More small gains

There hasn't been much progress on my various topics in information representation, but I think I'm going to switch the order and consider characters ahead of numbers. One reason is that characters are more general, but the other is that usually, each of them takes up smaller space. I'm running across character strings more and more often in my reviews of Assembly language and C++.
I haven't made a whole lot of progress in the hardware, but I'm starting to inch into it, especially in considering video in more detail.
I'm also starting to get a little more detail on the BIOS services.
I'm getting a reasonable, workable picture of assembly. I have enough of the syntax organized to be useful, and I'm familiar with the basic data types. There are still some assembler directives to work on, but I'm making progress on program structure, and on the maechanics.
There's been less progress on BASIC or C, but still a little.

I got an Assembler version of the program I did working (though I had to look at the results in the debugger, since I still don't have output routines). I also got a BASIC Version and a C version working and running.
One of the differences between Assembly language and C is that the roles of the various operators and expressions is different. In Assembly, all the operators are applied and expressions evaluated at assembly time. In C, most of the operators are applied and expressions evaluated at run-time.

Small gains

My explorations in the the explanation of video hardware and its operation today were uninspiring, especially since my principal source is seriously outdated. I use it because I want to learn the basics, the older way, in order to see how things have changed or improved.
I did a little more digging into the BIOS. I'd written down a number of the interrupt vectors, and in the process of checking them over, I found that several of them had changed: that is, there were different values in the segment part of the address. I'm not sure what the pattern is. I haven't actually tried disassembling any of them yet, although I may get around to doing that.
I did a little more organization of my notes on assembler syntax and the operations used by the assembler; Directives including symbol definition (the equates, giving names to constants ) and data definition are getting attention. Assembly language devotes more resources to the to the size of its variable than their contents, which are left up to the programmer. As far as assembly instructions I am considering mostly (unsigned, single byte or word) addition, and I'm trying to get a better handle on the various addressing modes used by the instructions. I'm also starting to work on the unconditional and conditional jumps and the call instructions.
I touched only lightly on Basic programming, with a look at the assignment (let) statement.
In C programming, I made little progress in any any one area, but more significant progress in others. The distinction between integer and floating point types is significant, again with most of the emphasis given to the integer types. Well. I'd like to have a better look at floating point arithmetic, but it's not really critical at the moment.
I also gathered some information on the phases of programming design. In the middle, implement (build) or coding stage, I sorted these out into comments; the use of descriptive names for variables and routines, and the formatting of programs, such as indentation and spacing.
I finally decided to group the execution of the program with the last phase: testing and maintenance. This is because in translated language, the assembler and compiler usually turn up a batch of syntax errors, which must be fixed. Then there are linker errors, and finally the logical errors; in which the computer finally does exactly what you told it to do, which is not necessarily the same as what you meant to tell it to do. Testing to uncover hidden bugs is a more advanced process.

I thought I'd try to implement the programming cycle for a problem I borrowed from one of my physics texts. If a man runs a four minute mile, what is his average speed in miles per hour and feet per second? The design wasn't hard for such a trivial problem, but exposed a number of difficulties.
First, in the assembler, I didn't have output methods. I know how to print a character or a string, but a number has to be translated to a character or string in order to display it. Second, several assumptions wound up being hard-coded into the program. I need to go back and document these before I do an updated version.
Methods for doing output are part of the language in BASIC: what was lacking was facilities for defining symbolic constants. Conversion factors "Feet per mile", "minutes per second", Seconds per minute" so I had to use constants.
The version I was best pleased with was the C version. I haven't tried running either the BASIC or the C version of the program yet: I was happy to get through the writing phase.

The answers are 15 mph and 22 ft per second: sure I can do it by hand, but the question is, can I get the computer to do it? Then, for any given distance? Any given time? Distances, time, and speed given in whatever units I like? Then, what if the speed and distance or given, or speed and time? And what if the speed varies? What about other physical quantities,
While the programs may be trivial, they are first steps toward a larger goal. One of the reasons I faltered in my progress in science was that I hated the drudge work of doing conversions between systems of units. If I can get the computer to do it for me, I can go on to more interesting concepts. At least, that's the idea.

They still work

Late last night I picked one of my books on numerical methods in C, and found a reference to how floating point numbers are treated in the PC family. I was looking for information on how they are formatted for calculations on the old 8087 math coproccessor and its descendants which were incorporated into later Intel processors, but I didn't find it. I didn't fund as much as I wanted to on numerical methods in general, but I do have book back in Nebraska on the subject. However, information on floating point calculations at the machine level is pretty sparse in all my available materials.

Most of what I looked carefully at in C was rehashing things I've already studied, and likewise with C, Progress in assembly also fairly minimal. I'm inching toward being able to use the BIOS routines, which also brings in looking at the interrupt vector table in low memory.
The larger accomplishment came in testing out the mechanics of programming on the three languages I am working on right now.

The night before last I downloaded Turbo C from the internet, and in the process of trying to set it up, accidentally erased everything that wasn't in a separate directory from my C: drive. I tried to undelete it, and found that Win98 doesn't include the undelete command that Dos 5 used to, and since I hadn't gone through the recycle bin. Those files may be theoretically recoverable, but I'm not counting on it. But they included the autoexec.bat file, which set up my assembler TASM for use: I'm not big on mixing working files with those that the assembler itself uses, so I uses a separate work directory. I also recall a config.sys file, which I think tells DOS how to set up my CD, but I may be able to get that back another way. On the positive side, I did get Turbo C set up.

So, I tried everything out. I had several sample programs available for testing: Assembly language. I also had some experience with what can go wrong with assembly language: First, about four typos kept the program from a program from assembling at all, then it wouldn't terminate properly. I rebooted in DOS mode and tried it there, and after it did what it was supposed to, instead of quitting like a well behaved program should, it started giving me garbage on the screen. The, after a keypress, more garbage. What??? So after another reboot, I went back to the source (for the fourth time.. and found it. Instead of the DOS exit routine at interrupt 21 hex, I had sent it to 21 decimal, which was used on the original IBM-PC to set up for cassette tape services. I have no idea what that routine does now except Nothing Good if you call on it by accident.

The trial of BASIC (GW BASIC if you must know) worked well, except for my dyslexia of the fingers, until I was done and wanted to exit the interpreter. Quit didn't work. Exit didn't work. Bye didn't work. Stop didn't work. So another reboot and a hunt on the Internet for the documentation I'd noticed but glanced over last week. Oh. System is the magic word. Well, that wouldn't have occurred to me.
The trial of Turbo C worked better. I This was the compiler I used to learn C, so I was already roughly familiar with its quirks (once I remembered how to send the compiler output into my working directory instead of mixing it up with the compiler's own files). One of the sample programs used an escape code to create a "beep" sound. So, I wondered, will I get a beep?
No such luck. Down with the beepy DOS, up with the musical"Windows" sound. Could I get something else?...maybe, if wanted to do it bad enough to figure out how.
So, I've refreshed myself on the mechanics. Now, If I only had some creativity...

Moving on to physics, I did a little review of mechanics and the mathematical preliminaries. This is the kind of thing that tends to lead me off on tangents, so I'll mention it more later.
Sometime way back when, I picked up a copy of the chemistry textbook I used in high school. No, the fundamentals of chemistry haven't changed as much in 40 years as the state of the art in computer hardware, but a glance through the contents suggested that some concepts I've been a bit fuzzy about are more clearly explained there than in some more recent college-level textbooks.

I've noticed that I've included some computer jargon. Sorry, there's no help for it: I've reached a point where I baffle the beginners and bore the professionals by belaboring the obvious.

PS. One of the sample programs was one for calculating the worth of your weight in gold. So I had to know. I looked up the current price on the internet and modified the program accordingly, put myself on the scale, and came up at just under 5 million dollars.

Back from hiatus

For the past month I've added nothing to this blog, because I've been intensively involved in, well, a self-education (or rather re-education) project. My brother has sent me some of my personal library which has been sitting in his garage in Nebraska, and it included about half my computer programming reference library. Another box of books included most of my physics and chemistry references.
So, I've been absorbed in reviewing my computer programming. My skills are old and rusty and somewhat behind the times..actually, I've been 5-10 years behind the technology since the 1970s, and struggle to catch up. I've updated the "About" page on the SKB site to include more of my intellectual history, as well as links to my studies on logic and science fictional world building. I intend to create a "Poor Man's Computing" page to include information on older languages and systems that have been abandoned by the Micro$oft empire in its pursued of the latest and best technology.
Also, since I have my physics and chemistry references now available, I may be doing more work on those sections rather than the history which has been my primary interest for the past while.

More nations

I;ve added several nations to the knowledge base, and in the process reached a milestone. I've been unhappy with my division of "latin peoples" for some time, but I wanted ten in the category before I split it. I finally reached that, so my studies of Western civilization will now go rather better.

Countries

One of the frustrating things about trying to do history or intnernational studies of any kind is that I've been adding countries in pretty much strict order of population. That isn't working. Some of the historically most interesting countries, for instance those with a long written history or widespread international political or economical influence, are not the most populous. That means thas that the practical utility of the knowledge base is badly crippled: I can't even talk intelligently about the early 20th century of India without reference to the British empire, or Indonesia without the Netherlands, and although there are plenty of nations in Latin America, I haven't had enough of them listed to distinguish french-speaking from portuguse-speaking countries.
I did some connecting of biographies to the particular 20 year periods of the 19th century, and some additional connections of biographies to particular individuals. I know from having done this analysis before that with my current listing, this is going to be rather heavily biased toward 19th century Britain. Fine, I can fix that by looking more carefully at other nations and periods, but I'll have a starting point to work from, For now, however, the frustration with trying to do European history without Austria, Hungary, or even Greece is just too much. When it comes to literature or mathematics, or even techniques of building construction...I surrender. Strict order of population has to go. I've been creepy crawling with adding nations: Time to put on some speed.

Science and back to history

I decided to take a break from history and do some work on science, and completed a bunch of categories that had been unfinished and hanging. However, after a few days of this I decided that it wasn't being driven by the actual needs of the rest of the base and went back to history.

I also decided that adding just one nation at a time was much too painfully slow and inefficient, especially since their order of historical importance is only weakly connected to their size in population. Since I don't have a ranking in order of historical importance, and it would be a real challenge to come up with one, I've decided to go back to taking them in bigger chunks.
I started that with prehistory, and found that I hadn't worked all the various blocks of nations back that far. Same with classical and medieval history, although I added enough realize that m classical and medieval overview of western civilization was bad, and rewrote that. I got all the various blocks of nations connected to modern history, so that part's fixed.
So, going into detail of modern history. I started with the 17th century, and went ahead and finished adding pages for the 20 year subdivisions. I have this done for 4 of the 5 centuries of the modern era, and I'm anxious to get this finished up. I'm also inching backwards through the 18th century and added more nations. I started adding some biographical references to the 20 year pages of the 19th century and I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

Still more history

I've gone through the classical and medieval periods of history, linking another nation to each period, and expanding a bit on histories of associated peoples in the process. I've also done the same for most of modern history up to the 1960s.
This time, I've also taken a look at the biography pages associated with each period. I noted that there were a few that I hadn't touched since I created them four years ago. That's an excessively long time to be waiting to get around to it, and I don't yet have a great deal to add to each person, but I'm getting closer.
A reader sent me a link to information to the Archimedes Palimpsest which was recovered and is being examined by scholars. If I were interested in the detailed parsing of Greek mathematical text (a fantasy which has occured to me at various times), I would love to follow it up more closely. For now, I'm just going to have to file it under "Interesting. Someday, maybe, if I live long enough, I might get around to that". But, seeing how long it's taken to get back around to Thomas Edison who has been in the Knowledge Base almost from the beginning, I'm not promising anything.

Another round of history

I'm really, really going to sit down and start going through other areas more carefully.

For now, I'm back to prehistory and antiquity. Although there is some slow but steady progress at broadening the connections to various nations, there haven't been any really enlightening developments: Just more detailing of what I don't know. I have been making more connections to social structure and to families. The next time through I should have a little more to say about religions, government, and culture.

Lstest

I've been meaning to make a progress report, but haven't managed it yet. I ran into a wall again when I moved beyond history, so I starded something a little different. When I got partway through history, I swiched to so a summary of what I was doing in particular other areas, which helped quite a bit.
Within Early prehistory, I added a link to Pakistan. Since Brazil wasn't inhabited yet, it pushes Indonesia into Asia and India to South Asia. I now have connections to all the areas of social structure and change, and, somewhat reluctantly, families. I'm considering customs, language and speech, and (since I've already linked foodstuffs) tools and technology. I could probably make more progress here if I considered human geography, human ecology, and physical anthropology, but there hasn't been quite the demand for those areas.
Within middle prehistory, I added a link to Bangladesh, which pushed Pakistan into Asia and Indonesia into Southeast Asia. Indonesia has to have been at least partly inhabited, since Austrialia was peopled during this period, but I haven't yet found any details.
Within Late prehistory, I added a link to Russia, which pushed Bangladesh into Asia and Pakistan into South Asia. I haven't specifically named Megarh as the neolithic site, but that's the earliest one that has come up. I know that there were earlier and larger settlements in the Middle East, but I haven't gone that far back in their history.

In antiquity, there are more nations listed than I have properly integrated into particular periods of history
To the 5th millennium BC, I added Nigeria, which pushes Russia into Western Civilization, which now has a minimal presence to the beginning of antiquity.
To the 4th millennium BC, I added Japan, which pushes Nigeria into African peoples, which now have at least a minimal presence here.
To the 3rd millennium BC, I added Mexico, which pushes Japan into Asiatic peoples, and Bangladesh into South Asian peoples. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about that country or region in the Bronze age.
To the 2nd millennium BC, I added the Philippines. This pushes Mexico into the American Indians, and Brazil gives me reason to add to South American Indians.
To the early first millennium, I added Vietnam, which pushes the Philippines into Asia, and Japan into Oriental peoples.

Classical and medieval history has peoples and communities connected more than they have been integrated into the subdivisions.
To early classical history, I added Germany, which pushes Vietnam into Asia and the Philippines to Southeast Asia.
To late classicl history, I added Egypt, which pushed Germany into Western civilization, and aallowed Russia to prompt the addition of Northeast European peoples to it for that period.
To early medieval history, I added Ethiopia, which pushes Egypt into Asia, and Vietnam to Southeast Asia. A little more useful was the addition of Dacca, which seems to have been founded about this time.
To late medieval history, I added Turkey, which pushes Ethiopia into Africa, and Nigeria into Western Africa, which was now linked.
At this point, I turned from adding more nations to history into more detailed consideration of particular peoples. I finally searched for, and found a site which gives information on American Indian cultures and languages, which will be useful as I do more development of this area. I also did a little bit of long-overdue linking of cities to particular peoples and a few nations.
I've begun making links from social change, social types, and social structure pages to particular nations, so that should have something to work with.
I didn't make much notworthy progress among the social isntitutions, but in the material culture area, I have at least subdivisions sketches out for all its areas except one, and that should be coming soon. I've also reordered the topics within that subject.

Modern history

Mostly what I accomplished this time around was to add cities to the various peoples in the various centuries of the period, as well as pretty much the same batch of standard links. Also started going into more detail into particular periods, and while several 20 year slices from the 18th century on got more development, there wasn't much new information added. Likewise when I went into 5 year periods from the late 1960s. The next round through history should go a bit faster, since I won't have to add so many city links.

For now, I've started again on Sociology, which doesn't need many new links, until particular periods are better developed. I want to do a little bit more generalizing on modern history. Peoples also require few links, but the history of peoples is a bit bare compared to what I have developed in other sections, so I will want to expand on this a little starting in antiquity. For Asia, I split out the Asian history section from the main Asia page. I'm almost ready to do the same for the Western Civilization history, except that hasn't been growing so fast, and it's going to by noticeably more incomplete.
I had taken links to history almost entirely out of the communities page, since it was far overdeveloped compared to the actual number of communities I had linked. I've started to put some of those links back in, since various periods of history now actually do have particular cities linked to them. I also inserted a number of links to peoples and nations, since some of these now have links to particular cities. I'm starting in on Social structure and change next.

Antiquity to Classical again

I've been going through the subdivisions and, withough mentioning them individually, adding links to human ecology, Asian geography, foodstuffs, language, customs, education, particular governments, Abrahamic religion and Asiatic religion, and social types. I've also been going through and picking up references to cities. There aren't many as old as the early first millennium BC, but there is another one or two in each successive period. I'll be mostly relying on these to guide whether to subdivide particular nations, eventually. In roughly the late medieval period, I've made a few more connections of specific cities to specific nations, which is helping give them detail. The connections to Abrahamic and Asiatic religion are starting to give a reasonable outline sketch of their history.

Prehistory plus

I came back around to to the top level and started in with history again. This time, I added a few links to the main history page: languages of the world, customs, and economic production.
Prehistory now has links to foodstuffs, language, customs, occupations, economic activity, and pagan religion.
Early prehistory has links to biohistory and the human body,
Middle prehistory has links to geohistory, biohistory, the human body, demography, Asian geography, foodstuffs, language, customs, and social types: a significant expansion of it. I also added a link to Pakistan, which pushes Brazil to the Americas and the United States to North American Indians.
Late prehistory has links to geohistory, biohistory, the human body, Demography, Asian geography, foodstuffs, language, customs, education, and social types. I added a link to Bangladesh, which pushes Pakistan into Asia and Indonesia into Southeast Asia.

This time, I decided to divert from the straight pursuit of history and look at the targets of these links, especially those that have more than one link to them.
Within Earth science, there is a link to the planets, within Astronomy. Geohistory got a link to atmospheric science, in preparation for study of climate change. The Cenozoic got a link to Sociology, so that eventually I can start looking at national resource, for instance.
I didn't see any obvious resources for biology or biohistory, but Cenozoic life got a link to institutions.
I didn't see any need to expand the main Personal studies page, but the Human body page got links to biological behavior, religion, and communities.
Likewise, I saw no need to expand the main Anthropology page, but demography got a critical link to the human life cycle, human geography got linked to ecology, which opens up the possibility of biogeography, and Asian geography was linked to science and human ecology
The culture page got a couple of long-overdue links to Middle prehistory and late prehistory. Material culture has been short on specific examples, so I started linking to cities, beginning with Tokyo. Foodstuffs also need specific examples, so I started linking that to communities and nations. Conceptual culture also got linked to Tokyo, and language to religion. Behavioral culture got links to New York City and Indonesia, while customs got a link to peoples of the world, and occupations a link to religion
Within Institutions,I skipped the main page. Education got links to New York City and Indonesia. Economics got an important link to social types, and economic activities got a link to culture that I have been wanting to make for what seems like ages.
A lot of these links were made in the reverse direction as well, so I'm not going to trouble to track them all.

I don't get it

I had intended to do quite a bit of work among peoples of the world, but when it got right dow to it, my energy and interest fizzled. I didn't find Asian peoples in general all that significant, nor Western civilization, or even social chage and types. I found myself skipping over government and economics, and only a token movement at occupations within the area of behavioral culture, nothing in anthropology or personal studies or science. Instead, my attention is turning back to history, and its finer divisions.

Modern history

I didn't see a while lot to add to mdern history's main page that eeither hasn't been, or doesn't need to be added to the main history level first. The particular centuries are a different matter.
In the 16th century, I added or reviewed links to human geography, occupations, education, and social types I also added a link to Ethiopia, which pushes Egypt into Asia and Vietnam into Southeast Asia.
For the 17th century, I added links to the same first four subjects. There would have been a link to Turkey, but that was already in place. But it pushes Ethiopia into Africa and Nigeria into Western Africa, which weren't in place yet.
For the 18th century, I added links to those same first four subjects. There would have been a link to Iran, which pushed Turkey into Asia and Egypt into the Middle East, if those weren't already in place. This is also the leading edge of progress backward into the past. Most of the page I liked to were already in place and developed to where I wanted them, there wasn't much real progress.

For the 19th century, I expanded the connection to human geography, and added one to occupations. The others were already sufficiently developed. This already had a link to Thailand, so there wasn't need to add one.
The mid 19th century got a link to religion, to Tokyo, and to the United States. (The Mexican War, for anyone keeping track). Adding cities at the same time I add nations will complicate things a bit, but hopefully not too much.
The late-mid 19th century got a link to behavioral culture and government. From this point, I'm adding links to cities that ought to be there if I had been adding cities from the start, so Tokyo and Seoul. Adding China pushes the United States into Western Civilization and American Indian peoples: the US Civil war and reconstruction go in this period.
The Late 19th century has links to Conceptual and behavioral culture and to government: Most of the others I wanted were already in place. Adding Mexico City pushed Tokyo and Seoul into Asia, and adding India to the list of nations pushed China into Asia. This was the period when China came close to being carved up by European powers.

In the 20th century, most of what I wanted to add had already been added, but France would have been the next nation.
The Early 20th century included new links to material culture, economics, and an update of links to it from social structure and change and social change pages. Since many nations had already been added, This would have included Indonesia, pushing India to Asiatic peoples and China into Oriental peoples. Adding New York City would push Mexico City into Western Civilization and American Indian peoples.
The early-mid 20th century included new links to all three major areas of culture, economics, and the updates from social structure and change, and social change pages. Adding Bombay would push New York City into Western Civilization. Adding Brazil would push Indonesia into Asiatic peoples and India into South Asian peoples.
The mid 20th century got the links to and from other ares I mentioned with the previous period. Adding Delhi would push Bombay into Asiatic peoples, which would push Seoul into Oriental peoples. Adding Pakistan would push Brazil into Western Civilization, which would push the USs into Anglic peoples, and it would also put Brazil with American Indian peoples, and the United States into the North American Indians.
The late-mid 20th century got the same batch of other areas linked. Adding Sao Paulo to the city list, pushed Delhi into Asia, and Bombay into South Asia. Adding Bangladesh would push Pakistan into Asiatic peoples, which would push Indonesia into Southeast Asia. This has the effect of calling to attention that I have mostly ignored the recent history of Pakistan, so there's a gap I want to make up when I next look at Pakistan.
The late 20th century was already linked to most of the areas I wanted to add. Adding Shanghai would have the effect of pushing Sao Paulo into Western civilization. Adding Russia would push Bangladesh into Asiatic peoples and Pakistan into South Asian peoples.
The early 21st century already has all the links I wanted to add. Adding Los Angeles would push Shanghai into Asiatic peoples, which would push Delhi into south Asia, and Bombay into India, where it rightly belongs, which creates a solid link between a nation and a city for this particular period. Adding Nigeria pushed Russia into Western civilization and Brazil into Latin peoples (Also bringing Mexico City with it).

With this pass through history done, I'm in a better position than before to turn to study of what I call Sociology.

Antiquity to medieval, revisited.

On another passs through the antiquity section of the knowledge base, I did some linking of the main antiquity page to physical geography.
For the 5th millennium BC, I have new links to human geography, to conceptual and material culture, to economics, particular religions, and social change. I added Bangladesh, which pushes Pakistan into Asia and Indonesia into Southeast Asia. I also revised the information on Pakistan just a little, but the decription of findings at one archaeological site reminds me that I need to add links to information on occupations to history and sociology.
For the 4th millennium BC, I added mostly the same links, added one to Russia, which pushes Bangladesh into Asia and Pakistan into South Asia.
For the 3rd millennium BC, I added mostly the same links, but went into specific detail on pagan religions, plus one to Nigeria, which pushes Russia into Western Civilization. I might have spent some time in the Harappan civilization, but decided to wait and do that at a later time
For the 2nd millennium BC, I had mostly the same links to add, plus one to Japan, which pushes Nigeria into African peoples.
For the early first millennium BC, I had mostly the same links to add, plus one to Mexico, which pushes Japan into Asia and Bangladesh into South Asia.

For Classical and medieval history, I added a link to Asian geography, one to occupations, and one to recreation and entertainment.
For links to early classical history, I added the same links as for the 3rd millennium BC, except for adding a link to the Philippines, which pushes Mexico into American Indians, and Brazil into South American peoples.
For links to late classical history, I added the same links as for early clasical, except for adding a link to Vietnam, which pushes the Philippines into Asia and Japan into Oriental peoples.
For links to early medieval history, I switched a little. Human geography still, and occupations, but education, since economics was already connected, and I didn't extend particular religions: I'll do that next time through. I added a link. I also added Germany, which pushed Vietnam into Asia and the Philippines into Southeast Asian peoples.
For links to to late medieval history, I did most of the same links as for Early medieval history, plus one to Egypt, which pushes Germany into Western Civilization and Russia into Northeast European peoples.

Prehistory

I had intended to go through the Sociology and Institutions sections more thoroughly, but when It came down to it, none of them really caught my attention with things I had was really interested in looking at. So, I started over in history, with prehistory. This time, though, there are a few teeth in the subject.
In reviewing what I have in prehistory, I was reminded that I wanted to connect this better to human geography, and with the emphasis on Asiatic countries that's been been given to it, to Asian geography in particular. That subject's been hanging incomplete for a while, so I added an East Asia page, and linked prehistory to it. I also found reason to link to the hunting and gathering societies page.
In Early prehistory, I made connections to Geohistory, and to Asian geography. I also added Indonesia, which pushes India into Asiatic peoples, but that's as far as I was going to go with this, because at this point in history, I'm not sure there was the same kind of cultural division that is seen later.
In Middle prehistory I added links to Human geography, Behavioral and conceptual culture, and social change. I added a link to Brazil, which pushes Indonesia into Asia and India into South Asian peoples, This provided a little incentive to add links to Asian geography to Sociology and Peoples pages, as well as to Asiatic peoples.
In Late prhistory, I added the same batch of geographical and cultural links, and social change. Adding Pakistan pushed Brazil into American Indian peoples, and the United States into North American peoples. Some of the characteristics of the peoples added to Pakistan suggested that I do something I've been wanting to do for a while: create a new page for food-related occupations, History is now linked to this. In the use of sociology in history, I also created a link to horticultural societies, which in turn have a link to Culture that will prove useful.

Classical to present

After filling in more links to sites dealing with the classical and medieval period, I did a little more development of particular sections.
In Early classical history, I added links to areas of culture, to government, and particular religions. I addeded a new link to Mexico, which pushed Japan into Asia, and Bangladesh into South Asia. The link to mexico will eventually lead to Meso-American history, but that still needs some development.
In Late classical history, I added the same kinds of links to other areas, a new link to the Philippines, which pushed Mexico into American Indian peoples.
In Early medieval history, I added the same kinds of links to other areas, and a new link to Vietnam, which pushed the Philippines into Asia, and Japan into Oriental peoples.
In Late medieval history, I added the same kinds of links to to other areas, and a new link to Germany, which pushed Vietnam into Asia, and the Philippines into Southeast Asia.

In Modern history, I found that I already have a number of links to other sites, so I skipped the general page and went straight to particular centuries.
For the 16th century, I added links to areas of culture, government, and particular religions, and added Egypt to the list of nations. During this period, this was under the rule of the Ottoman empire which I haven't discussed, yet, but that's coming. This addition pushed Germany into Western civilization, which pushed Mexico into Latin peoples (Since the Spanish Conquest began in this century)
For the 17th century, I added the same kind of links. I also added Ethiopia to this century's list of nations, which pushed Egypt into Asia, and Vetnam into Southeast Asia.

For the 18th century, I added the same kinds of links to other areas, and added Turkey to this century's list of nations, which pushed Ethiopia into Africa, and Nigeria into Western Africa.
Since modern history is getting another level of detail, I reviewed the status of pages I added some time ago, the late-mid 18th century and the late 18th century. There isn't much to add yet.

For the 19th century, most of the links to culture and institutions had already been added.
Iran would be added to the list of nations, which pushed Turkey into Asia, and Egypt into the Middle East. This division will be worked backinto earlier and earlier periods as I progress.
Most of the divisions of the 19th century were being expanded a little. For the Late-mid 19th century, I have a connection to the US which includes the Civil War era.
For the late i9th century, I added a connection to China, which includes its near partition among nations of western civilization, and moved the United States as an example of Western civilization, and American Indian peoples.

The 20th century is already well developed in other ways: This would include discussion of Thailand, which would push Iran into Asia and Turkey into the Middle East if this were not already done.
For the early 20th century, I added a connection to India with its agitation for home rule or independence from Britain, which pushed China into Asiatic peoples. Western nations were no longer trying to carve up China amongst themselves, and I'm not sure why. This is a question for further study.
For the early-mid 20th century, I added a connection to Indonesia (Still called the Dutch East Indies, at this point), which pushed India into Asiatic peoples, and China into the Oriental peoples group.
For the mid 20th century, I haved a connection to Brazil, which pushes Indonesia into Asia, and India into South Asian peoples.
For the late-mid 20th century, this would have a connection to Pakistan if it were not already developed, pushing Brazil into Western civilization and the US into Anglic peoples, and also Brazil into American Indian peoples and the US into North American Indians.
For the late 20th century, if this were not already done, adding Bangladesh would push Pakistan into Asia and Indonesia into Southeast Asia.
For the early 21st century, if it were not already done, adding Russia would push Bangladesh into Asia and Pakistan into Southeast Asia. This concludes the latest foray into history, but I will be back to it before too long.

More Antiquity

Since I'd started work on prehistory, I skipped over early prehistory and went to middle prehistory. Addition of Indonesia pushed India into Asia and China into Oriental peoples. These are most likely not where human societies originated, so I will need more work here.
In late prehistory, addition of Brazil pushed Indonesia into Asia and India into South Asian peoples. This still isn't a very broad perspective, but it is a start.

When I got to antiquity, I took a look through the sites world history links to and made a bunch of links that antiquity can link to. There is a fair amount of information on those sites that's going to take a while to digest, but it does provide some raw material to look at.

In the 5th millennium BC, I added connections to material culture and to government and to social structure and change. Addition of Pakistan pushed Brazil Into American Indian peoples, which pushed the United States into North American Indians, which is not yet much developed.

In the 4th millennium BC, I continued the additions to material culture, government, and social structure and change. Addition of Bangladesh pushed Pakistan into Asiatic peoples, which pushed Indonesia into Southeast Asian peoples. That gives Asia three major divisions, and I'm still woefully ignorant on southeast Asia.

In the 3rd millennium BC, the rise of bronze age civilization and literacy along with it gives so much weight to material culture that I had to link to conceptual and behavioral culture as well, in addition to the government and social structure and change links. Addition of Russia pushed Bangladesh into Asiatic peoples, and Pakistan, along with India, into South Asia. This starts to focus a little more on the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley.

In the 2nd millennium BC, all three areas of culture had to be connected, and I added government, and linked specific religions. Addition of Nigeria pushed Russia into Western Civilization, and I would like to take a better look at the Indo-european expansion.

In the early first millennium, again all three major areas of culture needed to be connected, and I added links to government and to specific religions. Addition of Japan pushed Nigeria into African peoples, which now have a better link to antiquity.

I mentioned that I'd continued with my review of history.
For the second millennium BC, I added a reference to Russia, which pushed Banbladesh into Asia and Pakistan into South Asia. This also brings up connections to the Indo-European peoples that I'd love to pursue, but will have to set aside for a while

For the early first imllennium, I added a reference to Nigeria, which pushes Russia into Western peoples, which pushes Brazil into American Indian peoples for this period.

For the early classical period, I added a reference to Japan, which pushes Nigeria into African peoples.
For the late classical period, I aded Mexico, which pushes Japan into Asia, which pushes Bangladesh into South Asia, and highlights how very thin my knowledge is in this area.
For the early medieval period, I added the Philippines, which puses Mexico into American Indian peoples.
For the late medieval period, I added a connection to Vietnam, which pushes the Philippines into Asia, which pushes Japan into Oriental peoples and allwes something of a contrast with China.

For the 16th century, I added Germany, which pushes Vietnam into Asia, which pushes the Philippines into Ssoutheast Asia.
For the 17th century, I added Egypt, which pushes Germany into Western civilization, which pushes Russia into Northeastern peoples.
For the 18th century, I Added Ethiopia, which pushes Egypt into Asia, which pushes Vietnam into southeast Asia, before the French conquest.
For the 19th century, I added Turkey, which pushes Ethiopia into Africa and should have put Niteria into Western Africa, but I'm not sure remembered to do that.
For the 20th century, the addition would have been Iran, which would have pushed turken into Asia, which would have resulted in expanding the middle east, except that I have already done this.

This suggested that I start doing for the next lower divisions of peoples the same kinds of things. This has been developed to 20 year periods starting in the late 19th century. By the time I get to the early 21st century in the present day, Im at the level of adding Bangladesh, (already done), which suggests that most of the progress is going to come in earlier decade, which actually sits rather well with me.

Having gone through history, I thought to go through the peoples, add another community and another nation, and see what pushing those connections led to. As it turns out, not a great deal of change to what I already had. Among Asiatic peoples, the history is turning out to be far more satisfying, but that isn't really leading into any deepeer analysis of society, which is where I would like to go. I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm itching to subdivide nations, but since I'm going back through and adding detail, I need to get caught up to that point, again.

I also didn't see much push for improvement in religions, although I had connected most of the sudivisions of history to religion if the connection wasn't already there. I'm going to have to, in the next pass through history, form links and particular governments, as well as links to more specific areas of culture, because those are areas I need to work on.

Since I went through all this fairly quickly, I started over again with history, and this time took the trouble to add links to prehistory. A couple of those have solid information. It's also about time to publish all thes updates to the website, but I'm going to wait until Monday to do this.

In a separate matter, I did some research on the net in Astronomy, mostly related to trying to trach down how the color index of stars is related to their temperature. I'd like there to be an equation that relates them, but I couldn't find it, and access to the University library's axtronomical references is a bit difficult.