#ok i have a confession to make. that first footnote is there simply and solely because i wanted to add a bitchy lil [sic] after þundóma

[exercise-of-trust]

the character dynamics here are already delightful but i did also get extremely nerdsniped trying to figure out how you'd make scrabble work in quenya on a mechanics level, so. enjoy.

my first thought was "huh, is there a hebrew edition of scrabble? what's the playstyle like on that?", since the tengwar operate pretty similarly orthographically (base letters are consonants; vowels are mostly represented as floating diacritics). a webpage cataloging non-english scrabble variants informed me that hebrew scrabble does (did?) exist, but in actual practice it's mostly the province of children and people learning hebrew as a foreign language. (Shockingly, All-Consonants Scrabble Is Not Fun Or Interesting To Play For Adults Who Are Fluent In The Language.) also, per PE17 [1], primitive eldarin roots are (unlike in hebrew) not purely consonantal, so the absence of vowels as full letters in the tengwar is a purely orthographic quirk that doesn't actually represent some deeper linguistic truth. so our quenya-scrabble should definitely include some sort of vowel representation!

after messing around for a while i think i have something figured out that at least holds up under very basic testing:

this board is 11x11 instead of 15x15, which is totally intentional due to the condensed vowel system and not at all an arbitrary choice based on the size of my sketchbook, and yellow has been introduced to the color scheme to reference the finwean heraldic symbols. tengwar go in the big boxes, and tehtar go in the little ones: vowels in the right box, above the consonant they follow, and other tehtar in the left box below the consonant they apply to. (example: the top word in the second image is mirroanwi, so it gets played [malta][i-dot] + [romen][double-letter-tilde][o-hook] + [short-carrier][a-dots] + [numen] + [vilya][i-dot].) to compare, here's the actual word written out:

probably tengwar and tehtar tiles are drawn from separate bags, in roughly even amounts (how many total? do you take as many of each as you place? is it random? can you trade vowels for consonants and vice versa?). this format means you generally have to play by syllable (or, like, CV group, whatever) instead of by letter, but i think you can still add tehtar to a tengwa someone else has already placed in order to make your word work, as long as the original is still a valid word. (example: if the person before you plays min, meaning "one," and you want to branch off the last letter with a nyare, meaning "to tell/recite," you can add a two-dot tehta below the [numen] and a three-dot tehta above it to give minya, meaning "first," and then play the rest of your own word if you've still got the tiles for it.) i'm not sure how tengwar and tehtar should be scored relative to each other but there's probably some complicated rule about that too.

of course the most important question is: how do these mechanics affect finwean game nights? and to answer that, we have to consider some extremely important factors:

this is not an alphabet that lends itself to scrabble in the slightest, given the number of diacritics, their wild positioning relative to the base letters, and the frequent combination of consonant clusters into single glyphs, e.g. the single tengwa anca representing the [nc] cluster, despite [n] and [c] having their own separate letters already. also the guy who invented this alphabet is sitting at the table.

who actually came up with quenya scrabble? feanor? one of his kids? an off-the-books lambengolmor committee absolutely sloshed on miruvóre? whoever it is, they're getting almost as much heckling for designing the game as feanor is for his unplayable alphabet. the only person getting heckled more is whatever coward keeps suggesting they pick a different game if they hate this one so much.

quenya, like its real-world inspiration finnish, is a highly agglutinative language. there are so many allowable prefixes and suffixes. as an example, these are some of the possible inflections of the word cirya [2] — just grammatical ones, to be clear; we're not even touching on common adjective-noun compounds. behold:

you play a nice simple noun that you think is far enough away from the good strategic spots that you'll be safe and then BAM. your little brother comes crawling out of the woodwork to slap on a -lissenitya [3] he's been building up to for three rounds and gets a triple word square as he informal-thou's you to your face. good luck coming back from that one.

"valarin loanwords do NOT count" vs "commonly used loanwords following quenya phonotactics are fine" vs "telvo and i use that word all the time, intra-twin communication is a valid dialect of quenya, stop dialect-shaming us, if you can't pronounce dušamanûðân that sounds like a skill issue, yeah of course we always use these three high-value tiles to write the non-native sounds" <- and the worst part is they do have a solid phonological reasoning for those tile choices

in conclusion. this game would be a nightmare even if normal people were playing it but when half the participants have the equivalent of a doctorate in linguistics simply through childhood osmosis it transcends nightmarish and arrives somewhere in the realm of a flagrant affront to god, and if that isn't noldorin culture i don't know what is.

[1]: "In Eldarin structure every base consisted of a consonantal frame, most frequently biconsonantal, as K-L; but this was not complete or significant without its characteristic vowel (Q. sundóma [sic] 'root-vowel'). Thus KAL, KIL, KUL were distinct bases, not necessarily related in sense, indeed usually quite unconnected." PE17, J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Gilson, pp. 104-105.

[2]: this wild case list is from eldamo, imo the best elven dictionary available on the internet bar none. i'm gonna marry their search system when i grow up.

[3]: -li, partative plural (a subset of a larger group); -sse(n), locative case (in/on/at the base noun); -(i)tya, informal 2nd singular possessive pronoun (quenya, like korean, german, french, and many other languages including english even up through the early modern period, has polite and informal modes of address, and we don't take advantage of this nearly enough in fic). -sse is the singular locative, while -ssen is the plural — if your opponent adds this to one of your words, your only recourse is to start a fight about whether the -li already implies the plural, making the -n redundant and shortening the full word from ciryalissenitya to ciryalissetya, which is still bad but not as wildly humiliating, and if you're lucky everyone will be too busy arguing about grammar to remember how thoroughly you got dunked on.

I desperately would love love LOVE to introduce Feanorians to a Quenyan version of Scrabble and watch them explode

I imagine that they'd make a bigger board to be able to fit 10-12 players and it would go on for days. With bickerings on the validity of words and with Moryo as the score keeper who can't quite keep his mouth shut and joins in on the bickering on wheter the word choice is "so fucking stupid, Tyelko. It should be banned on principle. What the fuck-". Each of the Feanorion just keeps on making up new rules especially after the Ambarussa makes up new words and argues for a whole hour and a half that it "totally counts as a word. Trust us, Nelyo-", that time Meadhros tried to pass a whole ass sentence as a "word", when Feanor took almost 12+ hours to think up an appropriate word to put down and etc.

Because come on guys. Ñoldor? "Those with great knowledge"? Feanor? The guy who created a whole ass writing system (the Tengwar)? His family? Who is just as intense and competitive as him? His step-siblings who would no doubt love an excuse to throw down without getting into trouble with the Valar or Finwë? Scrabble is THE BEST for Ñoldor Family Game Night(s).

I can just imagine Feanor playing scrabble with Finwë, Indis, Nolofinwë, Arafinwë, Írimë and Findis. Oh boyy. Findis is keeping score but everyone keeps trying to justify how they should have a higher score that word. Nolo and Feanor are shouting. Accusing each other for cheating. Ara made a throwaway joke once and suddenly BOTH his brothers are shouting at him. Indis saw the chaos and wanted to put away the game but was immediately stopped. Finwë is just happy to spend time with his family. Írimë is, in fact, the one who is cheating

Edit: More Feanorion shenanigans here! For part 2

Edit: And another! For part 3

Edit: Part 4!

[Edited to keep it to one post. Was too excited to post]

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Further Suction Energy at a Affordable Worth – Evaluation Geek

http://tinyurl.com/y3f7hn5j Ranking: 7.5/10 ? 1 – Absolute Sizzling Rubbish 2 – Sorta Lukewarm Rubbish 3 – Strongly Flawed Design 4 – Some Execs, Tons Of Cons 5 – Acceptably Imperfect 6 – Good Sufficient to Purchase On Sale 7 – Nice, However Not Finest-In-Class 8 – Incredible, with Some Footnotes 9 – Shut Up And Take My Cash 10 – Absolute Design Nirvana Worth: $270 A aspect view of the RoboVac 11S Max. We love Eufy’s robotic vacuums. They’re inexpensive, efficient, and straightforward to make use of. And Eufy’s new robotic vacuum, the RoboVac 11S Max ($270 retail, $199 promotional), isn’t any exception. After placing it to work, it’s clear that the 11S Max sucks—in a great way. Here is What We Like Nice Suction Energy Good at Cleansing Corners Straightforward to Program a Schedule Intuitive Distant Management Nice for Pet House owners Ledge-Detection for Upstairs Cleansing And What We Do not At $270, It Ought to Have Smarthome Integration Is not Suitable With Boundary Strips Does not Map the Room Eufy (an extension of Anker, the transportable battery firm), has been within the robotic vacuum recreation for some time. Its purpose is to promote no-nonsense, dependable robotic vacuums that may begin cleansing proper out of the field. The RoboVac 11S Max is, because the identify suggests, an up to date model of the usual RoboVac 11S. However the variations between the 11S and the 11S Max are few and much between. Whereas the usual 11S has 1,300 Pa of suction energy, the 11S Max has 2,000 Pa of suction energy (pascals are a measurement of pressure or stress). And whereas the 11S has disposable mud filters, the 11S Max has a washable mud filter. Apart from a $40 retail worth enhance and a barely bigger dustbin, these are the one noticeable upgrades. Do these upgrades make the 11S Max a worthwhile mid-range robotic vacuum? And is it actually value $40 greater than the usual 11S? Right here’s our expertise. Straightforward Setup and a Easy Distant Establishing the RoboVac 11S Max is a breeze. Its modest packaging is straightforward to get via, and all the things is clearly laid out. It comes with a distant management, a charging station, two pairs of nook brushes (the bug-like arms on the vacuum), a detangling brush, and a pack of zip ties to maintain any free TV or USB cables off the ground (the vacuum can get caught on cables). When you learn the RoboVac’s fast begin information, you’ll discover that it’s simple to arrange. Really easy that I skipped the directions and nonetheless had the RoboVac in motion after about two minutes. I didn’t even put the batteries within the distant or plug within the charging station, though Eufy recommends that you simply cost the vacuum earlier than its first cycle. I assume I bought slightly excited. The back and front of the RoboVac distant. The bottom has a useful icon key, so that you don’t should memorize the handbook. My preliminary response to the distant was considered one of hesitation. Remotes are typically clunky and unintuitive, and I couldn’t assist however consider all of the robotic vacuums (together with Eufy’s “C” vacuums) that may be managed with a telephone. However, because it seems, the distant is nice. It’s simple to make use of, it has a useful key on the again, and the buttons are laid out intuitively. Technically, you don’t even want to make use of the distant. When the RoboVac is faraway from its charging stand and set on the carpet, you may merely faucet its energy button to start auto cleansing mode. However it is best to use the distant, because it offers you entry to a slew of different cleansing modes. You’ll be able to inform the RoboVac to give attention to the room’s edges, to identify clear an space, or to return to its charging dock. You’ll be able to even set the vacuum on a each day cleansing schedule, or management its path manually with a number of buttons. A Small Vacuum with Large Suction Energy The RoboVac 11S Max is fairly good at sucking. It affords 2,000 Pa (pascals) of suction energy, which is sort of double the ability of the standard 11S. However that’s nonetheless so much much less suction energy than a standard vacuum, which often operates round 20,000 Pa, so how efficient is the 11S? The 11S Max has three totally different suction modes. A “Commonplace” mode, a high-powered “Max” mode, and a “BoostIQ” mode that routinely adjusts sucking energy relying on the ground’s cleanliness and texture. I’ve not often seen the RoboVac 11S Max enter its most energy mode, which is ok by me. Even in its customary mode, the 11S Max appears to be like prefer it has the suction energy of a full sized vacuum. It picks up crumbs, cat hair, dust, useless leaves, and it leaves nice “vacuum trails” throughout the carpet. In my home, it at all times accumulates a disgusting quantity of cat hair (sufficient to construct a brand new cat), which is way appreciated. In some way, it does all this with out making a racket. Even with the 11S Max’s upgraded suction energy, it solely places out about 60db of noise (a few of which might be absorbed by the carpet). I’ve tried operating it whereas watching TV, and it’s hardly a disturbance. That being mentioned, its “Max” suction mode is a bit loud, but it surely not often enters the “Max” mode. The underside of the RoboVac. Every thing is clearly laid out, and the dustbin is sort of giant. However the factor that I respect from the RoboVac is its insect-like brushes. These brushes are supposed to knock dust and mud out from the perimeters of partitions and furnishings, and so they do an ideal job. I didn’t notice how a lot nasty crap I used to be lacking with my full-sized vacuum. If something, I’d counsel the RoboVac only for its means to wash corners—it’s a luxurious. All of this mentioned it is best to watch how the RoboVac works once you first use it. It takes away a number of the magic, however you want to make it possible for there aren’t any bizarre obstacles mendacity round. If the RoboVac runs right into a free USB cable, a cool rug, or a pile of yarn, then it’s going to have a tough time coping with the state of affairs. And whereas the RoboVac routinely turns off if it will get caught on one thing, its higher to keep away from that drawback within the first place. It Cleans the Ground by Bumping Into Every thing Some robotic vacuums have built-in “mapping” know-how. They use radio or lidar to find out how a room is formed, after which use that data to make cleansing as environment friendly as potential. The RoboVac 11S Max isn’t that prime tech. As a substitute, it blindly runs round, bumping into all the things till its 100-minute battery is drained. In a method, it’s a bit irritating to look at. When my RoboVac occurs to overlook a spot, I simply should remind myself that it’ll get there finally. I additionally should remind myself that room mapping know-how is dear and {that a} extra environment friendly cleansing model in all probability isn’t value an additional $100 to $200. Now, to be truthful, it’s clear that the RoboVac takes full benefit of its clunky cleansing technique. When it bumps right into a wall, it tries to run alongside the wall and clear its corners. When it bumps right into a desk leg, it skirts round to attempt to discover some hidden dust and particles. It additionally is aware of find out how to keep away from hazard, and that’s one thing we have to speak about. I Tried to Push My RoboVac Down the Stairs I reside in a two-story dwelling, and upon taking the RoboVac upstairs, I came upon an attention-grabbing concept. The RoboVac doesn’t include any boundary strips, so what’s to cease it from falling down the steps? It bumps into partitions and furnishings like a slipshod fool—will it deal with a ledge with the identical foolhardiness? So, like every good citizen, I attempted to trick my RoboVac into falling down the steps. I’m not ashamed to confess this, as all of humanity’s nice achievements come on the costly of life itself. Within the phrases of Voltaire: “When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he hassle his head whether or not the mice on board are at their ease or not?” The RoboVac approaching its potential doom. I’m nonetheless amazed by the outcomes of my experiment. When the RoboVac runs right into a ledge in auto mode, it merely stops, turns round, and continues cleansing as nothing occurred. Even in handbook mode, the RoboVac refuses to fall down the steps, regardless of how arduous you press the ahead button on its distant management. Upon shut inspection, it’s clear that the RoboVac has a downward going through IR sensor that should be a ledge detector. I actually respect this design alternative. I can run my robotic vacuum upstairs with out worrying concerning the penalties. However, on the identical time, I’m undecided that this makes up for the shortage of boundary strip compatibility. Particular rooms or areas of the home (the kitchen, a room stuffed with yarn and materials, and many others.) may be unsafe for the RoboVac. Because it has a built-in scheduler for unsupervised use, it solely is sensible to incorporate boundary strips to help this unsupervised use. Upkeep Is a Breeze Like several vacuum, the RoboVac must be cleaned repeatedly. Eufy suggests that you simply dump out its contents and rip any pet hair from its brushes after each use. However don’t fear, the RoboVac is so much simpler to wash than a full-sized vacuum. The mud bin is straightforward to take away from the RoboVac 11S Max, and it comprises a small washable mud filter (an improve from the usual 11S). Whereas these parts don’t should be washed with each use, I rinse them usually. Vacuums can break down quick in the event that they aren’t taken care of, and I don’t wish to take an opportunity with the RoboVac. The RoboVac’s brushes additionally want occasional cleansing, particularly in case you have pets. Fortunately, these brushes are simple to take away, and the RoboVac comes with a useful cleansing software that makes pet hair elimination a breeze. This software may also be used to wash the vacuum’s wheels, however in my expertise, pet hair doesn’t get caught within the wheels too usually. As for the RoboVac’s nook brushes, they don’t want a complete lot of consideration. They merely put on out with use. Eufy throws in an additional pair of those nook brushes with the RoboVac, and so they’re super cheap on Amazon, in order that they’re actually not value worrying about. A Few Complaints It’s arduous to complain concerning the RoboVac 11S Max. It really works nicely, it’s simple to make use of, it’s simple to wash, and it doesn’t fall down the steps. I solely have three complaints, and to be trustworthy, I really feel a bit foolish for locating something to complain about. At $270, this can be a nice vacuum. I believe it’s fairly priced. However shouldn’t all robotic vacuums (particularly $270 robotic vacuums) include an app and smarthome integration? The distant management works nicely, don’t get me fallacious, however all the things could be faster and simpler with my telephone. Plus, with smarthome integration, I might management the RoboVac with voice instructions or customized routines. It simply looks as if a mysteriously absent function, and whereas it isn’t a deal-breaker for me, it might be a deal breaker for others. It’s additionally value noting that Eufy’s “C” line of vacuums include smarthome integration at mainly the identical worth, however they don’t have almost the identical suction energy (1,300 Pa) because the RoboVac 11S Max (2,000 Pa). A peek on the 11S Max’s downward-facing IR sensor. This retains it from falling down the steps. There’s additionally the difficulty of room mapping. Some robotic vacuums use radar or lidar to map your room in 3D, which makes cleansing extra environment friendly. And whereas I don’t thoughts the RoboVac 11S Max’s blind cleansing technique, I really feel prefer it wastes its power by slamming into partitions as a substitute of wanting round a room. It’s a minor criticism (particularly as a result of room mapping know-how would in all probability double the RoboVac’s worth), however with its 100-minute battery life, the RoboVac would profit from a extra environment friendly cleansing technique. And as you already know, I’m hung up on the shortage of boundary strips. They aren’t needed—the RoboVac 11S Max is aware of to not fall down the steps, however I’d nonetheless prefer to preserve it out of sure rooms with out having to shut the door. And it’s not like I can simply purchase some boundary strips, because the 11S Max doesn’t assist them in any respect. The RoboVac 11S Max is a good little vacuum. I’d fortunately counsel it to anyone, principally for its ease of use and talent to wash corners. For its worth, it’s among the finest robotic vacuums that cash can purchase, even when it doesn’t include a useful app. Nonetheless, the 11S Max isn’t very totally different from the usual 11S. The additional suction energy and washable filters are value an extra $40, and the $199 promotional price for the 11S Max makes it a no brainer between the 2. As soon as the promotional pricing interval ends on June 24th, nonetheless, it might be value maintaining a tally of any offers for the 11S—it might be value testing. Ranking: 7.5/10 Worth: $270 Right here’s What We Like Nice Suction Energy Good at Cleansing Corners Straightforward to Program a Schedule Intuitive Distant Management Nice for Pet House owners Ledge-Detection for Upstairs Cleansing And What We Do not At $270, It Ought to Have Smarthome Integration Is not Suitable With Boundary Strips Does not Map the Room !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');fbq('init','1137093656460433');fbq('track','PageView'); Source link