Titan Arum

The Rao-o-Lantern has been carved, and given the amount of Dor shining through, I think I did it correctly! Also, if you want to see more pictures of the Rao-o-Lantern, check out the gallery.

Here's my Aon Rao stencil I'll be using...after I carve one this weekend I'll post the picture of it.

In my opinion that is not nearly enough evidence to say Maribel is a Worldhopper. This is a statement and belief that is generally true in most places and during most time periods. In my opinion you're just grasping at straws here, especially since this is a reference to a person off screen. Maybe if we saw a real person saying something like this, you'd have something. However, it's always nice (and fun) to try to determine who may or may not be a Worldhopper!

Winner! You're up Shrike. However, I'm avoiding Hyperion. Anyway, I wanted to give a softball question, because we're so close to eradicating polio. There hasn't been a new case in Africa in over a year and it's really only prevalent right now in and around Pakistan. Oh, and in case you're all looking for a laugh while honoring World Polio Day, here's a comic that xkcd created just for Bill Gates' blog:

Suh-weet! I'd still argue that South Sudan and Timor-Leste count according to your original question WLIU, in honor of World Polio Day (Oct. 24th), what is the ONE disease that humans have successfully eradicated through vaccinations?

Hmmm...22 countries that Britain has never invaded? I'm going to treat this like a thought experiment. Does South Sudan count? I know that Britain did invade Sudan since it was one of its colonies...but I know for a fact that since South Sudan is now its own country, Britain has not invaded an independent South Sudan. But, when did the research you reference occur? Hmmm... 1) Sweden (you gave us this one!) 2) Stans that don't include Pakistan and Afghanistan, because most people don't even realize they're countries 2a. Uzbekistan 2b. Krgyzstan 2c. Tajikistan 2d. Turkmenistan 3) Vatican City...because who'd invade them specifically? 4) South Sudan, because I don't think they've invaded South Sudan since it became it's own country in 2011 5) Timor Leste, for the same reasons in 4...it became a country in 2002, so I highly doubt they've invaded it. 6) Mongolia...it's really cold and hard to get there and it has the lowest population density in Asia...so why go when you've got a lot of cool things in China to invade? 7) Central African Republic...really hard to get to and a former French Colony, so unlikely to invade it 8) Mali...a former French Colony as well and land-locked. Britain surprisingly left a lot of West Africa alone, other than its own colonies in Ghana and Nigeria 9) Ecuador, there's got to be one in South America, right? And since it's on the west coast it's got to be harder to get to? Unless it's Bolivia because it is also land-locked and you have to pass through either the Andes or a lot of the Amazon to get to it. 10) Switzerland, because they've always been neutral right? Unless they went through Switzerland to get somewhere else? Or get money from the banks? 11) Liechtenstein, because it's small and easy to skirt around? 12) Andorra, for the same reason as in 11. Boom. I must be right, no? Probably not...hahaha.

I edited what you actually meant. You're welcome.

I like to think of it as similar to the whole "all squares are rhombuses, but not all rhombuses are squares." Thus, all nobles are noble-blooded but not all noble-blooded people are nobles. Exactly as Blaze said. Mistborn Era 1 Spoiler:

Then she could help write the Ars Arcanum. She'd probably love using Nazh as her errands boy as much as the actual author of the AA. Steris: Oh, hey, Nazh. Would you mind getting me some atium for my research? Nazh: Ugh. Not again. Didn't I get enough last time when you asked me to steal a few beads from Iron Eyes? I barely survived that encounter. Remember all the blood? Because it took me ages to wash it out of my clothes. Steris: Come on Nazh, it's not that bad. Now, be a good boy and go to the Pits for me? I've heard rumors that atium geodes may be growing again. Additionally, I want to test collecting atium like how the Survivor did it...without lights! So realistic, amIright? Nazh: Oh, come on! Really? Fine. But if the geodes rip my clothes, which they will, you're buying me new ones. Ugh...

When you're buddy tells you he'll be on Bloomberg next Friday talking about zinc and it's crazy 10% increase in price...and you ask him if he's a Rioter or just trying to corner the metals market.

I automatically assumed it was her girlfriend and I have no reason not to believe that at this point in time.

Stormlight Archive Spoiler

Highstorms remind me of a non-rotating, straight-line, powerful storm on Earth called a derecho. Did the idea of and physics of derechos provide any influence on how you came up with the concept of highstorms?

I'm late to this party, but the meteorological implications of highstorms greatly interests me as weather is a hobby of mine. While we may not have an Earth-storm equivalent, the closest type of powerful storm we do have that reminds me of highstorms and does not rotate is something called a derecho. Simply, a derecho is: (emphasis mine). I'd now be curious to see if Brandon was indeed influenced by the physics of derechos when he created the idea of highstorms.

That's...the point I was making. He has aluminum to invest and he doesn't know how to use it, other than to get the whole city drunk. He obviously is planning on investing it in Sophi's inventions, given how they walk away together at the end and he blatantly asks her if she needs money. He's moved on, I think, from using it to get the city drunk.

I LOVED the reference to how Edison stole the idea of light-bulbs from Tesla. When Wayne is at the party pretending he's Prof. Hanlanaze, Sophi Tarcsel storms up and smacks him saying: Edit: Also, I like that Wayne is going to be the number one tech investor in Elendel, after asking Sophi at the end if she needs money for her ideas. If I had to guess, his descendants will be fabulously wealthy and very important techies in the next Era.

Reading the revelation about radios and aviation immediately led me to suspect the Southerners. If they have some basic Wright Brothers aviation right now, we should expect WWI style planes sooner than later. Which means planes that could theoretically fly to the north, after taking several stops and assuming they can carry enough fuel. Additionally, between the World Wars, aviation technology quickly progressed to a point where we had planes that looked fairly modern and were no longer biplanes. In Elendel, we know they already have some version of the telegraph because a woman notes to Innate "My lord governor! We've had a telenote through the wire..." This leads me to believe that even in Elendel they're not too far off from the radio, especially with Tarcsel's daughter now getting new funding from Wayne.

PardoxSpren, I actually believe that Hoid is immortal...through reincarnation. Here's some evidence based upon a conversation between Dalinar and Wit from WoK, chapter 54 that lead me (in my early days on the 17th Shard) to create a topic on his potential ability to reincarnate/resurrect: To me, the "probably will anyway" implies that he can die but recover or reincarnate. We have WoB that suggest he can indeed recover catastrophic injuries including beheading and having his soul severed by a Shardblade. (For time savings purposes, these WoB can be found in the link above). However, we don't know exactly how he can do this.

I agree with you as well. I think it was just a slip up in the writing. It's a stretch to go with it as biogasoline as is. I was just trying to come up with possible justification to the scene, however unlikely it may be. However, if there is gasoline on planet, as Wax claims, I'd be more inclined scientifically (at least using our own Earthly science) to believe it would be bio-based than petroleum based. As you stated, I doubt there has been enough geological time for petroleum to be created...unless for some reason Preservation and Ruin put some in the planet when they created life. Again, seems like a stretch given what we know.

Sure, but you can have biobutonol, aka biogasoline, which is equivalent to gasoline. In fact, you can put biobutonol directly into a gasoline engine without any modifications to the vehicle.

3 questions. Wow. That felt like a waste of everyone's time, especially Brandon's.

How do these work? Do we just watch iBook's twitter feed or Brandon's? Can we ask questions?