Curiosity

Guessing from brothers... Supernatural?

"You were given the choice between war and goats. You chose goats and you will have war." - Winston Churchill Some Edward Grey: Choose your poison version. Dalinar smiled, wrinkle lines extending from the corners of his eyes. "Coincidentally, that is the exact same value of a Shardblade. So today, you and your men sacrificed to buy me twenty-six hundred priceless lives. And all I had to repay you with was a single priceless goat. I call that a bargain." "Bilbo Baggins! There are many powerful goats in this world, and none of them are to be trifled with!" "Triple Dent Goat, it'll make you smile!"

Sorry! I was pretty sure I answered you already. While, say, cleaning up the house, music can be a good thing. I don't mind lyrics in my music, but most of the time I find that I have to sit down and really listen before I catch the lyrics and can appreciate them. Because of this, I tend to avoid lyrics unless I have the time to digest them, since I don't want unsavory or empty words and messages zipping through my head all the time. My music of choice: Movie scores (my collection of these is rather small because I tend to be bored by the scores from movies that I haven't seen). While working on mentally challenging work, I find that music becomes a distraction. If there is music, it cannot have a narrative structure or interesting flavor to it. Although Hans Zimmer has some really good music, most of the interesting points are subtle enough that I won't notice them, so usually Inception or the Dark Knight trilogy is my go-to for studying and writing (though math homework, if not too abstract, can be done to any accompaniment). Classical guitar is also fantastic study music. A question that I'm curious about: Do you ever see shapes or colors when you listen to music? What's your preferred genre? (I rather like the POTC scores, but I'm not too attached to them as a whole, since I only saw the first movie. But The Kraken is super fun to listen to.) Amen to the sermon. Mythology? I'm most familiar with Greco-Roman, followed by Norse. Everything else after that is vague associations: Mesopotamian, Egyptian (Riordan messed up what I thought I knew about that) and smatterings of Mayan/Aztec. None holds a special place in my heart, though I do enjoy seeing how each culture takes similar elements I suppose I'm most fond of the mythologies that I have half-made up over the years. [random_worldbuilding] A group of men, entrusted with power over different aspects of the world, become corrupt and divided. I wanted to tell a prequel to the story of how these Stewards (seen as gods of Platonic elements) were replaced by a new order of more abstractly based Stewards (Perhaps fundamental forces or virtues or some combination of the two). Yeah, there's a prequel there. Somehow involving the question theme of how to be at peace while not understanding everything. I also wanted Fate to be a freckled, red-headed ten year-old. [/random_worldbuilding] Um... Bleach... Depends on how concentrated the solution is. Most household dilutions should be rinsed off of skin. If it gets in your eyes, rinse out under running water for 15 minutes. If swallowed... I guess I would drink a glass of milk and call poison control. Yay. Sodium hypochlorite. Re: Your brother My guess? Where I'd last expect him. I would guess that you are a mythology buff. Do you have a favorite lore? What's your favorite lore that comes from a fictional world? Are you interested in any other aspects of historical anthropology? (Not sure if that is where mythology belongs academically, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

"'Tis bitter cold outside." "Indeed, it is a nipping and eager goat." "Fly you goat!" "Yer a goat, Harry Potter."

9 17th Shard Discussion 7 The Coppermind Wiki 12 General Brandon Discussion 14 Events and Signings 12 Cosmere Theories 19 Stormlight Archive 13 Mistborn 8 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 8 Warbreaker 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Writing Excuses 8 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 20 Mistborn: The Inquisition 20 Sanderson Elimination

9 17th Shard Discussion 7 The Coppermind Wiki 12 General Brandon Discussion 13 Events and Signings 12 Cosmere Theories 18 Stormlight Archive 13 Mistborn 8 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 2 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Writing Excuses 10 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 20 Mistborn: The Inquisition 20 Sanderson Elimination

9 17th Shard Discussion 7 The Coppermind Wiki 12 General Brandon Discussion 12 Events and Signings 12 Cosmere Theories 17 Stormlight Archive 13 Mistborn 8 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 5 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 9 Alcatraz 3 The Wheel of Time 10 Writing Excuses 10 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 2 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 20 Mistborn: The Inquisition 20 Sanderson Elimination

9 17th Shard Discussion 7 The Coppermind Wiki 12 General Brandon Discussion 11 Events and Signings 3 Interview Database 12 Cosmere Theories 15 Stormlight Archive 13 Mistborn 8 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 5 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 8 Alcatraz 5 The Wheel of Time 9 Writing Excuses 11 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 6 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 20 Mistborn: The Inquisition 20 Sanderson Elimination

Every time my foot bumped into someone's head a few nights ago (sleeping with 15 other people in a room), I saw this: 31(32) Why? I don't know.

9 17th Shard Discussion 6 Tech Support 7 The Coppermind Wiki 12 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 8 Interview Database 11 Cosmere Theories 12 Stormlight Archive 12 Mistborn 9 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 8 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 8 Alcatraz 7 Other Stories 7 The Wheel of Time 9 Writing Excuses 11 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 0 AMAs 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 13 Sanderson Elimination 8 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 20 Mistborn: The Inquisition

What's the word "science" mean to you? And how do you worldbuild? I can only come up with interesting ideas, but constructing entire systems off of them is hard. Can you give us another fascinating tidbit (or 5 paragraphs) from Edassa? Perhaps a cultural one?

If you could have someone do one chore for you for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

How much do you feel "in charge" of WHIO? And what's your least favorite book/series?

When making rep ranks, did you think "2^10" when you made 1,024 "Honorspren"?

9 17th Shard Discussion 7 Tech Support 7 The Coppermind Wiki 11 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 8 Interview Database 11 Cosmere Theories 11 Stormlight Archive 12 Mistborn 9 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 8 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 12 The Rithmatist 8 Alcatraz 9 Other Stories 6 The Wheel of Time 9 Writing Excuses 11 Reading Excuses 11 General Discussion 5 AMAs 10 Entertainment Discussion 10 Creator's Corner 10 Role Playing 9 Sanderson Elimination 12 Reckoners RPG 8 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds

Have you ever attempted to build a language? And have you ever read your Hindu horoscope?

I have dabbled in Greek, and been exposed to Cyrillic and Hebrew. Greek is easier for me to assign colors to than the others, since I've spent more time with it. I can't distinguish most letters from the other alphabets. However, most Greek letters have similar colors to their shape-counterparts in English. For example, capital gamma is slightly yellowed, while lowercase gamma is dark brown and slightly purple. For context, L is white and y is dark brown. Tau is blue like T (and t, for that matter). Greek letters are also influenced by my physics and math background. So uppercase rho is yellow like P, but lowercase rho stands for density and therefore has a handful of brown and a speck of orange thrown in. Lowercase epsilon is actually yellow-green, possibly because it looks like a backwards 3. Phi and psi are hardest to pin down since we don't have English equivalents. Pi is an interesting case, because if I mean the letter, I get something vaguely yellow green. When I mean the number, I get approximate Christmas colors because 3.14... (green, white, red...). Hum. Transliterations will definitely look like a mixture of their constituent parts, so Κυριοσιτιε looks contains some pink, some blue, some black, some yellow, but the color impressions are much weaker than with an English alphabet. An actual translation (περιέργεια, according to Google) has less color, but will take on more character as I get to know it as a concept and a word. For example, the word "conocer" in Spanish means to know (someone) or to be familiar with someone/thing/place. At first, it was pink (two c's) and yellow (n) with some black (r ) thrown in. As the idea changed from just a vocabulary word to specific idea, the color changed to a deep, crazy pink with dark accents as it became more associated with friends than with the grammar (also possibly because the conjugations of conocer include lots of z's in my memory). The word "know" is still pink (like cartoon brains), but "familiar" is yellow and sunny. So, to sum up: If I don't have a strong enough association to attach to a word, then the word is relatively colorless. It becomes a black block of minor meaning. (For this reason, the steel alphabet is black to me, even though the words "steel" and "iron" have a lot of meaning and shiny metal sheen as well as a slight blue tint in Allomantic contexts.) Ok, I've been busy. I'm back! I would go for the ability to perfectly recall everything I have ever experienced. Yes, there are downsides to this, but I wouldn't forget anything ever. Close runner-ups are space manipulation and phasing through objects. I am mostly apathetic towards low-quality stuff like Heroes of Olympus and Divergent (neither of which I finished). The fiction/fantasy books I cannot stand are ones where characters are stupid and don't take obvious choices, but I just want to see how the story ends since I've already read part of the way through. Here's the general principle, however: I don't read stuff that I don't like for fun. If I don't like a book within the opening sequence, I don't read it. School requires me to read this stuff. I'd like to call 1984 and The Designated Mourner to the stand as depressing books. I respect the former and despise the latter because of their ideologies. However, I hope I will never have to read and be depressed by either one ever again. A interesting case: HIGH SCHOOL MATH TEXTS. I really like mathematics. Just yesterday I was reading through an elementary number theory book constructing proofs for fun (it's sort of like my crosswords). Learning principles and generalizations is beautiful. If the material is allowed to be discovered by the student, then the student loves it. If you just plop facts like a spoonful of grey oatmeal into the student's hands, he'll hate it. Then on top of the dull presentation and focus on how to solve a certain kind of problem (not teach general principles that make problems easy ), they pretend like someone actually used the Law of Cosines to figure out where trapeze artists are going to land. "Oh yes! Math can be applied to every area of life!" Don't get me wrong. I think mathematically all the time and am constantly making models to help me understand life. But who else does that? VIRTUALLY NOBODY! Stop trying to be applicable and start inspiring, not force-feeding. No, not everyone falls in love with math like I did. But at least it could stop being a boring mess of disconnected problems that confuse everyone. Physics is nice, but has been hijacked by calculus. Now, I recognize that math is understood better with more mathematical understanding, but you don't have to disguise it in complicated symbology for the everyday man. Don't get me wrong: I like physics. But my enjoyment of it is hampered by the fact that few other people (that I know) also enjoy it. Favorite branch, eh? Favorites are hard, but since I can (sort of) squish everything into biochemistry, I'll do it. Biochemistry is essentially seeing applications of all branches of science put together to make biological machinery. There are things we don't understand, things we still marvel at, and things we are just beginning to figure out. And it undergirds not just humans, but bacteria, fungi, viruses, frogs, coral, cows, worms, trees, grasses, cacti, planaria, amoebae, and more! Simply put, it's beautiful. (I had a much longer answer, but I accidentally hit the back button and it disappeared and I can't remember all of it.) Concerning the final question: I might not understand it fully, but I will do my best. By scientific inquiry, I mean this: the observation of phenomena, the forming of hypotheses, and the testing of the hypotheses by experiment. Scientific inquiry is important and essential, but not all encompassing. I can experiment and hypothesize all I want, but eventually, I have to trust someone else that something is true. I have not calculated the universal gravitational constant, nor have I measured the mass of a single hydrogen atom with a mass spectrometer. I trust people that they have calculated these quantities to the best of their abilities. I have never been in a space shuttle to experience near weightlessness, nor have I actually made sure that a photograph of a solar flare is not just an artist's rendering. (*cough*dinosaurs*coughcough*) I must trust those who have been before me if I want to go beyond our current collective understanding. Granted, one must be picky about who one trusts, but one still must trust them, right? I trust that Rutherford didn't lie to me about alpha particles and gold sheets. I trust the guy who wrote the textbook that told me that. Scientists have to be, to a certain degree, historians, constantly checking their sources and assumptions. They must place their faith in the people before them and in their peers. (This is one of the underlying reasons why I believe that faith and reason are not incompatible ideas. You at the very least have to trust your own senses and reasoning to get you somewhere first.) Remember, science calculates probabilities that something could happen based on what we have observed. Historians relate what they actually did observe. So in conclusion, science has a place in the pursuit of knowledge, but it cannot get us to everywhere. Every individual must have some degree of faith if the whole group is to learn more.

This.

Could we put that in spoilers? Not everyone has read WoR yet.

Nope. This is a lot more important than the clue gives it credit for.

How do you pick what/who to write in WHiO? Do you have any other writing pet projects besides the RP?

I think the PoV was very amusing, and I liked the implications that Mister Meh could actually use his powers without killing people because they just made him... well, meh. The missing questions are in other AMA's. I didn't see one for you, Random Illuminati, so I just asked it here. Which conspiracies do you ascribe to? Titan: I am indeed a grapheme-color sysnesthete. (I suppose I have made that obvious with some of my other posts here.) Other forms that I am fairly confident that I experience include number form and ordinal linguistic personification. (See here for clarification.) However, I find myself liking the label "ideasthete" more and more, since my impression of my username "Curiosity" is different than my impression of the word for and concept of what killed the cat. The username impression is very similar to the multicolored appearance of Aon Sao, somewhat bubbling and slightly green, slightly purple, with snatches of red and gold thrown in. Curiosity as a word and concept is primarily red, but when used the context of "killing the cat", yellow is thrown into the mix as well (might have originated from a children's book: Kat Kong, anyone?). C is pink/red (not a mixture of paints, more of a fusion, sort of like gummy worms); u, i, and o are all vowels without much color; r is slightly brown (the color isn't strong, but it's not a faded color); s is boringly black, t is a strong blue; y is black with a little brown. Ahem. You have found one of my discourse-inducing/gush topics. What's something you could talk about for more than a few paragraphs?

Nope, but you're on the right world.

No to all of the above. I must confess, I came back to this thread and thought, "What's going on here? I don't remember the hint for these guesses. Let's see what the puzzle is today." Sorry for the neglect!

Could we tag this topic with serious spoilers?