Retro Recomendo: Alternative Search

Recomendo - issue #414

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Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started seven years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 8 years.

Better Reddit search

Reddit is often a more reliable source of information than Google, especially for product reviews, restaurant recommendations, and how-to instructions. Unfortunately, Reddit’s native search engine is clunky and leaves a lot to be desired. I started using Giga, a site that returns relevant Reddit posts and summarizes them. I used it to find out how to cook chicken breasts so they don’t become tough and dry. — MF

Visual style replicator

The coolest thing I’ve seen in many years is Same Energy. This is a beta-version of a visual search machine. You give it an image and it returns more images that feel exactly like the one you started with. Some images may be the same subject, some may be the same lighting and coloring, or some have the same visual style. It works uncannily well. I can start with a piece of furniture, or a fabric design, or an album cover, or an Instagram travel photo, and I’ll get an endless mosaic of images with the same energy. Like Pinterest, I can select one of the offerings and then get more images similar to that one, and so on. Unlike Pinterest, I can also create a collection of images and use that to train an AI to find images that share qualities of the whole set. I find I could spend hours watching the endless results recreationally, like staring into ocean waves or a campfire. It’s also a brilliant design research tool, a stunning creative prompt, and a total inspiration. — KK

Find vintage clothing fast

Gem is a search engine for vintage and used clothing and jewelry. You can quickly search eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, TheRealReal, and more, and the results are displayed in a large gallery view with prices to save time. You can also set email alerts for hard-to-find items. — CD

Best used book finder

The best online source for used books is BookFinder. Its bare bones design is unchanged from 1997 and feels like a Craigslist for books. It’s an aggregated meta-search engine that simultaneously looks for a book on Amazon, Ebay, Abe, Alibris, Bibio, and 100,000 indie booksellers. It will find all copies available and arrange them by price, and supply the link for purchase from the source. (In other countries and languages it is known as JustBooks.) It reliably yields the least expensive option for a used book. — KK

Free Smithsonian images

If you need to use an image for your art, product, project, or any other reason, check out the Smithsonian’s vast collection of Open Access images available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. I searched “cat,” and it returned over 7,000 images, and every one I looked at was terrific. — MF

Instantly search 2 million recipes

This search engine pulls from more than 2 million recipes that you can filter by ingredients. I’m not a step-by-step recipe follower, but this is great for discovering variations of a recipe and inspiration for ingredients I hadn’t thought of. I’m also impressed that it found two different recipes for my parent’s homeland dish: Sopa Tarasca — CD

Gar’s Tips & Tools – Issue #179

Weekly-ish access to tools, techniques, and shop tales from the worlds of DIY

Gar’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.

Restoring a 1914 Vacuum-Grinder-Buffer-Blower-Pulley(?)

I wrote about Hand Tool Rescue, one of my favorite maker channels, in the early days of this newsletter. If you weren’t around then and don’t know the channel, you should check it out. In it, Eric restores antique tools and machinery to near showroom quality. It’s mesmerizing watching him tear down rusty, crusty tools, often filled with cobwebs, insect parts, and rodent droppings. From there, he lovingly cleans, repairs, builds replacement parts, paints, and reassembles. It’s so gratifying to watch him put together the freshly painted parts and fire up the device for the first time in who knows how long. Each episode is also full of great tips on restoration and repair, like how to unfreeze old bolts, cleaning and sandblasting techniques, turning new knobs and handles on a lathe, lead testing, and more. In this episode, Eric restores a 1914 Bissell vacuum/grinder/buffer/blower/pulley. As he says, it’s the oddest combination of functions he’s ever seen. He also points out that, given the age of the tool, this was probably the first electric motor-powered device the owner ever had.

In Search of Lost Tools of Yesteryear

For decades, when I was a graphic designer (and after), I had a tool on my desk. It was a simple wooden dowel with a corked pin on one end and an angled burnishing tool on the other. It was stored in a plastic tube with a red plastic stopper. I used it for old-school paste-up (for wax-backed galleys on blue-lined layout grids). It was used for burnishing down the galleys and the pin was used for picking the galley up for repositioning. I loved this homely little gizmo and used it constantly. A decade or so ago, I lost track of it. I recently decided to try buying a replacement. Now, I want to use it for picking up tiny pieces of Plasticard and paper for positioning and placing in scale modeling. This has turned into a quest. First, I had to figure out what it was called. It’s a vinyl burnishing tool used in vinyl sign-making and applying automotive tint films. Amazon shows an exact copy of the one I had (see image above), but what you get is a slightly different tool with a thicker dowel, longer needle, and a vinyl cap over the needle (no plastic tube, no cork). I tried the manufacturer (which also showed the above image). Same tool as Amazon arrived. I know it’s silly — this modern version works exactly like the old one. I could also easily make my own with a piece of dowel, a pin, and a tiny cork. But I don’t want to do that. I want the exact tool of my youth. If you happen to know where I can get the tool as pictured above, please let me know.

A Guided Tour of Wire Strippers

In this very clear, well-produced video, Nils of LRN2DIY runs through all of the common (and not so common) features found on electronics wire strippers. The video is not only a great tour of this indispensable tool and its many built-in functions, but Nils offers a lot of great tips on using the features as he shows them.

Learning the “Zip Tie” Knot

On the highly-recommended knot tying channel, First Class Amateur, Brent shows how to tie two different knots (using paracord) that work like zip ties. The main knot he shows is a modified version of a Prusik hitch knot, common in climbing.

Tour Your Drawers

I’ve started doing a thing recently where, every few months, I will quickly tour the drawers and cabinets of my office-studio and garage shop to remind myself what I have and where it’s store (and what supplies and materials I may need to buy). What’s amazing is how frequently I still find something and think “Ah-ha, that’s where that is!”

Shop Talk

Readers offer their feedback, tips, tales, and tool recommendations.

Reader Rex Burkheimer responded to my thought piece on maker superpowers in the last issue:

Interesting post on your worldview as influenced by a maker’s mind. My story is similar I think. As a kid, I was disassembling broken mechanical items, repurposing the parts for something more interesting. Of course, there were model kits, microscopes, slot cars, bicycles. 

As an adult, I worked in the automotive aftermarket parts world — sales, marketing, and IT. I also owned several retail stores concurrently with my day job with an auto parts wholesaler. The problem-solving I learned in my youth helped me in subtle ways such as evaluating new products – disk brakes! – as they came out. When you understand the design of a sub-assembly part, you get a sense of the design quality and likely point or frequency of failure. This guided my decision-making in choosing stock items as well as product lines. Success in my work let me obtain more and better tools.

Along the way, my hobbies including building PCs from salvage back when XTs and ATs were pricey. I haunted the Tandy surplus store. I was also heavily involved in sports car racing, as driver, crew, track worker, car owner. That led to an interest in machine tools, until I realized I was spending more time and money on machine tools than cars. I spent the last couple decades rebuilding old manual lathes (36 at last count), milling machines, drill presses, metal shapers, power hacksaws etc. while the race cars more often sat idle or were rented out.

Currently retired, with a nice workshop fully equipped with all the tools and materials I would have killed for as a kid. As that shop is an hour away, I have most of the same machines at my home as well – lathe , mill, drill presses, 3D printer, welder. Lately, I am into older garden tractors. 

At the age of 72, I actively seek out projects, as well has help other folks new to the machining hobby. The latter works both ways, as a high school kid help me figure out a problem with my 3D printer. There is always a project waiting for my attention. Currently refreshing a South Bend metal shaper. Life is good!

I enjoy your blog. 

Please Consider a Paid Subscription

Gar’s Tips & Tools is always free. But if you really like it and consider it truly useful to you, consider a paid subscription ($8/month). This keeps me in coffee and potato chips while I am working on this labor of love. If you really want to show your patronage, consider becoming a Hero of the Realm. I will send custom packages of goodies (books, tools, zines, and more) to all my Heroes.

Thanks to all those who have already subscribed. You are the Way Oil on my lathe.

eSim Cards/Good Travel Pants/Airline Policy Changes

Nomadico issue #108

An eSim User Experience

Claudia from our sister newsletter Recomendo just got back from South America and sent this tip: I usually stay offline while traveling abroad and use my phone only when I’m connected to hotel WiFi. However, toward the end of my recent trip to Peru, I tested out the Airalo app and installed an eSIM on my phone. I bought the cheapest data package, which was $8 for 1GB or 7 days, whichever comes first, and it lasted me 4 days with no issues. I saved $40, which is what I would have paid Verizon for a daily travel pass. Airalo offers eSIMs for more than 200 countries and was surprisingly easy to install and delete.

Recommended Travel Pants

I’m always on the lookout for travel clothing that can also transition to attending meetings or going out to a restaurant without looking like I’m preparing for a safari or going fishing. On this recent trip, I wore items from Western Rise to a conference and out on excursions and they’re going onto my frequent packing list. I especially like the Diversion Pant slim version, which is stretchy and comfortable for a hike but looks good enough to be in front of a crowd or giving a presentation. They also make some nice merino wool shirts that are great for male travelers.

Good/Bad Airline Policy Changes

Frontier Airlines may be noticing its bottom-of-the-barrel reputation in surveys: it recently eliminated change fees for most classes, made its pricing much clearer, and extended its time to redeem credits. Details here. Reputational rival Spirit Air just raised its checked baggage maximum from 40 pounds to 50 and like Frontier, increased the voucher/credit use time limit from 90 days (really?) to a year. Usually beloved Southwest was the party pooper: it is raising its fees for early bird check-in and boarding.

30% Renewable Energy Worldwide

I’m always happy looking out a plane window when I see whole rooftops of warehouses or factories covered with solar panels. It turns out that a record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity was produced by renewables last year as wind and solar power became more popular worldwide. We’re making progress…

What’s in my NOW? — Grey Forge LeFey

issue #181

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Grey Forge LeFey is an author, dramatist, artist, and performer living their best life at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Southern California. Member of the hi desert sketch comedy troupe “The Laughing Bones” and resident artist at Shangri-LeFey Studios along with their huzzband, artist Khrysso Heart LeFey.

PHYSICAL

• Wacom ONE digital pen display. I’ve been a graphic designer and digital artist for 34 years, since PageMaker was Aldus and Photoshop was version 2.0. In 2015 I retired from corporate design and started painting in oils again. I needed to get my hands dirty. I’ve done that for a while now, and I found my original love of making comics and cartooning has been reawakened. Working on a digital tablet is a terrific blend of having the media under my hands with all the tech bells and whistles available at my pen tip.
• Instant Omni Plus 10-in-1 Toaster Oven. My huzzband and I don’t have our studio in our house; we live in our studio. A small, streamlined kitchen works well for the two of us, and we don’t have to sacrifice functionality with this incredibly versatile appliance. The convection oven bakes quickly and to perfection, and it toasts, air fries, dehydrates, plus more, and I haven’t even gotten to the rotisserie function yet! Its footprint on our countertop is so much smaller than the real estate occupied by our old range, and it eliminates the clutter of other single-use appliances, too.
• White Portland Limestone cement. I sculpt outdoor decor like plant pots and statuary by combining cement and extraneous by-products like synthetic fabrics and polystyrene foam. The addition of limestone makes an environmentally friendlier cement than regular Portland, reducing the carbon of production by about 10% and my use of non-biodegradable materials for aggregate and armature reduces the amount of cement needed, resulting in lighter weight products that are still durable. I often also use left-over acrylic latex paint as a binder and for coloration. But it’s the cement that pulls it all together, and I’m conscious of my heritage in that, coming from a long line of masons.

DIGITAL

• Substack. As I’ve entered into my 6th decade, I’m re-evaluating my place in the arts world. Maintaining a balance between performing, writing, and making while sustaining an online presence with the wide range of social media platforms is exhausting. Substack consolidates blogging, a podcast, video, and manages my newsletter mailings all in one dashboard. It grounds me to have a central nerve center and to organize my other social postings from there.
• My Kindle app. Although I’m not a huge fan of the Kindle reader itself, I love the Kindle service and have it loaded on all my devices. The ability to access books from my online public libraries, pdfs, scripts, ebooks from so many sources, and Kindle Unlimited, and to have the same content available regardless of where I am or what device is at hand is nothing short of phenomenal. And even better, the opportunity to discover authors and works that have transformed me in ways I’d never have experienced without digital media. Who can be an author without being a reader?

INVISIBLE

When I was in art school one of my profs told me, “If you want to be any kind of artist, then try not to be one. If you can live happily without pursuing that muse, then have a happy life. But if you can’t keep from creating, if you’re miserable without exercising those muscles, then chase that dream with all you’ve got.”

I took that advice and did try to turn my back on the arts, and I was lost. Being an artist has at times been frustrating, lonely, and heartbreaking, but never unfulfilling. I’ve never been sorry I chased it.

What’s in your NOW?

We want to know what’s in your now — a list of 6 things that are significant to you now — 3 physical, 2 digital and 1 invisible. 

If you’re interested in contributing an issue, use this form to submit: https://forms.gle/Pf9BMuombeg1gCid9

If we run your submission in our newsletter and blog, we’ll paypal you $25.

50 Museums to Blow Your Mind / The Godfather Notebook

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 18

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

50 MUSEUMS TO BLOW YOUR MIND

50 Museums to Blow Your Mind
by Ben Handicott and Kalya Ryan
Lonely Planet
2016, 128 pages, 7.0 x 0.5 x 4.7 inches, Paperback

Buy on Amazon

I like museums. I like having my mind blown. I am clearly part of the target audience for this book.

Other things I appreciate about this book: It’s a manageable size, slightly larger than a postcard. It features a diverse range of museums, both major institutions and lesser-known, more eccentric collections. Its tone and faux Q&A format are breezy; the authors are like interesting friends who always have the best vacation stories. And like so many Lonely Planet books, it’s eminently flip-through-able.

My favorite section is on quirky museums: those passion projects of eccentric individuals that produce, say, a Turkish collection of women’s hair, or the Japanese museum of instant ramen. I’d love to see this section expanded, at the expense of the more standard museum picks. Yes, the British Museum and the Acropolis are amazing destinations, but they’re also very widely known already. The Watermelon Museum? Less so.

Another suggestion for the next edition, due out in 2020, is greater geographical reach. For one thing, the book includes only one museum in Africa. By 2020, I hope, I’ll have made it to all of the museums in this edition that I’ve bookmarked (or, more accurately, sticky note-d).

Quick quiz for fellow museum geeks. Which of the photos above belong to the following museums? A) Gopher Hole Museum. B) Big Hole & Open Mine Museum. C) Watermelon Museum. D) Sulabh International Museum of Toilets. E) Museum of Alchemists & Magicians of Old Prague

– Christine Ro

NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED EDITION OF FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S NOTES AND ANNOTATIONS ON THE GODFATHER

The Godfather Notebook
by Francis Ford Coppola
Regan Arts
2016, 784 pages, 8.5 x 1.5 x 11 inches, Paperback

Buy on Amazon

The Godfather is my favorite Christmas movie of all time. It’s a Christmas movie right? Well, it’s my favorite movie, and I watch it every year at Christmas. To me, it’s as close to a perfect film as I think you can get. I’ve read Mario Puzo’s novel. I’ve watched every special feature. So, when I heard that this book even existed, I got excited. This is a reproduction of the notebook that director, Francis Ford Coppola, used to bring this wonderful movie to life. It not only lifts the curtain showing how The Godfather came to be, but it reveals Coppola’s invaluable techniques for crafting a story.

Coppola went through Mario Puzo’s novel page by page, developing a synopsis that would shape the script and the direction of the film. Each scene is detailed with tone, setting, and pitfalls. Exposition is trimmed, and some characters are cut completely in order to create a story that would work cinematically.

The book’s pretty hefty, since there’s a whole other book within it. It also includes a wonderful introduction by Coppola, and behind the scenes photos of the young cast. If you’re a big fan of The Godfather or if you’re interested in how film adaptations are made, definitely pick this up.

– JP LeRoux

Personal Genetics

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 90

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

Personal genetic literacy

Trace Your Roots with DNA + The Genographic Project

Yep, we are headed into the bio century. In this brave new world a basic level of genetic literacy will be essential. That was a problem for me because I couldn’t tell one gene from another. But recently I discovered that the quickest route from the theory of genetics to the practice of it is to inspect my own genes. And the best motivator and context for that is that old fussy hobby of genealogy.

You plumb your own genes for clues about your ancestry and in the process all genes become less strange.

About half a dozen companies offer a paid service to test your genes, taken from cells in the cheek, and provide a rough analysis of where you fall in the 100,000-year migration of humans across the globe. These outfits only sequence a very few points in your DNA, called markers. In general the more markers they check, the better. If you are willing, you can then submit your genetic marker results to the rapidly growing database of other folks who have tested their DNA. A good place to start is 23andMe (see review below)>

It is also pretty geeky. Whereas traditional genealogy is nearly literary, steeped in anecdotes, names, and human drama; this new craft of genetic genealogy or “genetealogy” is primarily numerical: it is a flood of statistics, databases, algorithms, and the stuff of computer science. For better or worse it is also a ferociously technical, heavily quantifiable, gnarly hobby, and the early adopters are sprinting ahead rapidly. In fact so much is happening so fast in personal genetealogy that it is quite easy for almost anyone to become the world’s expert in a particular domain.

So how do you get started?

The easiest way to launch into the world of ancestral DNA is a fantastic National Geographic documentary (The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey) on our deep genetic roots and early human migration on this planet. This informative film, full of surprising news, is based on the work of Spencer Wells, who is both innovative scientist and enthusiastic host. He and crew scour the world for indigenous people with deep roots in one place, asking for samples of DNA to test, in order to piece together our “big family” genetic tree. The best parts are when they return with results and we see the diverse ways in which people and tribes react to the news of what science says about their arrival and relations.

But as helpful as the Genographic supporting material is, you’ll need a master guide to help you decipher the meaning of genes. By far the best orientation to this exploding universe is the new book Trace Your Roots with DNA. Written for avid family-tree fans, this is a great layperson’s introduction to personal DNA testing. It illuminates the complexities of such concepts as haplogroups, snips, alleles, mtDNA, and diminishing genetic relationships — all crucial genetic knowledge even if you are not into genealogy. If you ARE into family roots, this book is will provide you with tons of concrete advice on how to persuade relatives to get tested, where to post your results, and how to correlate genes with traditional genealogical research.

The authors are smart. They realize that news in this area will appear first online and only slowly migrate to paper books or magazines. They wisely direct you to preferred websites throughout their chapters. But their book offers a comprehensive overview of a frontier that no website currently offers. It is a wonderful portal to this coming century. — KK

• But for now, you have all you will need to know if you grasp one fact: Y chromosome tests cannot prove that you share a particular common ancestor with another person, only that you share a common ancestor at some point.
• There are move than 1,000 genes on the X chromosome, while the count of the Y chromosome in the year 2003 stands at just a fraction of that: 27. The genes on the X chromosome have little or nothing to do with sexual characteristics. They cover a broad range of structure and function, much like any of the autosomes.
  The Y chromosome acts like a switch — if it is present, the baby will be a male. Genes restricted to the Y chromosome could hardly be essential for life and health, else the female of the species would disappear. Classical genetics has never identified any traits or diseases linked to the Y chromosome, so there is no need to fear that sharing DNA results will impact the ability to obtain health insurance.?
• Haplotype Diversity
  How often will two random Smiths match each other just by accident?
  Just as surnames can be very common or very rare, haplotypes are found in different frequencies. In the database at www.yhrd.org, which has more than 24,000 records tested at nine markers, the single most frequent haplotype occurs in less than 3 percent of the population, so even that could not be called common in the absolute sense. Many haplotypes occur just once — more than 40 percent of the records, in fact. Every time a new set of data is added to the database, novel haplotypes are discovered.
  Haplotype diversity can be quantified. The chance that two men chosen at random will match each other on all nine markers is less than two in a thousand. You can rule out a lot of false trails that way, and if two Smiths match, it’s probably not just a coincidence.
  Adding more markers increases the diversity: Some of the men who match on nine markers will differ on a 10th marker.
• We’re not going to sugarcoat it. Talking strangers into handing over their DNA — and hopefully, some money — is not the easiest of tasks. Presumably, it will become easier over time as genetic genealogy becomes as widely known as traditional research. At least then, those you contact will know that this is a normal activity that everyday human beings do with some regularity, and there will no longer be a need to educate people about the very existence of this kind of testing. But it’s best to prepare as if the person you’re about to call, write, or e-mail has never heard of genetealogy.
• You can recruit people in two ways — by finding them or by making it easier for them to find you. We refer to the detective work associated with seeking out appropriate candidates as “reverse genealogy” since it usually involves tracing lines from the past to the present. Traditionally, we’re trained to start with ourselves and work back through the generations, but conducting a DNA project often requires the reverse. You may, for instance, be trying to find possible descendants of a German immigrant who came to Pennsylvania in the 1700s.
• Please don’t make the mistake of testing in the hope of stumbling onto something interesting! In the future, when large numbers of people have been tested and accessible DNA databases are exploding with samples, the odds will improve that a random person could get tested and discover something interesting, such as a surprise match with a stranger. But we’re not quite there yet.

Deep ancestry

23andMe

Getting your genes sequenced won’t revolutionize your health right now. It’s still too early in the science. However, knowing your genes is a great way to explore your ancestral genealogy. 23andMe began selling inexpensive gene sequencing kits for health perspectives but customers showed greater interest in using genes to delve into their ancestry. For $99 you can learn a lot — and maybe gain some personal health insights too. There’s now 200,000 members of 23andMe, plus tens of thousands others around the world, making links to genetic relatives likely. Once you surrender some spit into the kit and get your gene sequences, you can map, share and research your genes’ path through time. More than just recent generations, your gene haplotypes will inform you about deeper connections in the human family tree. I learned from 23andMe tests that my maternal haplogroup is related to Otzi the Ice Man from the Alps, and Druze and Kurds in the mid-East. And my paternal haplogroup is related to an Irish King of the 4th and 5th centuries. More research keeps turning up more interesting connections. If I want, I can connect to other testers on the site sharing the same haplogroups. I’m now encouraging my larger family to participate in this adventure. — KK

• Haplogroup K1
  Ötzi the Ice Man was discovered in 1991, protruding from a snow-bank high in the Alps near the Austrian- Italian border. His 5,300-year-old remains turned out to be so well preserved that researchers were able to construct a detailed account of his life and death. They have also determined that his maternal line was derived from haplogroup K, which remains common in Alpine populations today….A few branches of haplogroup K, such as K1a9, K2a2a, and K1a1b1a,are specific to Jewish populations and especially to Ashkenazi Jews, whose roots lie in central and eastern Europe. These branches of haplogroup K are found at levels of 30% among Ashkenazi. But they are also found at lower levels in Jewish populations from the Near East and Africa, and among Sephardic Jews who trace their roots to medieval Spain. That indicates an origin of those K haplogroup branches in the Near East before 70 AD, when the Roman destruction of Jerusalem scattered the Jewish people around the Mediterranean and beyond.
• Haplogroup R1b1b2a1a2f2
  R1b1b2a1a2f2 reaches its peak in Ireland, where the vast majority of men carry Y-chromosomes belonging to the haplogroup. Researchers have recently discovered that a large subset of men assigned to the haplogroup may be direct male descendants of an Irish king who ruled during the 4th and early 5th centuries. According to Irish history, a king named Niall of the Nine Hostages established the Ui Neill dynasty that ruled the island country for the next millennium. Northwestern Ireland is said to have been the core of Niall’s kingdom; and that is exactly where men bearing the genetic signature associated with him are most common. About 17% of men in northwestern Ireland have Y-chromosomes that are exact matches to the signature, and another few percent vary from it only slightly. In New York City, a magnet for Irish immigrants during the 19th and early 20th century, 2% of men have Y-chromosomes matching the Ui Neill signature. Genetic analysis suggests that all these men share a common ancestor who lived about 1,700 years ago. Among men living in northwestern Ireland todaythat date is closer to 1,000 years ago. Those dates neatly bracket the era when Niall is supposed to have reigned.

What’s in my NOW? — Grey Forge LeFey