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.
⁂
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
Rogue Albatross Mackenzie "Mack" Titania Vermilion is the 21st pilot of Garland Vermilion, ancestral frame of House Vermilion, known as the Divine Engine Ancestor.
House Vermilion has dedicated itself to a generation spanning goal; the absolute destruction of the Karrakin Baronies.
Fly True - Motto of House Vermilion
This has been a historical source of friction between the Albatross and House Vermilion, nominally allied against the Baronies. Vermilion has produced some of the greatest Albatross to ever live, as well as some of its most conflicted.
Every scion of Vermilion that becomes an Albatross bears the same burden. Balancing the imperfect reality of the Albatross' ideals, Vermilion's ancient grudge, and the expectations of stewarding the Divine Engine Ancestor. With Mackenzie, its latest champion, that delicate balance has finally broken.
Could you draw Kanako watching cartoons with Axis?
I really like to see them as siblings.
I've been wanting to draw them doing sibling stuff for so longgg 😭
> Quick question, what do you get when you take a chernobyl like accident, and make it frickin Global? Well ask the Vestals, because something like that happened to them around 6 years before the "Convergence".
> You'll see, for context, Vestal (The planet) is a highly geologically active rock, in which the vestals had to build an artificial crust with several facilities to keep it habitable. For this, there are sector Administrators that are in charge of certain facilities (Atmosphere controllers, earthquake nullifiers, etc) which are so big that you may consider them entire countries. Appart from that, there are several extraction colonies around the system that are taken with near the same importance as the facilities on the Homeworld.
> Now, Vestal Goverment works more like a Company administration, with a CEO on the top alongside a board of directors in charge of sector administration. Each one has different offices that are in charge of stuff like vestal resources, logistics, sector security, etc. And though this rigid model has worked for them at the begining, when everyone was trying to stablish an actual homeplanet, it more than falls appart on current times. Since the strict control of these resources had become less nessesary, several bussiness and companies had started to form, with demands that the Directors of each sector want to fullfill (partialy because they have a stake in said businesses)
> This colission between the interests of the sectors at Vestal fighting for more resource input, the colonies being unable to meet the demand and the people rioting for more private goods; created a tense atmosphere that prompted sabotages between these entities. But it finally exploted when a mayor failure ocurred on several key facilities that provoked massive dissasters that would be known as “The Blackout”. Several cities suffered from things like abrupt changes in gravity, to earthquakes, hurricanes and even being bathed in radiation. It is unknown yet if it was a failure on the AIs used there or if it was an intentional sabotage, but no one has been made responsible of it.
> The dissaster ended up with millions dead, as well as entire sectors of the planet left inhabitable as of today, with the rest struggling to adapt to the influx of refugees and a shortage on resources. The current High Administrator Zenoheld has done his best to stop the crisis from getting worse, but with the loss of his wife on a ship crash during the Blackout, he has become overburdened by the discussions between the directors who are fighting to see what to prioritize their resources in.
> Though six years later, a light of hope would came through in the form of cards falling from the sky, with a promise of a solution to finally recover from the crisis.
*Note one: Even though I can understand Zenoheld as the head of state that makes the important decitions like a King, I really don’t like the royal aspect on an advanced civilization like this. So by making him more like a CEO, it can still be a government centered around a main figure, but this time he Has to respond to a board that can collectively decide to depose of him if he underperforms.
*Note two: Another thing that I think it’s hard to believe is that Vestal’s overpopulation problem can’t be solved in another way.other than invading a planet… on another universe… with clearly sentient and hostile native life. So, this time the problem makes more sense, since they can’t just leave their system due to their location far from other stars. And even if they could build more city-stations around their system, people don’t want to, creating a conflict between recovering the danger zones and wanting to move the people to space, that end up in a stale situation that only creates more tension (AKA Spaaaaace Bureocracyyyyyy!)
An Unofficial Map of the Boiling Isles- Created after immense research into the Geography and Lore of the Boiling Isles. I spent SO much time and effort on this, both combing through episodes, and the lengthy art process. But I think it paid off.
R.I.P. Dirtbag
Rest in peace you fat garbage child
Hey, d'you want to hear a horrifying Episode Echoes theory?
y'know we've had a lore book entry stating varying encounters with the Vex on Nessus and how weird they're behaving - like a Guardian saying they swore one was making sandcastles etc. kind of weird and almost childlike. And other reports have talked about how the Vex are spontaneously changing, adapting, learning, in a way that is wholly new for them?
so... remember that fucking weird Swarmers lore from Lightfall?
The CloudArk and Neomuna in the early days was being attacked by the Vex though they didn't know then it was the Vex. They were approached by an Axis Mind named Aesop, which offered to help them in exchange for their loyalty. When they refused... the children's connection to the CloudArk was severed which presumably killed them?
It's a nursery rhyme, so isn't going to be 100% historically accurate - it could well be entirely allegorical.
But I can't help but think about the minds of the children and if they got stuck inside the Vex network rather than outright dying...
And some part of them is now inhabiting the Vex...
Actually thinking about it... the Swarmers nursery rhyme is essentially the story of the Pied Piper, who killed the rats in Hamelin, and when they refused the promised payment, lured the children away with music (often implied to be magical, so the children couldn't resist).
Kind of like the Conductor did with Saint...
banjo and shamisen
Vee redesign for my AU, 'Snakes and Mirrors'.
Look at this little happy childhood haver (her ass is unaware of the horrors behind her creation).
kinda been in an animating(animaticing?) mood lately