A Boy Can Dream, Can't He?

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

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Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Art Help

I redid this list because broken links 💀

General Tips

Stretch your fingers and hands

Art is for fun

Never too late to start/improve

Tumblr radar! Submit your work!?

Using a tablet

Editing software: pictures & video

Moodboard resources

Comic pacing

Storyboarding techniques

Watercolor

Coloring

Color Theory (not children's hospital)

Resources: coloring things a different color

Gold

Dark Skin undertones

Dark Skin in pastel art

POC Blush tones

Eyes colors

Cohesive Color Palette

Lights and Colors

Human Anatomy

POSE REFERENCES

Eyes: pupil shape, direction

Wizard Battle poses

Romance poses

Shoulders

Tips for practicing anatomy

Proportional Limbs

Skeletons

Hair Directions

Afro, 4C hair

Cane use

Dingle dongles: male reproductive

Clothing

Long skirts

Traditional Chinese Hanfu (clothing reference)

Cultural clothes

CLOTHING REFERENCE

Sewing information

Animals

Horse -> Dragon

Snouts: dogs, cats, wolves, fox

Foot, paw, hoof

More

Drawing references sources

Art tutorial Masterlist

Another art tutorial Masterlist

Inspiration: father recreates son's art

Inspiration: Lights

ART BOOKS

Plants/flowers: North America, Hawaii, Patagonia

Art Cheats

How am I only just learning this!?

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms

I hope this doesn't come across as offensive, but I was your post about demigods celebrating greek holidays and I was really curious about it. The reason I personally never tried to write about it, was because I didn't want things to come across as offensive because I didn't know much about it. What I'm trying to say is, do you know any reliable places/sources that have accurate representation of how people would be celebrating it and where I could do some research?

I’m going to be honest, most of the sources are either based in a personal belief (not the actual representation of ancient practices and actually someone making it their own and sharing) or... very misleading.

I can recommend a few sites but again, the info isn’t fully accurate and for some is based on UPG (unverified personal gnosis-- basically meaning their personal beliefs that may or may not have any support by our writings or historical record). UPG work is totally valid, stars know I have my own, but it’s also not historical.

There isn’t a lot of information on our holidays, a lot of information was lost, and most sources are college textbook style or in books. I have access to a few but they’re fairly expensive.

A lot of sources are also conflicting, and people disagree a lot, and translations get updated and opinions change.

This calendar has a pretty comprehensive list of holidays, along with information on them if you click the holidays (open to new tabs for easy viewing). It is an Athenian based calendar, and the site as a whole is fairly good, but it’s also heavily based in the site mods UPG and thus should not be considered completely historical.

This site also has good holiday information and brings up all of them as far as I can tell, but is overall fairly vague on the holidays themselves and do it alphabetically, by the original Greek Names, rather than by date. They hold a mix of very historical and a community UPG for their stances on things. I don’t agree with a lot of what they say, but they have some good resources. They’re also Orphic (a specific branch of Hellenism) so their holidays and beliefs reflect it.

Those are the two big sites that I referenced originally, most other sources would be in books (and I am still building up my resources there). There are other sources that have information, but while these two sources have some issues, many other sites... well they’re either entirely UPG or extremely traditional to the point of insulting the more modern practices and I don’t want to link stuff to them.

Please keep in mind that unlike something like, say, Christianity, Hellenism is very personal in it’s practice and there are a lot of different ways to practice it. All of this information is helpful, but many Hellenists won’t practice them exactly as the sites say

I personally used the first link I showed you as the basis of my Heliogenna.

I should explain more about Heliogenna as well. It is a modern festival, created by Hector Lugo, here is the source of information. the reason we celebrate this modern festival is because though we know that the Ancient Greeks celebrated something around the solstice, we don’t know what. Heliogenna was created to effectively fill this slot, it honors the deities connected to light and home (Helios being the main focus) and the chthonic deities (underworld deities).

Anyways, these are the most reliable free sources I have for you, and I did extra searching as well to see if there were any other sites but no others fit my strict requirements for sourcing and general respectfulness to other practitioners.

You are welcome to send me asks for more information on anything or if you’re wondering about anything the sources say. If they don’t have the information you’re wanting, or you want to know my thoughts on the holidays please shoot me an ask or even a dm. I tend to grab second opinions from some other pagan friends when I answer those questions, or even for my own work, so you will have a variety of opinions given.

if you like crafting and also free things, might i suggest the antique pattern library?

it’s a not for profit that’s gathering books, patterns, and other materials related to crafting that are out of copyright (or getting permission from copyright holders in some cases) in order to share them online. they scan items, clean them up, then make everything available for free!

free things are great, especially when you’re just starting to get into something. like oh, i’m supposed to spend money on this hobby i just picked up 20 minutes ago???

the first time i ended up on the site, i seriously spent hours just trawling through everything. there’s the usual suspects like knitting, crochet, embroidery, but there’s also woodwork, calligraphy, and books on things like how to mount and frame pictures. with cross stitch patterns, they also make modern charts with the dmc colour codes available.

links to their webbed site and instagram:

https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/

https://www.instagram.com/theantiquepatternlibrary/

behold, a glorious cat cross stitch pattern (link goes to antique pattern library page):

[image id: Multicolour charted cross stitch design of a cat sitting on a red pillow with tassels, holding a green ball]

i’ve been doing my homework on how to break into a writing career and honestly. there’s a Lot that i didn’t know about thats critical to a writing career in this day and age, and on the one hand, its understandable because we’re experiencing a massive cultural shift, but on the other hand, writers who do not have formal training in school or don’t have the connections to learn more via social osmosis end up extremely out of loop and working at a disadvantage. 

Really happy to see this at my local library