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In Soviet Urteau, Skaa Ask Everything of You!


skaa

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But we are not in Urteau.

Hello, inquisitive Steel Inquisitors. Inquire away in a steely manner.

Seriously, feel free to ask me about my views on speculative fiction, Computer Science, math, cosmology, Pokemon, linguistics, food, religion, the Philippines, music, and general geek culture.

 

Or better yet, just ask me anything. I'll try to answer serious questions as honestly and as completely as I can.

 

Oh, and joke questions may or may not get bizarre/surreal answers, depending on my mood and your Hindu horoscope for the day.

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Do you understand 42?

Of course I do! It is the Answer to the Question: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

At least, that's what I think. Now, why are there talking mice in my room? They seem to be shouting "The Vogons are coming!" over and over again. Funny little creatures.

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What's one of your favorite aspects of linguistics? I remain relatively ignorant on the subject, but interested. Or, I suppose I should say, curious.

I became fascinated by the history of languages around fourteen years ago, when an art teacher made a passing remark in class about the Romance and the Germanic language families, and how English was Germanic but had plenty of Romance influences. Later on I started reading more about the development of other languages just for fun. I was surprised to learn that my own native tongue (Tagalog) is part of a huge language family (Austronesian) that probably originated from the island of Taiwan thousands of years ago and spread throughout the islands of Southeast Asia, Oceania (including Hawaii), and even as far west as Madagascar. I thought that was pretty cool.

You could say historical linguistics is my favorite, particularly the topic of language families (i.e. comparative linguistics). I also like to read the etymology of interesting words on occasion, though I tend to forget most of it anyway.

Other linguistic topics that I find interesting include conlangs and featural alphabets, but you only asked for one. :)

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What makes you enjoy theorizing so much?

 

I always find it difficult to analyze my own behavior, but let me take a stab at this question anyway. I think there are several factors:

  • I like solving puzzles. I may not be as great at it as I'd like, but the feeling that perhaps a difficult problem might be solvable after all is still one of my favorite feelings in the world. This is basically the reason I gave in my profile page's About Me section.

     

  • I love worldbuilding. I'm honestly too lazy for most aspects of storytelling (which is why I haven't written anything longer than a short story), but I am never too lazy to construct underlying frameworks for the myriad of fantasy worlds I've concocted in my head over the years. To be very honest, the theories I make about ongoing fantasy series is (in part) my way of answering the question "What kind of worldbuilding would I have done in his shoes?" Yes, obviously Brandon and I do not think alike, but this is a fun thought experiment for me nonetheless.

     

  • "There is always another secret." Some people might think that it's worthless to speculate when a lot of the important clues have yet to be revealed, but I see it as a challenge worth accepting. Knowing that what we have now is just the tip of the iceberg pushes me towards more interesting possibilities and makes me strive for truly unique theories. Because after all, Brandon's ultimate Cosmere secrets are sure to blow our minds, so I might as well aim high.
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Why are you just a drab, darkeyed skaa? Who did you give your Breath to?

 

It's a long story, involving a Rosharan ham sandwich, a bag full of ash, a Hemalurgic kunai, and a disturbingly powerful Awakened scarecrow. I still have nightmares about razorsharp hay fingers. I don't really like talking about it.

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Though I quickly learned to appreciate the usefulness of a Protean Greninja (I mean, who doesn't have one of these for competitive battling?), my favorite starter ever isn't Froakie, but a similar water-type: Oshawott. I really like the design of his evolutionary family (sword-wielding Samurott is super cool!), and his base stats are pretty decent. Given that I never use my actual starter Pokemon for competitive battling anyway (because one shouldn't compete using Pokemon with less than four perfect IVs), the aesthetics and the base stats are all that really matters to me.

Of all the starters I actually used, Chikorita is the one that disappointed me the most. I was a big fan of Bulbasaur and was excited to use another Grass-type starter when Gold and Silver came out, but Chikorita was just too mediocre for me both design-wise and stats-wise. I still used it, but I got tired of it relatively quickly and dumped it in the PC as soon as I could.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have you ever attempted to build a language?

 

I have not. If I were to seriously attempt building my own conlang, it would be only after taking a formal linguistics course, because I would not want to do something like this in a half-baked manner.

 

One idea that interests me is the possibility of constructing a language that has elements from both Bahasa Melayu (Indonesia and Malaysia) and Tagalog (Philippines), which are the two most widely-used Austronesian languages in the world. Lesser-known Austronesian languages, or perhaps a reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, would then supply roots for technical/scientific terms in the same way that Latin is used in the West.

 

 

And have you ever read your Hindu horoscope?

 

Of course. Today, people born under Mithuna will have their third eye opened to the true nature of Jyotisha, which is but an illusion. They are advised not to eat poison for dinner. Their lucky number for today is the tauth power of tau.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Are you afraid of clowns?

I treat clowns with disdain, not fear.

Some of the children's parties I attended as a little kid had clowns as part of the "entertainment". The other kids loved their jokes and their magic tricks, but not me. I saw those clowns as unfunny talentless assholes.

But then, I was a bit of an insufferable know-it-all as a kid, and had little patience with adults treating me like an ignorant toddler. (No, I wasn't well-liked by the other kids. How did you know?)

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Did you know I am afraid of clowns? And did you know that clowns secretly control the publication of all newsletters focusing on Pygmy elephants?

 

Sorry I wasn't aware of your fear. And thank you for that information on those dastardly clowns and their evil pumillic loxodontic conspiracy!

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