physicskid

okay This theory terrifies me, because Shallan is so totally not ready to deal with Kelsier.

Just saw First Man and while I am definitely biased (major space history nerd) I think its the best movie I've seen in years. The visuals are astounding and the technical aspects are generally portrayed accurately. I particularly love the attention to Armstrong's performance during Gemini 8 as it was a critical factor in his selection as commander of apollo 11 but very few people are aware of it. If you have any interest in space exploration you should definitely see this. I have always found that no matter how astounding our fiction it is difficult to compete with the true stories of the space program for legendary achievement. edit; just realized I should have put this in entertainment discussion

Reading Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan. even better than the original powder mage trilogy. Mad Ben Styke is the scariest protagonist I've seen in a while.

Wow this topic is right up my alley. First I would like to point out that our assumptions about how bad the plague in the purelake is may be a little off. We know that it is the common cold pathogen causing it but if Rosharan immune systems have no immunity to noroviruses then the common cold may be quite a bit more severe than it is on earth. What I am a lot more sure about is the reason they will have real trouble discovering gunpowder is the difficulty they will have isolating saltpeter AKA potassium nitrate. That is the oxidizing molecule in gunpowder and what makes it a viable explosive. Fuels are easy charcoal is just one of the fuels you could use to make an explosive but you have to have saltpeter to provide it with oxygen so it can burn rapidly without mixing with air. There are a relatively limited number of naturally occurring chemicals which can do that and rosharan hydrology probably renders most of them unavailable. Most of the mineral deposits of that kind of salt are found in dried up desert lakebeds which roshar is distinctly lacking in. There are a number of oxidizers which could probably be made by someone like Jasnah but she would need to know what she was making first and roshar doesn't appear to have the theory of the elements yet much less periodicity or an understanding of oxygens role in combustion. Until someone tries Antoine Lavoisier's experiments with mercury oxides they don't have a chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Oxygen_theory_of_combustion

sell. punchy guys will actually become a technical term for hand to hand combatants.

well, I went and got a picture of Phobos from the Martian surface taken by the Spirit rover. It does look a little bigger than the speck I thought it was but is still don't think something this size is going to cast shadows.

As for size all I know is that people describe the moonlight as an illumination source. That means that its a lot bigger than Phobos which is just a shiny speck from the Martian surface.

I've been thinking that really big moons close to the planet are going to make HUGE tidal bores, especially if the orbits are slightly eccentric. With regard to lunar instability moons below geostationary orbit lose momentum (and altitude) and increase the planetary spin rate until they impact reach the Roche limit (which shreds them and makes a gorgeous ring system) or the planet rotation increases and tidally locks the moon. Moons above geostationary (like ours) increase their altitude by sapping momentum from the planetary rotation until the rotation slows enough for tidal locking or the moon is ejected (our moon is receding at about 1 in per year and will escape in about a billion years). There are also inter moon gravitational interactions that may or may not be stable.

Wow. Did not know that, take an upvote. Any idea where i can find that WOB?

So I was doing an Oathbringer reread and when I got to the part where Dalinar went to meet the Nightwatcher I recognized his guide Felt. Felt was in WOR as a scout for Dalinars expedition and I am pretty sure I saw a WOB a few years back that the same Felt was in Mistborn working as a scout for Elend. If I Remember correctly that implies that Felt either survived the Mistborn trilogy and subsequently learned how to worldhop or he left because things were getting crazy. This seems to imply theres a lot more to him than meets the eye. He tells Dalinar that he tried to meet the nightwatcher but that he was to foreign and that Dalinar is "less foreign". Was he obliquely referring to his worldhopping? Why did he look for the nightwatcher at all? Why is he sticking around Dalinar? Is he aware of Vasher/Zahel? I got nothing so pile up anything you can come up with.

On the overlap between the sets <Engineer/Physicist> and <Extrovert/Personable> look no further than Richard Feynman. One of the top 5 most gifted/accomplished physicists of the 20th century and famously extroverted. On the dressing formally while introverted question as an introvert I can tell you why I like to dress up sometimes. Choices in clothing are about sending a social message. Often the message is about what activity you are focusing on right now. I am often comfortable in a button-down shirt and slacks when I am socially exhausted because it shifts the context of conversations away from personal discussions and toward professional and technical discussion which can be less exhausting to talk about.

Jasnah is probably my favorite character. have no headcanon as to her sexuality because it's completely irrelevant to the things that make her awesome. I remember when JK Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay and the world seemed to freak out, I was more like "so what?". the things that made him an interesting character (his decisions triumphs and failures) were completely unrelated.

Surveys don't work on Wayne.

I think they felt that Moash was reliable but of limited long-term utility because he is mortal. Killing/Capturing Jesrien will put him at a serious advantage for as long as it takes for him to win, whether that's 10 years or 1000. Moash is useful because he is easy to manipulate but losing him isn't a long-term loss. H would be dead in 50-80 years if he dies of old age and he is likely to be killed in combat in the near future anyway. Edit just saw the why Moash thread and it seems like we've been thinking along similar lines. most of the same viewpoints etc.

I think that the reason they couldn't just kill Jesrien the ordinary way is that he would come back immediately, as soon as he broke under the torture. Clearly the sapphire gemstone is important, perhaps breaking it would free Jesriens soul the way it frees a spren. I theorize that the reason the fused didn't want to stab Jesrien themselves is that before the breaking of the oathpact the heralds had defenses against that type of attack. If they weren't sure these defenses still existed and didn't want to risk tripping them the logical thing would be to recruit someone they wouldn't be so broken up about losing and send him to do it without mentioning how dangerous it was. This explanation is supported by the fact that Moash thought they were afraid of killing Jesrien rather than excited that they had recruited someone they knew could kill Jesrien.