into eternal tradition. Most parts of Dal Raeda are maintained by laws that are themselves agreements between knights and nobles that have never been replaced or updated, only augmented. To this end, laws in Dal Raeda have a whole host of complicated bylaws and substructures, and traditions that follow from those, and practices to express those traditions and all of that is based on a Dal Raeda that doesn’t exist any more. See, the past thirty years of Dal Raeda has been a period of immense cultural reform that includes standardised spelling and language, public infrastructure like street lights and travelling bards providing public education and paying clerics for a certain quantity of free magical healing and food every month. These reforms extended to the legal system, creating an overarching set of rules for how laws are applied equally, and who in the nation is considered to be a person with rights. These reforms were all at the direct behest of the most recent, most beloved, and actually dead king.

Oh yeah.

That’s probably the most important thing people know about Dal Raeda. The king just died, without an heir. Not only without an heir, without even a weird cousin as backup or a magical cloned spare around anywhere. There is a power vacuum at the heart of Dal Raeda’s body politic, and every single major power in a country made up of many small powers is preparing to negotiate for that spot.

Aggressively.

Locals

To matrix out how all of Dal Raeda feels about Dal Raeda is fundamentally too big a work and not necessary. Dal Raeda is a big country with multiple economic classes and numerous fractured political structures. How your life works in Dal Raeda is going to be related heavily to the nearest local authority figure who is given some permission to shove you around based on proximity to the king and how you feel about that. For example, most people live in counties – which is to say, a district ruled over by a Count. But a Count is not strictly speaking, a noble, because the titles aren’t inherited. Unless of course that Count is also a noble in some other way, like a Knight or Viscount or Marquis or Earls or Barons or Lords, but also there are representative peers in some districts and —

It’s complicated.

Basically, Dal Raeda is a massive multiprovincial country with an explicitly regionalised body politic. That is to say, if you’re in Dal Raeda, you care more about the county you’re in, the county next to you, and your province is more like a sports team you may have a strong opinion on. Maybe you like your province and have a powerful resonance with its identity, or maybe you like those street lights that were put up by the provincial authority, or maybe you resent that large state authority that sent you a letter telling you you’re not allowed to make beer in your bathtub any more.

Travellers

If you’re travelling through Dal Raeda, it’s a pretty sweet and convenient place. There’s plenty of places with public infrastructure like roads and ferries and bridges, and there’s even an enormous spiralling Kings Highway, of the Eresh Protectorate, connecting a city within the borders of Dal Raeda to the rest of the world. What’s more, the scale of the place is one where there’s plenty of empty parts where you don’t have to deal with any of that stuff if you don’t want to.

What is most interesting to travellers though is how easily people from Dal Raeda will clock you as not-local. The language of Dal Raeda is old and most people from outside Dal Raeda speaking common are speaking a modernised version of it. Not going to show up in most cases, but there are little giveaways in the language choices, or in the way people outside Dal Raeda don’t quite express the vowels right.

Rivalries

Dal Raeda has no rivals, according to its own internal fiction. It is after all, the great superpower, the military powerhouse, and every one of its most dangerous rivals were made into members of it. There is no reason for Dal Raeda to fear anyone. Dal Raedans even believe firmly that the country can’t be invaded and is at no risk for anything miltiarily.

Anyway, Visente hates Dal Raeda, the Eresh Protectorate are willing to throw absolute hands to protect their one city within Dal Raeda, and Kyranou has a long and storied history of making fun of Dal Raedans and their ugly, utilitarian culture. For the most part, nobody is particularly fond of Dal Raeda, but there are limits to what disliking a military superpower can get you.

Trade

Everyone trades with Dal Raeda, even awkwardly. It’s huge, it has mines and farms and (now) magewrights and cultural exports and Adventurer’s Guild centres. It is simply not possible for a country so large to not have something being made that you can use, even if all you’re using it for is to turn it into something else, then sell it back to them.

Dal Raeda’s imports though, do trend towards the refined and processed goods of other cultures. Particularly, Dal Raeda has taken to importing expertise, a lot in recent years, as Danube attempts to rapidly modernise (but more on that later).

Brin Proper

The Capital

Brin Proper is the capital city and its surrounding territory. Brin Proper is a city that mostly serves administrative function. It has districts dedicated to diplomatic purposes (which means lots of places to eat and entertain people), residential spaces to serve those needs, and a large standing militarised police force who are understood to serve the purpose of defending the city in time of war.

Brin Proper serves two needs and they show in the way the city looks; it has high walls, but those walls are decorated with art, because it is the centerpiece of the nation and hosts the national Palace. It has old buildings and architecture, but laid over that architecture are the signs of modern reforms like street lights and standardised roads.

Geography

Brin Proper was made to be a capital city, and it was made to be the jewel of the imperial project that is Dal Raeda. It sits by a lake from which several rivers flow, and mostly on an island that has been built out further over time, and the surrounding territory around it is rich, fertile farmland and vibrant forest chosen for its aesthetics more than its ability to meet the city’s needs.

Important Sites

The Palace: Dal Raeda is built in a series of rings around the central palace of the royal family. Right now, it is unoccupied (in that nobody is living there), but it is by no means empty (as it needs to be maintained and cared for and guarded).

The Last Stands: Guardhouses around the city are positioned where they are tactically optimal for in case of invasion. These are large, notable buildings, where the guards are operating out of a series of watch towers with defensive slits, which are then decorated with art to make them aesthetically pleasant despite their harsh architectural needs.

Danube

The Iron Gate

Danube is situated at the northeastern quarter of Dal Raeda. It has a balmy, warm climate, and most of it rarely gets snow, except atop the mountains in the province. Danube is the only part of Dal Raeda with a land border with the rest of the Bidestran continent, and it is the province that has taken most aggressively to the national reforms. Marquess Danube is the youngest Provincial leader in Dal Raeda and she grew up with some of the national reforms as normal to her life, and it very clearly played into how she took to the legal system as a thing to be fixed.

Danube’s history is one of infrastructural defensiveness, and its current day is one of non stop aggressive change. These two things don’t work particularly well, and while it’s very exciting for Danube to be this place where new technology and new ideas are being tried out, there is inevitably a lot of stuff that fails because of the mismatch with what they’re trying to do and what they’re made to be doing.

Notably, Danube is one of the provinces that has established a representative parliament. This is a wonderfully complicated situation which involves a process called deprecation and it’s annoying a lot of people, but knowing how it works isn’t immediately important.

Settlements

Carlisle: One of the great examples of the modern Danube reforms, Carlisle is a town built, at great cost. To make Carlisle, Danube authorities recruited two different wizards and their collected apprentices to come to form a town where magical research could be conducted. However, as part of the building of Carlisle, both wizards wanted towers that could meet their needs. As such, while yes, Carlisle is a town with a lot of business for students learning magic and developing magewrights, by volume, the most common thing happening in the town is increasing construction on making one of the towers at least a little bit taller.

Copperhold: Danube didn’t have a forger’s guild – as in metal, not money – before the reforms, and when smiths petitioned for the idea of investing in an organisation that the government could then turn to for mass production projects like weapons, the Marquess took to it with aplomb. As a result, the city Copperhold was repurposed – and thanks to magewrights and aggressive development, a former mass medieval forge has been transformed into a magewright-driven multi-metal refinery.

Freegarde: The largest city in Danube, and home of the Marquess Danube, who has been smuggling her palace here. Perched on the King’s Highway, Freegarde is technically, a ‘new’ city. However, it still benefits from hold, negotiated rules about what it is allowed to have and do (without annoying other provinces) because Freegarde’s legal centre is a little town, surrounded by a series of complicated road and building placement rules that turns the whole city of Freegarde into something more akin to a legal windowbox.

Mhithan: Technically, the capital city of Danube. It’s still a large city with its own needs, but it’s undeniable that the movement of the Marquess has had an impact on the economy.

Geography

Lockrange: Danube’s largest body of water, not counting the two seas on either side, Lockrange is a lake up at a higher altitude towards the southern side of the province. Lockrange’s altitude make it notably cold, despite being near the tropical zone, and a number of luxurious resorts sit on its edges as a place for the wealthy to gather, relax, and enjoy the cool in the hotter months.

Wildreach: Technically speaking, no part of the forest in Dal Raeda is connected to the forests of Corrindale that sprawl across the northern half of the Bidestran continent. The closest that it gets is the forest of Wildreach, that runs right up to the edge of Wildreach Bay; if you stand in Wildreach’s northern edges, at the water’s edge, you can look across and see in the distance, the tops of the Corrindale trees. Wildreach stretches from this northern edge to the back of the Everknell, and all the way in curling around the northern half of Danube.

Important Sites

Everknell: Across the border with the rest of the world, in large sections, there is the fortified wall that gives Danube its epithet as the Iron Gate. This wall was historically regarded as very important for the long-term health of Danube, to protect it from barbaric invaders. The wall is known as Everknell, and it has guardhouses on it kilometers apart. Since Lagan’s integration into Dal Raeda, these guardhouses have largely never shut their gates outside of situations of weather or maintenance. There’s also a remarkably large marketplace set up on the Danube side of Everknell by the King’s Highway.

Ironfell: Copperhold was not the first attempt by Danube to create a Forger’s Guild site. The first attempt was to use magic and magewrights to construct a unique kind of forge more immediately, and the result was the collapsed site now known as Ironfell. Ironfell is still interesting for researchers and sightseers to visit, as it isn’t just a flooded quarry, but a pretty flooded quarry with brightly coloured water, into which you can throw anything metal and watch it get eaten by the water itself. Not dissolved. Eaten, as if by many chomping mouths. Ironfell’s cave system is similarly flooded, which is a real shame given all the valuable material that was left inside.

Whitwood: Danube does not have its own druidic traditions; what does exist within the province’s borders are mostly members of communions that spread across from the neighbour province Willowsebb and its extensive druidic traditions. Particularly, the druids of Willowswebb have a clause in the provincial laws that no druidic order under the sun’s rays may enter Dal Raeda without their permission. In order to establish a druidic power base, Marquess Danube established the Whitwood, a druidic order of vampires brought from the northern city of Hecsenfore, to explore the relationship between life and death in a nation where the sun shines eighteen hours of the day. While much of Whitwood is an open air grove with elaborate nets in the canopy, it is technically a mansion with an enormous garden around it, and the druids are the keepers of that garden.

Deilahn

Off the southern edge of the Dal Raedan mainland, there is an island large enough to sustain two cities of its own. It’s close enough to the mainland that it’s visible at night to the naked eye, and daily ferries travel back and forth shipping goods and people as best needed.

Deilahn’s history is publically, very well known, but phrased differently based on whether you ask someone from Deilahn or someone on the mainland. Mainlanders’ versions of the history speak of how it used to be a kind of convict colony, where disgraced thieves and criminals would escape the mainland to the island and over enough time this led to a population centre that eventually could do business and became important to the economy of the mainland, until it finally could sue for rights to enter the coalition.

Deilahn tells the story largely the same way, except it also includes the idea that the mainlanders claim Deilahn was the centre for guilds of thieves and assassins, and those kinds of ne’erdowells also fostered the presence of pirates, who then went on to develop a port town with their ill-gotten gains and eventually, elevate the island to enough economic importance that the King petitioned Deilahn’s leaders to then become legitimately part of the country so they could tax them.

Same story, but one of them has a lot more focus on infrastructural power. This may be why the collective opinion of Deilahn is that infrastructural power is so very important, and in part, is expressed through control over what kind of story gets told about you.

Settlements

Deilahn is small enough that there are no ‘non-notable’ settlements. It’s an island with basically two cities on it and a small number of fishing towns.

Earthdenn: A byway town in Deilahn, it’s notable for being the closest town to the the Carpathian Trade House’s Blind Patron. This town is mostly one-storey buildings and a lot of weather protection structures, an incredible food importer, and some of the most disproportionately nice-to-use luxury housing the Trade House can finance.

Marn Tarum: The capital city of Deilahn and home of the Deilahn noble family. It sits on the far edge of the island, away from the mainland, and stands on the top of a seaside cliff. Where it once was renowned for its deep basements and storm protections, as well as a noble family proud of their endurance in the face of hostility, it is now known as a remarkably important shadow finance capital. Thanks to integration with the Trade Houses, Marn Tarum is one of the cities that trades on stocks and shares with remarkable speed, through magical communication systems.

Nevercall: The city most people think of when they think of Deilahn, Nevercall is a raucious casino town situated on the north-western edge of the island on Sirencester Bay. It is both a large port with a well-developed trade system, but also an absolutely ridiculous place for non-stop partying that’s renowned for its extravagent light shows that are visible from the mainland, hence its epithet the City of Light. Formerly, a pirate port.

Geography

Again, Deilahn is a very small island. It has very little in the way of ‘geographical features’ that are not just, you know, look. That’s an island.

Halm Rudil: The centre of the island is split by a forest called Halm Rudil, which has been maintained through ongoing druidic efforts.

Sirencester: Deilahn as an island is a slightly curled semi-circular shape. The northern half of it hosts an enormous bay, which is Sirencester Bay.

Important Sites

Carpathia’s Blind Patron: On the southern edge of the island, away from almost all settlements, the Carpathian Trade House has established a multi-building complex. This complex holds their Blind Patron, an elaborate magical machine that is capable of acting as a Warlock patron and allows the Trade House to have its own way to sustain Warlocks as their direct employed agents.

The Watching Ninmel: In the water off the north-eastern edge of Deilahn, there’s a statue on a natural rocky outcropping. Famously, this statue somehow turns to watch ships as they sail past, but given the nature of sailing it’s possible it’s just an optical illusion and people stare at the big lady with a spear too much.

Glotharen

The First Foremost

Glotharen makes up the southeastern quarter of Dal Raeda. Thanks to a sharp rise in altitude from the southern edge of Danube, while that province is renowned for its warm-to-mild weather, Glotharen is markedly colder, and it shows in the fashion and dress of the people. Long sleeves and heavy layers are much more common, and the southernmost parts of Glotharen are known as the ‘short-dayed’ parts, where the sun takes a long time (comparatively) to set.

Where Danube is modernising rapidly, though, Glotharen is a province that has bound its identity around the idea of being old. Glotharen is very proud of the fact that Glotharen, the province, predates every other province by enough history that every other province’s oldest histories presents Glotharen as already existing, and established, and with cities. This comes out in how Glotharen’s people often refer to themselves as Glotharen citizens, in Dal Raeda, as if the province is more important than the nation.

The age of Glotharen plays out in its material history, too; most settlements are very old and there are numerous old ruins and archaelogical digs in Glotharen exploring the history of the space. Famously, the Dal Raeda Provincial Ruineers (a national service for preserving material history) indicate that roughly half of all submitted preservation efforts in the country are from Glotharen.

Settlements

Dore: The capital city of Glotharen. The city has its own culture of provincial historicity, so deep and so thorough that the people from Dore don’t even say they’re from Glotharen, they say they’re Doren people.

Lagan: Technically an Eresh city, Lagan is an anarchist co-op of goblins built in a ruined boat. It has an extensive history and is why there’s a Kings Highway within Glotharen’s borders, which has been an enormous economic boon that they like to complain about.

Mistwatch: The higher altitude of Glotharen’s river system tends to flow down and away, meaning that Virret Keep struggles to maintain a presence here. As they’re supposed to be allowed to go anywhere in the rivers, Glotharen has a system of locks to allow boats to travel up to the altitude of the province, and that set of locks centralise most boat travel to the town of Mistwatch. It is high enough to enjoy regular rolling waves of mist from the mountains down onto the locks in the morning.

Geography

Glotharen is a place with numerous forests, a mountain range, and a host of valleys and lakes of varying sizes.

Arathairn: A valley famed for peach trees. Communities near Arathairn are often proud to speak about the peach brandy they make using the fruit of the valley.

Figblossom: A valley renowned for flower fields, which is a polite way to describe a feywild portal that Glotharen has been using to make exchanges with the Eladrin living there for generations.

Important Sites

Fogge’s Barrow: A barrow that was, at one point, found to have accumulated atop a sleeping dragon. The Barrow has been politically relevant at points in history, meaning that in addition to the dragon it also has a Gnoll Pack pathing around it, and a gaggle of Kobold Researchers engaging in drug-addled oneironautics.

The Unnameable Meat Forest: There’s a section of forest in Glotharen that’s made of meat? And nobody can quite agree why or what it means.

Wexwend Observatory: There’s a Tjosen settlement in the southern edges, up on the higher altitudes, arranged around a large stone-and-crystal observatory. The Glotharen don’t like acknowledging the Tjosen being there, but they do appreciate that the Tjosen seem to be interested in investigating history.

Sanders

The Imperator’s Stand

Sanders makes up the bulk of the western quarter of Dal Raeda, divided along the boundaries of rivers and the mountain range that runs through the middle of the nation. The altitude of the province contributes to its colder climate, but the cliffs drop sharply to the coast, meaning that the coastal towns of Sanders are all exposed to the heavy southern winds that push cold air up from the bottom of the world. Sanders has a reputation as being dreary and cold.

Sanders is the traditional military powerhouse of Dal Raeda. Positioned on the far side of the province, it was built up as a fortress stronghold that could marshal military resources, and either deploy them out through their coastal towns’ boats, or sent as a mighty spear along the land through to whoever was invading through Danube. Much of the traditional history and rules of warfare in Dal Raeda are beneficial to the way Sanders does war, and that helps to entrench Sanders, in the dawn of a potential civil war, to be very big on keeping those rules and traditional ways of doing going.

Sanders is ruled by a woman, the Dux Sanders.

Settlements

Bournemouth: Most provinces have ‘college towns,’ which is residences and businesses built around the universities and colleges that specialise in their forms of study. Most colleges are magical in nature, but there are druidic colleges as well. Bournemouth is the only military college town in Dal Raeda, though, a whole town built around the Bournemouth College Of Righteous Violence, which teaches tactics and discipline. It is a fascinating place in the ways it breaks down some class distinctions, with knights and knaves alike as students, but the ways that it is also a town where most people are doing ‘get punched in the face’ classe.

Holmfirth: The capital city of Sanders. Holmfirth is a near-fortress of a city, with huge gatehouses meant to hold the city forever against a siege. The gates of Holmfirth were dismantled and turned into artworks during the unification of Dal Raeda, and have been kept open as a show of force. It’s very much a position that shouts I dare you.

Scrantown: The names of towns and cities in Sanders have a distinct archness to them, very evident to people who study such things. That makes the city Scrantown a real weird outlier. As best history can manage, Scrantown, an enormous interconnected farming community nestled between three major Sanders fortress-cities, was created by Willowsebb immigrants during a time where Sanders considered farming beneath them, and they wanted to pay for better food service. Generally, this is seen as to why Willowsebb and Sanders share the common term scran to refer to good, satisfying food.

Geography

Dawncairn: Some geographic features are just nice or pretty things. Sanders has a set of rolling fields where the grass glows gold in the morning light. It’s partly due to the angle of the hills, but also the species of grass is local and has a fairly unique trait of looking quite gold when wet.

Wolffront: A mountain range that uplifts the borders of Sanders.

Important Sites

The Sanders Stable: It says something about a province where there are stables in almost every single established settlement, there is one specific place that gets to be known as The Sanders Stables. A multi-building complex in Sanders of fields and breeding grounds and racecourses, the Sanders Stables is a stables that oversees what is generally regarded as the best warhorse creation program in the world. The Sanders Stables have such immense importance in the culture of equestrian that you don’t buy a Sanders horse: You pay an up-front fee to maintain and care for one of their horses, and if the horse dies before that fee has been addressed, the horse is resurrected, and you have to pay off the resurrection. If you die and the horse dies, they resurrect the horse and not you. Sanders Warhorses are absolutely worth the money, though and it’s generally recognised that the Sanders Warhorse is a part of how Sanders has its reputation as a modern military powerhouse despite their bias away from modern military tools.

Whealglen: Sanders makes much show of being a province with a sensible division of religion and state, with its Palescai churches and its largely secular community that extol the hierarchical view of monarchy. That’s not to say there aren’t mystical or magical traditions within Sanders, though, and it’s best seen in Whealglen. This ash-tree grove, hidden away in the forests of Sanders, is a place where wooden trees grow into the shape of statues of fallen heroes of the province of Sanders. This grove is considered a sacred site, but Sanders’ nobility and power structures want to keep people from going there and seeing it much. It does make everything seem a bit… pagan.

Virett Keep

The Blood Of Dal Raeda

Virrett Keep has no specific climate or weather. This is because Virrett Keep’s claim is the river system of Dal Raeda. Dal Raeda has a large river network that connects most of the country from edge to edge. Over two centuries ago, Virett Keep were rewarded this thanks to the family’s service to the state, and they’ve spent the intervening time pushing this legal treaty to its absolute limits.

Virett Keep’s legal permission is that they’re in charge of the rivers; this means that travelling along or across the rivers is technically their territory. The Keep claims some taxes on a number of the major bridges in Dal Raeda, and there’s an ongoing political concern about whether or not they can tax people crossing the bridges that run over the King’s Highway. Virett Keep say yes, and the Eresh Knights following the highway say no.

Virett don’t think they have the juice to get Dal Raeda to fight the Protectorate on their behalf, so they mostly let the taxes go.

Virett Keep is a small population, spread across a number of exotic sites. Virett Keep’s standard of living and general wealth for its population is extremely high. This is a good statistic to be proud of, but the thing is, it’s not clear about the economic disparity. Half of Virett Keep’s income goes to just ten percent of its citizens, who are largely nobles and landlords, while most of its members are riverboat sailors and traders.

The settlements, sites, and geography of Virett Keep are challenging to describe. Many of the ‘settlements’ are boats, and they move around. At the same time, some of those boats stay in a specific location, which means they may be a bit more like a site. Anyway, because of that, here’s just a list of stuff that Virett Keep has in it, and you can sort it into what category you want for your own sake.

Cloverrim: The closest thing the Virett have to a ‘breadbasket,’ Cloverrim is a large farm on the coast in Glotharen. Of course, that territory is Glotharen’s territory, because Virett Keep aren’t allowed to own that land. Virett Keep just rent the land, and then pay the workers to live there, but it’s very important to know that this land is ‘technically’ Glotharen’s land.

Glittering Prizes: Technically, the Glittering Prizes. Glittering Prizes is an immense riverboat, moving in a steady circle throughout the seasons. It’s a casino and a tavern, and well known gathering place for people who don’t want to be where they were, looking for work from people with ready money.

Humble’s Ford: At the edge of the lake in Brin Proper, there’s a drydock where the Humble’s Ford has been docked. That boat is part of Virett Keep, which means that anyone walking off the dock, onto the boat, are going into Virett Keep. Humble’s Ford is also conveniently parked right by Brin Proper, the capital city, which means that people can negotiate with Virett Keep’s power brokers easily.

Ir Osel: There’s a ghost ship that travels the rivers of Dal Raeda, supposedly. Supposedly, because the claim follows that it only shows up around Virett Keep’s natural citizens, who can even board the boat.

Lightbrook: There’s a little exclave of land between Willowsebb, Sanders, and Glotharen, where there’s three bridges set up in a triangle between the landmasses. In between those bridges there’s a large transport ship, unable to leave. But because that ship is in Virett Keep, it’s possible for someone to pass an item to Virett Keep then have that Virett Keep person pass that material to someone in a different province, for legally significant reasons. That boat is called Lightbrook, and if you need to go there, you know why.

Virett Keep: The actual castle of Virett Keep, which sits on an island in the river, with a bridge reaching to the mainland of the Sanders province. This bridge has been dismantled and rebuilt several times based on the political demands of the day. Virett Keep is an ostentatious palace, basically a mansion with a wall around it, and is occupied by the richest people of the Keep, and their servants.

Willowsebb

The Tangled Root

The remaining mainland territory of Dal Raeda is consumed by the daggerlike form of Willowsebb, reaching to the middle of the country but also stretching up to the northern face. At the northern edges, Willowsebb faces the tropical bay that extends across to Visente and Amenti. But that space, where the weather and hills are both mild, people don’t think of that when they think of Willowsebb.

No, they think of the forests.

Willowsebb has the largest single contiguous forest in Dal Raeda. It reaches all across the province and forms, to an extent, its borders – certainly it’s the dividing line where it ends. Within the forest there are glens and specific varieties of trees that mark them as other forests, but broadly, the vast, dark, cursed forest of Willowsebb is what it’s known for.

Oh, cursed?

Yeah, that’s what people say.

Don’t worry about it.

Willowsebb is by far the most rural of the provinces that have any land. Willowsebb’s largest cities are all the smallest major cities and some even argue that Woodshade is instead more of a large township, despite its population and breadth. This stems from the way Willowsebb’s druidic traditions resist modernisation and expansion – historically, some druidic orders had strict and hard policies against (for example) worked metal objects, but more modern ones are much more relaxed. They’re still not in favour of things like street lights and a standardised road network, though, and have impeded them. This is why Willowsebb can be so large, have so many people living in it, and still mostly be rural and semirural.

Settlements

Rosehips: The capital of Willowsebb, Rosehips started out as a town renowned for jam and flowers. The bucolic forager town became a steady cornerstone of travel through the area, until eventually, the druids felt it necessary to protect the town. Rosehips is now a very large town, spread out wide, with no more than two storeys at a time for any given house, and instead of walls, it has an enormous gnarled set of thorny rose-bushes. In times of duress, some have even claimed that the city’s walls become a maze to protect it from assault.

Woodshade: By comparison, Woodshade is a town where, the story runs, a plan was to cut down an important tree as soon as the sun rose to dry the tree out and prepare it for the axe. The druids who revered the tree told the town to not do that, and when they refused, the druids laid a curse on the town. Woodshade is now a town where the sun doesn’t rise; people can travel in to the town from blazing noon, and walking in, find the town in a grim dark twilight, with the moon butting around the edges of the horizon.

Geography

Grubhaben: The actual name of the forest that stretches over the province, Grubhaben is an old word that means something akin to ‘holding everything.’ The name is a promise and a threat; there is more in the forest than you imagined, you can always find something there, but also… you will never know all the things the forest holds.

Woodglen: One strip of the forest that buts against Danube’s border is known by the name Woodglen. For some reason, Woodglen is a well-regarded and very safe forest, where people can go to hunt and forage, from either side of the border. It’s considered that the druids think of Woodglen as an ‘offering’ of a forest – giving the people who are not Willowsebb’s own a version of the forest they can understand and survive.

Plumbreak: Over the edges of the forest, there are a set of towns dotted along the coast, including one large town with a barge train that sends goods across the bay periodically, when the Halfling Hulks arrive in Visente. This is the Plumbreak bay.

Important Sites

Bugrest: There’s a glen in the northern parts of Willowsebb where the Ozu are found. It’s not a large location and kept relatively private. Oh, the Ozu aren’t known? We’ll have to get to that.

Fanaird: Maps of Willowsebb often feature a drawing of a tall tree in the forest. This is usually treated as a sort of cartographic flair. It’s not: There’s a tree in the forest that’s about three hundred meters tall, with broad, spreading branches and an enormous cleft in the centre. This is Fainard, which is known as a central gathering point for the different types of druid from across Dal Raeda, and beyond. Fainard is a sacred site and hard to reach, even if someone heading towards it can find it, sunk deep into the forest as it is.

Stiamuzzehk: The name Stiamuzzehk is an extremely out-of-type name for the Willowsebb, but not because it’s a new import. Rather, Stiamuzzehk is an old name, older than the people using it now, and its meaning is uncertain. What it is is a wide salt flat lagoon, by Plumbreak Bay. The salt-farmers of Stiamuzzehk dig trenches from the sea into the lagoon’s area, to fill it up with sea water, and then perform rituals to enchant the salt while the water evaporates over weeks. Then, with the area dried out, they cut up the chunks of salt for sale in the markets around the world. Enchanted salt is a very common spell component and fully a quarter of the world’s supply comes from Willowsebb’s strange little industry.

Conclusion

There’s always room for more. There’s a conversation around the way that Dal Raedan weapon traditions work. There’s a talk about the way that Dal Raeda’s impending civil war influences adventurers in the space. There’s types of armour, types of weapon aesthetics, there’s attitudes of different cultural subgroups within the country, there’s more about politics and more about organisations and guilds and religion.

But.

This is hopefully, a decent start that can serve as a familiarising beginning on the nation of Dal Raeda and what opportunities it presents for the people who live there, the people who adventure there, and the people who visit there. Dal Raeda is a nation the size of Australia with a population density comparable to mainland America, and a state/province structure that’s meant to feel kind of like a hybrid of the EU and America’s state system. It is a place with a lot of room and a lot of opportunity and all the power structures are distant from the way people actually live their day to day lives.

Like how there are things telling you there are ways you have to do things, but they don’t actually exist and can’t tell you what to do.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[lady-inkyrius]

I sort of want to mock up some reblog tree visualisations now, I'm just imagining a version of tumblr where the reblog graphs aren't just like gimmicky alternatives to the regular list of reblogs. There are so many cool different ways of displaying hierarchical data like reblog trees, especially in an interactive environment like this.

I think in an ideal world it'd be more compact than the current reblog graphs, and have the same options for which reblogs you can see as the current reblog list. Depending on which representation it might also be useful to collapse branches, and be able to return to the source post or the reblog you're currently viewing.

[bookofjin]

Growing foxtial millet, QMYS Section 3, Part 1

Continuing the Qimin yaoshu齊民要術 (“Essential Techniques for the Common People) by Jia Sixie (fl. c. 540). Advice for growing foxtail millet. Due to the length of this section, the translation will be divided into several posts. This post covers the introductionary dictionary definitions and Jia Sixie's own advice. Subsequent posts will cover the extensive quotations from earlier works.

[Translator's preface]

After opening the book with two general sections on tilling the fields and selecting seed grain, sections 3-54 cover the cultivation of specific plants (field crops, vegetables, fruit- and timber-trees, dye plants). The first, and lengthiest, of these is dedicated to the foxtail millet (Setaria italica). Known under many names, in Jia Sixie's home region it was often simply referred to as gu穀, “grain”. I suppose you could draw parallel to calling maize “corn” in English. Foxtail millet was first domesticated in North China during the Neolithic and remained the main staple crop there during the Early Medieval North China, . As such, by the time QMYS was written, Jia Sixie could draw on several millennia of experience with foxtail millet farming.

[Other plants mentioned]

Certain other plants are mentioned more incidental in this section.

Plants more or less suited to precede foxtail millet in a crop rotation system:

Mung beans or green gram (Vigna radiata), lüdou緑豆 (lit. "green beans"), used as green manure in crop rotation with millet.

Adzuki beans (Vigna angularis), xiaodou小豆 (lit. "small beans") served a similar function.

Hemp (Cannabis sativa), ma麻, grown both for textiles and oil

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), shu黍, popular for brewing millet beer

Sesame (Sesamum indicum), huma胡麻 (lit. “foreign hemp”), considered the best oilseed crop

Turnip (Brassica rapa var. rapa),wujin蕪菁, leaves and roots are edible, and the seeds can be pressed for oil.

Soybean (Glycine max) dadou大豆 (lit. “large beans”), used as fodder or famine crop, but also fermented into sauces, etc.

Gua底 is a general term for gourds and melons

Trees whose leaves and flowers can be used to predict the best time for sowing foxtail millet:

Beiyang菩楊 appear to refer to some kind of willow (Salix) or poplar (Populus)

Peach (Prunus persica), tao 桃

Jujube (Ziziphus jujube), zao棗

Mulberry (Morus alba), sang桑

[Tools]

The illustrations below are taken from Wang Zhen's王禎 (1271-1333) Nongshu農書, who of course wrote several centuries after Jia Shixie. While many tools were essentially timeless and in continuous use up to the modern age, developments did happen, and also terminology could change.

The preferred tool for sowing was the seed drill, lou耬

(Wang Zhen's louche耬車).

The “beater”, ta撻, (for a lack of a better translation) was pulled over the furrows after sowing to compact them. Wang Zhen describes this tool as a bunch of branches weighed down by stones.

The arrowhead hoe, zuchuo鏃鋤 was a small, pointed hoe. According to Wang Zhen, arrowhead hoeing was one of four methods for hoeing with the youchu耰鋤.

QMYS is the oldest text to refer to the iron-tine rake, tiechi loucou鐵齒𨫒楱

QMYS quite often refer to the spear-harrow, feng鋒. Wang Zhen notes that by his time it was no longer in use, his description of it as a cross between a plough and a spade may therefore not be very accurate.

The sickle, yi刈, was the main tool for reaping field crops.

(Wang Zhen's yidao刈刀)

[Books quoted by QMYS in Section 3, in order of appearance]

The Erya爾雅 (“Approaching the Correct”) is the oldest surviving Chinese glossary. Modern scholarship dates the book to the late Warring States and/or early Western Han periods. It is quoted numerous times in QMYS. This is the second QMYS section to quote from the Erya. The last previous was Section 1 (“Tilling the Fields”).

The Shuowen 說文 (“Explaining Graphs”) by Xu Shen許慎 (c. 58 – c. 147) analyses the composition and reasoning behind the different characters. It is quoted numerous times in QMYS. This is the second QMYS section to quote from the Shuowen. The last previous was Section 1 (“Tilling the Fields”).

The Guangzhi廣志 (“Wide Treatise”) by Guo Yigong郭義恭 (Western Jin) is now lost, but it is quoted numerous times in QMYS and other books. This is the first QMYS section to quote from the Guangzhi.

Guo Pu郭璞(276 – 324) was a Daoist wizard, poet and writer. His surviving writings include the oldest extant commentary on the Erya and a commentary on the Shanhaijing. This is the first QMYS section to quote Guo Pu, from his Erya commentary.

Sun Yan孫炎 lived during Wei and was disciple of Zheng Xuan. He wrote (a now lost) commentary on the Erya where he pioneered the use of the fanqie system to indicate pronunciation. This is the first QMYS section to quote Sun Yan.

Liu Zhang 劉章(200 – 176) was a grandson of the Han founder. According to the Shiji he recited the Gengtian ge 耕田歌 (“Song of Ploughing the Fields”)at a banquet during the regency of Empress Dowager Lü, to show his opposition to the Lü clan's power, and he later became one of the main actors in their downfall.

The Guanzi管子 (“Master Guan”) is a collection of treatises on statecraft traditionally attributed to Guan Zhong管子 (d. 645 BC9), an influential minister in Qi during the Spring and Autumn era. Section 3 contains the third quote from the Guanzi in QMYS, the first two are in the preface (which I have impudently skipped).

[The original text is a mix of large and small characters. I have collected the small text sections together as indented notes within {} brackets.]

[Translation starts here]

Section 3, Growing Foxtail millet

Growing foxtail millet [gu穀]:

{“Grain” gu穀 and “foxtail millet” ji稷 are names for setaria millet [su粟]. Grain is the collective name for the Five Grains, and does not mean setaria millet. However, today people solely consider foxtail millet to be “grain”, and [I] look to the customary name for it, and that is all.} [For the remainder, gu穀 will be translated as “foxtail millet” in the sections written by Jia Sixie, ji稷 will generally be rendered also as “foxtail millet”, and su粟 as “setaria millet” (or just “foxtail” and “setaria”).] {The Approaching the Correctsays: “Zi粢 is foxtail millet [ji稷].”} {The Explaining Graphs says: “Setaria millet [su粟] is the fruit of excellent grain [gu穀].”} {Guo Yigong's Broad Treatise says: “The names of the kinds are Red Setaria and White Stem, Black-Patterned Sparrow Setaria, Duke Zhang's Mottled, Enclosed Yellow-Iron-green, Dark-green Foxtail, Snow-White Millet – likewise named White Stem, also White-Indigo Short, Bamboo Head-Stem Dark-green, White Wheat-Catching, Stone-Pulling Purest, Earth-black Dog-Paw.”} {Guo Pu's Annotations to the Approaching the Correct says: “Today in Jiangdong they call foxtail millet zi粢.”} {Sun Yan says: “Foxtail [ji稷] is setaria [su粟]”} {Note that the present age's names for setaria, many uses a person's family and courtesy names as the label name. There are likewise those where look and form established the names, and likewise those where what happened to be appropriate became the designation, [I] rely on them then to set them out, and that is all:} {Vermillion Foxtail, Highland Yellow, Liu Zhuxie, Daomin Yellow, Whittled-Grain Yellow, Sparrow's Regret Yellow, Continued Life Yellow, Hundred Days Grain, Upright Wife Yellow, Unworthy-of-Rice Grain, Slave Child Yellow, Jiazhi Foxtail, Schorced Gold Yellow, Quail's Slipper Iron-green which is also named Wheat's Floor-Fighter: These fourteen types ripen early and endure drought, early ripening avoids insects. The Whittled-Grain Yellow and Unworthy-of-Rice Grain types have a pleasing taste.} {Now-Fell-off-the-Chariot, Short Horse-Carer, Hundred Flock Sheep, Hanging Snake Red-Tail, Bear-Tiger Yellow, Sparrow's and People's Benefit, Horse Reins, Liu Pig Red, Li Yu Yellow, Amba Grain, Donghai Yellow, Rocky lesuo䮑歲, Dark-green-Stalked Dark-green, Dark Excellent Yellow, South-of-the-Paths Crop, Nook-and-Dike Yellow, Song Ji's Idiocy, Point Out Yellow, Rabbit Foot Dark-green, Kind Sun Yellow, Shifting Wind Red, Single Sunlight Yellow, Mountain Saline, Dundang Yellow: These twenty-four types all have spikes with bristles, endure wind, and avoid harassment from sparrows. The Single Sunlight Yellow type is easy to hull.}

{Precious Pearls Yellow, Popular Gain White, Zhang Lin Yellow, White Salt Foxtail, Thousand Hooks Yellow, Zhang Yi Yellow, Gleaming Tiger Yellow, Chief Slave Red, Reed-Stalk Yellow, Xun Pig Red, Wei Shuang Yellow, White-Stalked Dark-green, Bamboo-Rooted Yellow, Attuned Mother Large-grained millet, Rock-Pile Yellow, Liu Sand-White, Seng Long-lasting Yellow, Red Large-grained Foxtail, Auspicous Swift Yellow, Otter-Tail Dark-green, Continued Potency Yellow, Concave-Straw Yellow, Sun Long-lasting Yellow, Pig-Shit Dark-green, Smoking Yellow, Happy Slave-girl Dark-green, Level Long-life Yellow, Deer Stubble White, Salt for Breaking Baskets, Yellow dianshan, Hilly Place Yellow, Red Ba Large-grained millet, Deer Hoof Yellow, Famished Dog Iron-green, Can-be-Pitied Yellow, Hulled Foxtail, Deer Stubble Dark-green, Aluoluo: These thirty-eight types are the single stems great foxtails? [the received QMYS text is defective at this point]. The White Salt Foxtail and Attuned Mother Large-grained millet types have a pleasing taste. The three Concave-Straw Yellow, Hilly Place Yellow and Pig-Shit Dark-green types are bad tasting. The Yellow dianshan and Happy Slave-girl Dark-green types are easy to hull.} {Bamboo-Leaf Dark-green and Rocky Yichu, Bamboo-Leaf Dark-green is also named Hu Foxtail, Water Black Foxtail, Swift Mud Dark-green, Charging Heaven Cudgels, Pheasant Chick Dark-green, Owl-Foot Foxtail, Goose-Head Dark-green, Hold-Piles Yellow, Dark-green Hawk-cuckoo: These ten types ripen late and endure floods. If there is a calamity of insects, they are consumed.}

In general there is foxtail which is fully ripened early or late, which sprouts and straw are tall or low, which harvest results are large or small, which natural quality is strong or weak, which hulled grain taste good or bad, which grain results in gains or losses{A}. The conditions of the land can be good or poor{B}, and mountains and marshes differ in what is suitable{C}. Obey Heaven's seasons, and evaluate the land's advantages, then [you] will employ little strength yet achieve success many times. Rely on feelings and go against the Way, [you] will toil and yet get nothing.{D}

{A: Those that ripen early have short sprouts and the harvest is large. Those that ripen late have long sprouts and the harvest is small. Those which strong sprouts are short, and belong to the yellow foxtail. Those which weak sprouts are long, and are dark-green, white, or black. Those with small harvests are good but make losses. Those with large harvests are bad but make gains.} {B: Good fields are suitable for late types, poor fields are suitable for early types. Good land is not solely suitable for late types, early types are also not harmful. Poor land is suitable for early types, late types will certainly not give successful result.} {C: For mountain fields, types with strong sprouts, to avoid wind and frost. For marsh fields, types with weak sprouts, to aspire to splendid results.} {D: Enter a spring to chop wood and climb a mountain to look for fish, and the hand will surely be empty. To face the wind when sprinkling water, or to go against the slope when moving a pellet, these conditions are difficult.}

In general for foxtail fields, mung beans or adzuki beans as the previous crop is the best; hemp, broomcorn millet, and sesame are next; turnip and soy beans are last.

{It is common to see gourds as the previous crop, they are no less than mung beans. Originally they were not discussed, for the moment then keep it in mind.} [This note may be a later addition.]

For 1 mu of good land, use 5 sheng of seeds, and for poor land 3 sheng.{A} Foxtail fields certainly must be changed annually.{B} Those sown in the 2nd Month or the 3rd Month are the early-planted grain. Those sown in the 4th or 5th Month are the late-planted grain. From 2nd Month, First Ten-day, until the hemp and beiyang willow sprout seeds is the best time. 3rd Month, First Ten-day, until the Pure and Clear [qingming] Period and the peach tree first flower is the middle time. 4th Month, First Ten-day until the jujube leaves sprout and the mulberry flowers fall is the worst time. For those which the yearly Way ought to be late, the beginning of the Fifth Month or Sixth Month are also possible.

{A: This is for early-planted foxtail, for late fields increase the number of plants.} {B: If twice sowing the seeds, the weeds will be many, and the harvest poor.}

In general spring sowing wish to be deep, and ought to be dragged with a heavy “beater”. Summer spring wish to be shallow, and just sprout from itself.

{Spring air is cold, and sprouting is slow. If not dragged with a “beater”, they will set root in hollows, and even if they sprout, they will immediately die. Summer air is hot, and they sprout quickly. [If] dragged with the “beater” and there happens to be rain, [the ground] will surely be hard and dry. Those in the spring that are very moist sometimes also are not necessary to beat. To be certain they want beating, [you] ought necessarily to wait for [the ground] to turn white. Wet beating will cause the ground to be hard and tough is the reason.}

In general when sowing foxtail, after rain is good. If there is a little rain, [you] ought accept the wetness and sow. If there is great rain, wait for the weeds to sprout.{A} During spring, if there is drought, on the land of the autumn tilling [you] might open the mounds and wait for rain.{B} During summer, if there are open mounds, not only will it sweep away and wash out that which does not grow, [but] in addition it and the grassy weeds will set forth together.

{A: [If] there is a little rain and [you] do not accept the wetness, there is nothing to give birth to the stalks sprouting. [If] there is great rain and [you] do not wait for [the ground] to turn white, wet rolling then will cause the sprouts to be frail. If weeds are abundant, to first hoe one time everywhere and afterwards accept sowing then will be good.} {B: On the spring-tilled, it does not hit the mark.}

In general the fields that want early or late are mixed together.{A} In years that are intercalary, after the solar periods draw close, [you] ought to have late fields. However for the most part [you] want early, early fields yield more than late.{B}

{A: Prepare for what is proper in the Way of the year.} {B: Early fields are clean and easy to manage. The late ones overgrow with weeds and are difficult to manage. Their harvest, regardless of large or small, follows from is proper for the year, and is not connected to early or late. However, early foxtail have thin husks, the hulled grains are solid and many. Late foxtail have thick husks, the hulled grain are small and empty.}

When the sprouts have grown similar to horse ears, then arrowhead hoe.{A} At places with gaps and holes, hoe and patch them.{B} In general for the Five Grains, only the small hoe is good.{C} For good fields, usually for each chi [foot], keep one hole.{D} For poor land, seek out mounds and tread on them.{E}

{A: The proverb says: “Want to get foxtail, at horse ears the arrowhead.” } {B: The work done might not be overstated. The profit gained this way is a hundred times.} {C: The small hoe not only saves strength, the grain is also twice as good. With a large hoe, the grass and their roots will be profuse and thick, a lot of work will be done yet the harvest will grow smaller.} {D: Liu Zhang's Song of Tilling the Fields says: “Plough deeply and sow thickly, the standing sprouts want to be spread out. For those not of their kind, hoe and get rid of them. The proverb which states: “[When you can] turn around the chariot and reverse the horse, [or] throw away the clothes [and they] do not fall down, both give ten shi when harvested” tells that harvest for [fields that are] very sparse or very thick are all equal and even.} {E: Not tilling is the reason.}

When the sprouts spring forth from the mounds, hoe deeply. When hoeing, do not get bored with the frequency. Once done, start again. [You] must not stop though there is no grass.{A} Spring hoeing is to lift up the earth, and summer to remove grass. For that reason, spring hoeing is not done when facing wetness. By the 6th Month and after, even if wet, in this case is not disliked.{B}

{A: Hoe not just to remove the grass, then the land will ripen and the fruit will be many, the chaff will be weak, and the hulled grain will grow. When hoeing is done ten times everywhere, [you] will then obtain “Eight [parts of ten?] Hulled grain”.} {B: During spring, as the sprouts are just then slight and their shade are not yet covering the ground, if wet hoeing, the ground will become hard. During summer, the sprouts cast a solid shade and the ground does not see the sun. For that reason, even if wet, in this case there is no harm. Master Guan says: “To make a state, cause the farmers to till when cold and weed [yun芸] when hot.” To weed is to remove grass.}

When the sprouts have sprung from the mounds, each time [you] have gone through rain, in the time [the ground] turns white, immediately use the iron-tine rake across and athwart to rake and harrow them.

{Method for raking: Make a person sit down on top, and frequently use their hands to tear off and get rid of grass, if grass block up the tines it will harm the sprouts. Like this [you] will make the ground ripe and soft, easy to hoe and save strength. When hitting the spear-harrow, stop.}

When the sprouts are one chi high, spear-harrow them.{A} Tillage is not about not embedding the root sprouts deeply, it kills the grass and increase the results, however it will make the ground hard and tough, lacking in moisture and difficult to till. Hoe five times everywhere or more, and it will not be bothersome to till.{B}

{A: Three times everywhere is always good.} {B: When for sure [you] want to till, after you have reaped the foxtail, if you promptly spear-harrow below the roots to burst them up, it will be soft and moist, and easy to till.}

In general when sowing, [you] want the ox to move slow and leisurely. The sower makes hurried steps to tread the mound base with his feet.

{If the ox is slow, the seeds will be evenly placed. If trod with the feet, the sprouts will thrive. When the footsteps connect with each other, it is possible to not bother with beating.}

When ripe, reap quickly. When dry, store quickly.

{If reaped early, the sickle-use will be excessive. If reaped late, the spikes will break. If there is wind, the harvest will diminish. If stored wet, the stalks will rot. If stored late, there is loss and waste. If continuous rain, they will grow ears.}

In general for the Five Grains, for the most part those sown in the first ten-day will give a full harvest, those in the middle ten-day a middle harvest, and those in the last ten-day a lesser harvest.

[blackr23]

Dazed

A day when Irene, wearing Bottega Veneta, smiled brightly. On a day that was particularly calm and filled with clear light.

FASHION

IN, BEGIN

2024/09/27

Text Tiscing (Han Ji-yong), Sohee (Kwon So-hee)

Medium Andiamo messenger bag in calfskin with light cotton stretch gauze top and intrecciato weaving by Bottega Veneta.

Crisp natural cotton poplin shirt, double construction shiny leather skirt, sartorial wool twill trousers, Texas calfskin ankle boots, 18K gold-finish sterling silver bracelet, medium leather Liberta bag with co-axial braided strap and metal fastening, all by Bottega Veneta.

Double compact cotton frisée coat and trouser set, light irregular linen shirt, and Dalton ankle boots in Texas calfskin, all by Bottega Veneta.

Notebook-weaving patterned wool trench coat, graph notebook detail cotton shirt, light cotton stretch gauze shirt, nappa leather trousers, Torino ankle boots, and medium Andiamo messenger bag in calfskin finished with the intrecciato weaving technique are all from Bottega Veneta

We met earlier than expected. I was worried that everyone would be sleepy, but what time did you wake up today?

It's okay. (Laughs) It was 8 this morning. I woke up and had a shake. I eat rice flour, vegetable powder, and protein every morning.

The image looks different from last year.

That's right. Compared to last year, my face has lost some weight, and I've been taking care of it. I have a sharp face, and I wanted to show that face more during this promotion. I'm bright when I smile. I wanted to show both sides of me.

When I smile and when I don't, the temperature difference is really big. I also saw the solo stage that I showed at the concert a while ago.

Did you see it? Thank you. I didn't want to do something obvious. That's why I looked for a lot of unique songs while preparing, and I received a lot of tracks and thought a lot. 'Hallucination' was originally Changbin's song. It was a song that I personally worked on alone, but when I heard it, it was so good. There were existing rap parts, but I took them out, added a melody line, and added lyrics to it. Everyone said that it suited me so well. (Laughs)

…

My new hobby is reading poetry.

I want to read books, but when the sentences are long, I can't focus. So I started reading poetry books because I wanted to start with something light, but there were a lot of words and sentences that really resonated with me.

What caught your eye the most recently?

It's a poem called 'Compass'. As soon as I saw it, I thought, 'Oh, this is our cheering stick.'

Let me ask you this. If there is something that has been a compass for you while you have been singing until now,

there was a time when I really hated my vocal tone. It was too flashy. The team color was strong and intense, but my voice didn't fit well with it. So I tried many times to sing differently, but eventually I came back to my own. At that time, I thought, a vocal tone is like a fingerprint. So now, I think I shouldn't lose it. Especially when I sing.

 

Director Jiwoong (Jiwoong, Choi Jiwoong)

Editor Tiscing (Han Jiyong)

Text Sohee (Sohee Kwon)

Fashion YK Jeong, Kwon Hyemi

Photography Kim Heejune

Art Wish (Wish, Kim Seongjae)

Film Sku (Sku, Na Seungkwon), Lulu (Lulu, Jang Geonwoo),  Zhang Ke (Zhang Ke, Jang Ga), Donu (Donu, Lee Jeongwoo)

Hair Choi Bora

Makeup Jun Jiwon

Set Lee Nakyung

Assistant Xero (Xero, Shin Jaewoo)

 

Discover more in KOREA OCTOBER 2024 ISSUE.

[metalleafy]

BFDIA 14 thoughts (spoilers ahoy)

I can't believe they brought back the basketball rain of all things. Oh that thing in the promo image was a bunk bed. Lollipop face time is cool!! Finally TB admitted the cloud was a snowball.

Somehow I thought coiny liked bugs. David rave!! Shout out to yoylestraw, and now we have a host we can understand. I like the use of Pan Flute as a graph, it's what Kevin MacLeod would have wanted.

Shout out to Coiny making Pin get everything back but her limbs! Then why did we have the whole compacting thing anyway, just for false hope? I wish we would at least find out who controls everything in BFDI, probably just the Huangs.

Spongy relaxing on a beach with Bubbly Pop is great, and they're keeping the tradition of him killing hosts. The little instrument guys are back but they're dead, which is too bad. I like that they're still keeping the insulting cell phones from BFDI 25 in play.

I have come to like Barf Bag more after this episode, I just pay more attention to BFDIA. The LOLers being the host is so nice. I didn't like that GB got voted off, she is a favorite of mine, but it does help with TB's arc of learning how to do things on his own. It's funny that she was eliminated by a golf club.

OK I just realized rewatching for the post that Match being satisfied is probably a reference to how she and GB were in the bottom 2 in 5a. And GB screaming exactly how she did in BFDI 1a is just... :) I know it's nostalgia catnip but it works on me!! Kind of reminds me of Homestar Runner somehow

The Crappy Cliff being mentioned on the wheel is silly, I kind of like it. Pan Flute being killed because they spent money on the poster is sad but his manner of death was funny looking at least! And his influence is felt throughout this episode. Kevin MacLeod is a good sport for letting his character be killed, and iconic tracks REAL BFDI fans will remember are heard all over the contest, including the backwards remix of Sunshine as heard in BFDI 1b! I wish he put that on the vinyl record...

I can't believe Eggy hates poly freesmart so much. I kind of like the pair logos, I wish TB said "pair up? okay" like he did in BFDI 17, that would be a cool easter egg to add for longtime fans. This episode makes Tennickel a viable couple, and not just because Nickel was a good substitute for GB.

More Snowball content is always welcome, he is a jerk but a funny jerk at his best (at his worst he's just complaining about armless people). We get to see the Five Islands here, so they probably won't be the prize instead of the farm. Bottle talking about Evil Leafy made me want to start #bottlevil as a semi-joke but also yuri

The constant talk about "island 1" Is probably a BFDI 6 reference, but I'm not sure enough to put it on the wiki. Anything that is BFDI 17 Recommended Characters Auditions Mentioned makes me smile, like the "only ball with lines" bit. The Go Guys are back in HQ! And characters running through the Evil Forest with BFDIA 1 music is so familiar, especially since they are technically running from Evil Leafy, making it the opposite of BFDIA 1!

The FreeSmart SuperCoffin is so unhinged and I love it. Donut saying "NO!" is the only thing people remember about him since he was eliminated early but that was a setup anyway since the other two were CoinPin and all Donut did was bicker with Pencil. Coiny jumping from vine to vine is cool.

I can't believe TB just used his powers for evil. Oh, I get it, Fries fed his fries to Bomby, thats why he has one left. There's a PERC on Dora's island, I wish its pencil-excluding aspect was more relevant, because I want to see more specific recovery centers! There are ones for individual contestants, what about groups like teams or plant objects?

Pillow just learned pillows exist. I thought Needle slapped Book from far away. I like the use of Rocket by Kevin MacLeod with the "snatch" gag, and it's also a stealth pun on the rocket packs. I can't believe they used his track that was in a carykh video about all the recommended characters, though.

I just realized the teddy bears are the same types as the We Bare Bears. I like Teardrop's island, but I can't believe we saw Teardrop's cousins on BFDI before Gelatin's brothers. This may be a reference to an early "recolor camp" called BOTTLE, but that's probably pretty obscure.

ITS THE FREESMART COMEBACK OF THE CENTURY!!! And Ruby wanting to bring back Bubble is so adorable. Especially since I watched BFDIA 2 at the same location a lil more than 12 yrs ago and I was sad that Ruby didn't want Bubble back. #fullcircle

I love Cyborg Pin, by the way. I would rather her stay that way forever than have limbs. Of course they used the Teardrop Family Reunion line. I thought Coffee Drop would be diarrhea because they were near a porta potty and the other characters with many relatives have Poo relatives.

Pencil using helium to make fun of Ruby was so silly, especially since they used to have the same voice actor (Ruby switched Huangs after BFDIA 6, I just looked that up). I love that Bubble can fly if she is inflated enough, and that little Spongy mouth! TB calling Toilet Brush TB is a really good bit.

SPRINGY SHOES MENTIONED!!! Is everything that comes out of Pin replaced by ooze? Also Camera and Teardrop's Pirate Adventure mentioned. The characters trading off short voice clips was so random but I liked it, the Match/Pin rivalry from early BFDI is back! I never knew how much I missed, like, Match until now.

Coiny with the hammer reminded me of "be more careful" right away and I felt vindicated to see it used. Bob-Omb recommended character being a bobber combined with a bomb is underrated. Nickel has that Chip Skylark energy. I love Teardrop's pirate ship.

Puffball Island is awesome! I wish they stayed talking like Puffball. Did Fries just call Puffball brat? Pin's song is the best, by the way. BUBBLE SAYING YOYLECAKE AGAIN~ Bomby censoring Fries's anti-Puffball song is a good one. I wanted to hear Coiny sing.

I have come to like Puffneedle and I always saw a common bond between them with them both having nicknames, I'm the yuri hipster. Pencil is finally respecting Needle! Ruby's tactic to steal a song was very cool. BUT PIN SNAPPING IS EVEN COOLER!!! That scene was so Homestuck but also Fear Garden.

I ended up voting for Ruby to get the prize and Book to be eliminated. I like Book but I like Ruby more, so consider voting Book out VTSing Ruby. Also, I feel Evil Leafy should have been used better. What's the point of having a superpowered evil version of the best character in the show if she doesn't even get to kill someone, or talk to Bubble somehow?

[yournightowl]

Your NightOwl #042

If you were to plot the prevalance of organized crime across history, what would that graph look like?

My first instinct is to say that it should go from bottom left to top right- Pweople getting more crooked, more corrupt, everything going down the can as time goes on.(＃`Д´)

But after giving it a little more thought, (and after having eaten lunch,)amidst my newfound positivity i thought, "Couldn't it be just the opposite?" ♡( ◡‿◡ )

Crime gets harder and harder to get away with as technology improves- and improvements in how fast goods and information can travel helps make the global playing field getting more equal, if not less psychotically competitive.

And now, after having taken a nap

i realize neither are even close to correct. (￣□￣」)

Because crime, especially the large scale organized type, isn't influenced by technology or the progression of society- it's really only ever been dependent on economics.

The heyday, as it were, for organized crime came in the early 20th century- between wars and depressions and plagues and the stock market - we saw higher highs and lower lows than ever thought possible.

There were other blips on the radar after that of course- regime changes, speculative bubbles, empires falling and unions collapsing- but through it all, wherever the money went, crime followed soon after.

And it's no different in the 21st century.

Because even more important than the stock market or the price of grain in this conversation is the level of unemployment- which spiked massively in the 30's and 40's as early automated systems wiped out entire sectors.

The language models that passed for ear-tifical antelly-gents back then drove a spike between the haves and the have nots; paying one guy to scrape data from another guy's life's work, then training a bot on that data and firing the first two guys anyway. It was a shortsighted fool's goldrush where every middle manager on earth raced against each other to disprove their own relevance as fast as possible. (°ロ°) ! The global economy remodeled itself into a system based mostly on theft. So for your average unemployed joe shmoe, reselling tech that fell off the back of a truck must've seemed like the most honest work in the world. (^_<)〜☆

The inverted bubble didn't last. ヾ(￣◇￣)ノ〃 llms were eventually recognized as the technological dead end they always were, and "automatically generated" went from impressive to trendy to tacky to gross in just a few short years-

But the damage was done- the social contract between "job creators" and real human beings now had a big gash torn through it- and ever since, mom and pop mafias and grassroots mobsters have fiercely guarded the niche of the economy they tore out for themselves.

If you don't believe organized crime is just as real as ever, just try and introduce androids to a "close-knit" industry like shipping. They'll send your free trial bots back to you in a compact, melted-down cube of slag before the first shift even ends.

Now i don't condone that kind of thing. It's violent and immature, and they should take their frustration out on the people trying to replace them, not the bots they bring in to do the replacing.

But as somewhat of a historian, i can see the appeal.

friend of the family, your nightowl

[3knecrotic]

How I, DK, Eat Food

The scenarios differ to certain degrees depending on the volume and specific contents of the meal, so I will use what could be considered my Average meals as examples. One for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

They all follow a general set of principle, in this specific order.

1. The first 1/4 of the meal is free game. This is about 1 to 3 bites in typically. I may eat at random. It is also at this time that I may eat bites that look Lesser or may push Better looking bites to the side, to compact the Best parts of the meal for the last 4 bites of the meal.

2. Once 3/4 of the meal is left, generally Strategizing has begun. Using information gathered (taste, texture, how Filling is it, etc.) by the initial free game bites, I plan how I eat next.

3. Upon making the plan, I will generally eat it so my Last Three Bites (excluding scrapping¹) are as follows: The lesser of the last 3 bites, the Most Flavorful Bite Of The Entire Meal, and then a good middle between the lesser best and The Best. The idea is Low, surprisingly flavorful and/or happily overwhelming, then Great but Not as intense as the last bite making it a satisfying sort of slow down in Taste.

I have run out of Juice to write this, examples of its application coming soon but not on this post like I wanted it to be

Scrapping¹: getting the rest of the smallest pieces of the meal that might not have fit with the Final 3-4 bites. Common examples of this are getting every last crumb in my plate after eating fried food, getting every last grain of viable rice on the plate and/or bowl (Every. Grain.) Eating the juices and bits from tasty meat, etc. Etc.

I will draw a graph if requested/necessary 😐

[fitplchennai]

Plate Load Test - Falcon Industrial Testing Laboratory

In the construction industry, ensuring the stability and load-bearing capacity of the soil is crucial before any structure is built.  At FITPL, we provide accurate Plate Load Testing in Chennai, along with a wide range of geotechnical, construction materials, and environmental testing services.

This blog will cover:

What is a Plate Load Test?

Importance of Plate Load Testing in Construction

Plate Load Test Procedure

Applications of Plate Load Testing

Why Pick FITPL for Chennai Plate Load Testing?

Other Testing Services We Offer

What is a Plate Load Test?

A field test called a Plate Load Test (PLT) is carried out to ascertain the soil's bearing capacity and settling properties under a certain load. A steel plate is placed on the ground, and when weights are added incrementally, the accompanying settlement is measured. The results help engineers design foundations that can safely support structures without excessive settlement.

This test is essential for:

Shallow foundation design

Pavement construction

Assessing subgrade strength for roads and runways

Verifying soil improvement techniques

Importance of Plate Load Testing in Construction

Before constructing any building, bridge, or road, engineers must ensure the soil can withstand the expected loads. Here’s why Plate Load Testing is critical:

1. Determines Safe Bearing Capacity (SBC)

The test provides the maximum load the soil can support without excessive settlement, helping engineers design appropriate foundations.

2. Predicts Settlement Behavior

By analyzing how much the soil compresses under load, engineers can estimate long-term settlement and prevent structural damage.

3. Validates Soil Improvement Techniques

If the soil is weak, techniques like compaction, grouting, or soil replacement are used. PLT verifies if these methods have improved soil strength.

4. Ensures Compliance with Standards

By following ASTM D1194 and IS 1888:1982 (Indian Standard), plate load testing guarantees reliable and consistent results.

Plate Load Test Procedure

The Plate Load Test involves the following steps:

1. Site Preparation

Level the ground where the plate will be placed.

2. Plate Placement

The prepared surface is covered with a steel plate that is either square or circular and typically has a diameter of 30 or 45 cm.

3. Loading Arrangement

A hydraulic jack applies gradual load to the plate.

The load is transferred through a reaction system (either dead weights or kentledge).

4. Settlement Measurement

Dial gauges measure settlement under each load increment.

Readings are taken until the settlement stabilizes.

5. Load-Settlement Curve

A graph is plotted between load vs. settlement.

The ultimate bearing capacity is determined from the curve.

6. Interpretation of Results

The Safe Bearing Capacity (SBC) is calculated by applying a safety factor (usually 2 or 3).

Applications of Plate Load Testing

Plate Load Testing is widely used in:

1. Building Foundations

guarantees that the soil can sustain commercial, industrial, and residential buildings.

2. Road and Pavement Construction

Evaluates subgrade strength for highways, airports, and parking lots.

3. Bridge Foundations

Checks the stability of soil before constructing bridge piers and abutments.

4. Retaining Walls and Embankments

Assesses soil strength to prevent slope failures.

5. Industrial Flooring

Ensures the ground can handle heavy machinery and storage loads.

Why Pick FITPL for Chennai Plate Load Testing?

At FITPL, we are a leading provider of geotechnical and construction material testing services in Chennai. Here’s why clients trust us:

✅ Experienced Engineers & Advanced Equipment – Our team uses high-precision instruments for accurate results.

✅ IS & ASTM Compliant Testing – We follow Indian and international standards.

✅ Quick and Reliable Reports – Detailed test results with professional recommendations.

✅ Comprehensive Testing Solutions – From soil testing to NDT, we cover all construction testing needs.

Other Testing Services We Offer in Chennai

Besides Plate Load Testing, FITPL provides a wide range of testing services:

1. Soil Testing Chennai

Standard Penetration Test (SPT) Chennai

Earth Resistivity Test Chennai

Triaxial Shear Test

California Bearing Ratio (CBR) Test

2. Construction Materials Testing Chennai

Concrete Testing (Compressive Strength, Slump Test)

Steel Testing Chennai (Tensile Strength, Rebound Hammer Test)

Brick & Block Testing

3. Geotechnical Investigation Chennai

Borehole Drilling & Soil Profiling

Groundwater Level Assessment

4. Environmental Testing Chennai

Water Testing Chennai (Drinking, Groundwater, Wastewater)

Air Testing Chennai (Indoor & Outdoor Air Quality)

Pollution Testing Chennai (Noise, Dust, Emissions)

5. Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Chennai

Ultrasonic Testing (UT)

Rebound Hammer Test

Pile Integrity Testing

6. Specialized Testing

Food Quality Testing Chennai

Wastewater Testing Chennai

One essential geotechnical test to guarantee the stability and security of building projects is the Plate Load Test. At FITPL, we provide accurate and reliable Plate Load Testing in Chennai, along with a full range of soil, construction material, and environmental testing services.

Contact us

Phone Number : +91 8056159517

Website: https://fitpl.in/load-test-pile-integrity-testing-in-chennai.php

[lakshmisssit]

Python for Data Science: Libraries You Must Know

Python has become the go-to programming language for data science professionals due to its readability, extensive community support, and a rich ecosystem of libraries. Whether you're analyzing data, building machine learning models, or creating stunning visualizations, Python has the right tools to get the job done. If you're looking to start a career in this field, enrolling in the best Python training in Hyderabad can give you a competitive edge and help you master these crucial libraries.

1. NumPy – The Foundation of Numerical Computing

NumPy is the backbone of scientific computing with Python. It offers efficient storage and manipulation of large numerical arrays, which makes it indispensable for high-performance data analysis. NumPy arrays are faster and more compact than traditional Python lists and serve as the foundation for other data science libraries.

2. Pandas – Data Wrangling Made Simple

Pandas is essential for handling structured data. Data structures such as Series and DataFrame make it easy to clean, transform, and explore data. With Pandas, tasks like filtering rows, merging datasets, and grouping values become effortless, saving time and effort in data preprocessing.

3. Matplotlib and Seaborn – Data Visualization Powerhouses

Matplotlib is the standard library for creating basic to advanced data visualizations. From bar graphs to histograms and line charts, Matplotlib covers it all. For more visually appealing and statistically rich plots, Seaborn is an excellent choice. It simplifies the process of creating complex plots and provides a more aesthetically pleasing design.

4. Scikit-learn – Machine Learning Made Easy

In Python, Scikit-learn is one of the most widely used libraries for implementing machine learning algorithms. It provides easy-to-use functions for classification, regression, clustering, and model evaluation, making it ideal for both beginners and experts.

5. TensorFlow and PyTorch – Deep Learning Frameworks

For those diving into artificial intelligence and deep learning, TensorFlow and PyTorch are essential. These frameworks allow developers to create, train, and deploy neural networks for applications such as image recognition, speech processing, and natural language understanding.

Begin Your Data Science Journey with Expert Training

Mastering these libraries opens the door to countless opportunities in the data science field. To gain hands-on experience and real-world skills, enroll in SSSIT Computer Education, where our expert trainers provide industry-relevant, practical Python training tailored for aspiring data scientists in Hyderabad.

[namtech-institute]

What You Will Learn in Industrial Automation and Robotics Courses?

Traditional manual processes have now transformed into smart systems that   respond with speed and precision. From packaging lines that operate around the clock to robotic arms performing delicate tasks with surgical accuracy, the world of industrial production is evolving. And at the heart of this change lies a new kind of technical literacy, one built through Industrial automation and robotics courses.

But what exactly do these programs teach? And why are they so important today? Let’s explore what students really gain from this kind of education, and how it prepares them to thrive in tomorrow’s industries. 

Foundational Engineering Knowledge That Matters

Before students can dive into robots or controllers, they need to understand the language of automation. These courses begin with essential principles: electrical theory, logic design, mechanical fundamentals, and system dynamics. Learners study current flow, sensors, basic circuits, and safety devices. They also explore control systems, how feedback works, what makes a loop stable, and how machines respond to various inputs.

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs)

Programmable Logic Controllers, or PLCs, form the core of most industrial automation systems. Unlike traditional relay setups, these compact computers carry out control tasks instantly by following logic sequences built by engineers. Students gain direct experience working with real hardware, learning to configure, test, and program PLCs using industry-standard languages such as ladder logic, structured text, and function block diagrams.

Courses focus not just on writing code but on solving problems: detecting errors, optimizing sequence flow, and debugging physical setups. Whether it’s running a simulated traffic light or managing conveyor timing, the logic must be precise.

Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) and SCADA Systems

As machines grow smarter, the need for clear communication between systems and humans increases. That’s where HMI and SCADA systems come in.

Students learn to design interactive screens that allow operators to control and monitor processes, from pressure levels in a reactor to the speed of a bottling line. They develop layouts, manage alarms, create trend graphs, and set up data logging.

Equally critical is understanding SCADA architecture, how large-scale systems monitor multiple devices across facilities. These interfaces aren’t just dashboards. They’re lifelines. In high-risk or high-speed environments, the right display can prevent failure.

Robotics: Control, Precision, and Integration

Beyond sensors and switches, industrial robotics introduces a whole new dimension. These machines perform physical tasks with accuracy and consistency, from welding to material handling. In Industrial automation and robotics courses, students explore robotic motion planning, coordinate systems, joint movement, and gripper design.

Training includes simulation as well as real robotic arms. Learners program actions, define tool paths, and calibrate devices to respond to various scenarios. Robotics also demands a sharp eye for safety, understanding fail-safes, emergency stops, and risk analysis becomes part of the curriculum.

Sensor Technology and Instrumentation

In automation, sensing is everything. Machines need to detect position, measure flow, monitor temperature, or determine proximity, all without human input. That’s why students spend time studying sensors in depth.

They learn the theory and application of photoelectric sensors, limit switches, ultrasonic devices, thermocouples, and encoders. Courses often include wiring, calibration, signal processing, and sensor fusion techniques.

It’s one thing to install a sensor. It’s another to ensure its readings are accurate, consistent, and usable within an automation loop. A well-tuned sensing system is the difference between reliable automation and constant failure.

Drives, Motors, and Motion Control

Movement in automation is never random. Whether it’s a robotic arm pivoting or a conveyor transporting items, motion must be controlled, smooth, and predictable.

Students study various types of motors, stepper, servo, induction, and the drives that control them. They learn to manage speed, torque, and direction. Courses also explain PID control, acceleration curves, and how to prevent vibration or misalignment.

Practical lab work allows learners to connect motors, set drive parameters, and test results under different loads. These experiences create engineers who don’t just understand motion, they can manage it with precision.

Integration Projects: From Concept to Commissioning

Toward the end of most programs, students apply everything they’ve learned in a capstone project. This may involve designing an automated process from scratch, selecting hardware, building control logic, integrating sensors, and testing systems.

It’s not just a test. It’s preparation. It simulates real challenges, including incomplete specs, equipment failure, or changing project goals. The experience builds not only confidence but also the kind of problem-solving mindset employers look for.

Safety, Compliance, and Standards

No system, no matter how efficient, is worth endangering a worker’s life. That’s why safety is woven throughout every topic. They learn how to design systems that prevent unexpected starts, reduce hazards, and shut down when needed.

They also learn to assess risk, calculate safety integrity levels, and implement proper machine guarding. These aren’t theoretical concerns, they’re daily priorities in every automation role.

Final Thoughts

For anyone looking to step into a future-proof career, technical depth and adaptability are essential. Industrial automation and robotics courses offer both. They build an understanding of how machines function, how systems connect, and how processes can be improved through smart engineering. Whether you aim to be a systems integrator, controls engineer, maintenance lead, or robotics programmer, what you learn in these courses is more than skill, it’s your launchpad into a smarter, faster world.

[tutortacad]

Python DSA Buffet: One Cheat Sheet to Rule Them All!

Hungry for a quick bite of all data structures in Python? This ultimate cheat sheet covers Lists, Tuples, Sets, Dictionaries, Stacks, Queues, Trees, Graphs, and more—perfect for rapid revision or interview prep. Whether you're enrolled in the best DSA course online or brushing up for a system design course online, this compact guide keeps you sharp and structured. It’s your go-to hack for Python-powered coding confidence!

Start mastering Data Structures with TutorT Academy—because shortcuts are smart, not lazy. 😉

#PythonDSA #DSACheatSheet #TutorTAcademy #BestDSACourseOnline #SystemDesignCourseOnline