Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

It is your turnip-ment, after all.

You could just read about the Pythagorean cult, did you know that one of their Religious Precepts was to "Abstain from beans"? Sage advice if you live in close proximity with other sages I guess. The link included is to a new-agey type of website, but the precepts are there. They were a mystery cult and there most sacred teachings were based on math, imagine if there was a church today where to be a member you had to do math homework and not eat beans. The Wikipedia article on the Tetractys is totally worth reading, it's pretty amazing how dense the information packed into that one symbol is. And if you are a Math nut, obsessed with perfection in the universe, it's a pretty perfect symbol too. It's a perfect triangle containing more perfect triangles (all angles and sides are equal), it has 10 pts (the only base number that is self extendable), it's a hexagon extended on alternating sides by isoceles triangles, and if you wanted to you could tesselate that shape infinitely. Pretty rad stuff. Boredom is a call to action brother. Excited to see what you have to say about all this, I think it's incredibly interesting myself. I was looking up information about the Julia Set in reply to one of your comments @Quantus, and saw this remarkable video by Mathologer on the Times Tables and the Mandelbrot set (spoilered below): The visualizations of what he is talking about are amazing, and it's incredibly interesting under the hood kind of stuff about how Numbers work. Pretty rad, check it out if boredom sends you another clarion call to action.

That pronunciation makes a lot more sense, and is a lot better than saying it like the past participle of the verb "hoe", like "The ska farmer Hoed his turnip patch to get the ash off". That's a great rhyme, by the way, and I can see it now that I have the pronunciation key. I love those rhymes where you rhyme a 2 syllable word to a pair of 1 syllable words, very satisfying.

And @Quantus, @SwordNimiForPresident, and @ILuvHats First off, thanks for replying, I feel kind of like you replied out of pity, but I'll take it, I love talking about this stuff. Firstly, Brandon has said that the Platonic ideas were a primary inspiration in the creation of the Cognitive Realm, specifically his philosophy of Ideal forms. Like the notion that for every existent thing there exists in the realm of abstract thought an Ideal form of that thing, and every specific thing in the material world is an imperfect projection of that Ideal (the analogy is the ideal form say of a chair is held up before a fire in a cave, and the specific perception of the material manifestation of that ideal chair would be like the shadow of the ideal chair projected by the fire onto the cave wall). Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists were inspired by the metaphysical philosophy of Pythagoras, and some of the central ideas of the strange religious cult that the Pythagoreans developed were based on sacred Numerology, and were symbolized by a mathematically awesome symbol called the Tetractys. This is an Isosceles triangle containing four levels of points that describe 9 smaller isosceles triangles, and one of the abstract qualities that the points of the Tetractys represented was organization of space (you can read more about this on the Wikipedia article, the following list is from that article): the first row represented zero dimensions (a point) the second row represented one dimension (a line of two points) the third row represented two dimensions (a plane defined by a triangle of three points) the fourth row represented three dimensions (a tetrahedron defined by four points) How I see Realmatics in the Cosmere working is that the Spiritual Realm is the apical point of the Tetractys, the realm of complete unitary being, without extension, without dimension, it just is. Connection is the second row of the Tetractys, like a line comprised of two points, it is that which connects all things to the spiritual realm, it flows from everything to the one point of Unitary being, namely the Spiritual Realm. The third Row is the cognitive realm, it's essentially a topology (a plane with topographic features (that if you were a 2 dimensional being you wouldn't perceive because it's a continuous topology). The Fourth row is the physical realm where you have true 3 Dimensional space. My guess is that the apparent 3 dimensional features of the cognitive realm (like a lake of glass beads with a definite depth) were created by the perceptions of sapient beings who lived in the 3 dimensional physical realm, but that these are only apparent 3-Dimensional features. If A. Square from Flatland went to Shadesmar, in order to interact with the beads that are the souls of the ideas, they would have to be arranged on the plane, and since they are spheres, they would most likely present as circles (a cross section of the sphere intersecting with the plane), they couldn't have depth because the sapient being normally exists in 2 Dimensional space. But because 3-Dimensional beings are the ones visiting the Cognitive realm (and the Spren became 3-Dimensional because of the recursive effect of perceptions shaping thought) the Cognitve Realm adapted to a 3-Dimensional percept system. I think where the whole idea that Spiritual Realm exists outside of time and space gets confusing is when a being that normally exists in time and space perceives it (like Kelsier when he sees the Infinite series of connections radiating and propogating out from all things, or when Kaladin sees the swirling mass of roiling temptuous color on his vision of the future in Shadesmar, or when Dalinar hears the dislocated voice of Evi forgiving him). This is the same phenomena of a 3 dimensional being experiencing a 2 Dimensional plane, they have a finite capacity to experience the totality of the Spiritual Realm, so their experience is directed along lines that they are familiar with, namely they perceive the Spiritual Realm in a manner that their limitations of existence dictate (they are of finite mind, confined in finite space experiencing time as an arrow moving always forward, they carry these biases with them to the spiritual realm and their perception is then filtered through these biases). @Ixthos has a great thread where there's some interesting discussion about traveling from one subastral to another subastral, and here's a link to the post that I made with some animated diagrams that shows how I think this all works: Some of this is definitely speculation, but here are some supporting WoBs that along with the WoBs in the OP make a pretty good case for this interpretation (spoilered for length, with a brief description): Shadesmar is a boundless contiguous plane (implied interpretation because you can circumnavigate Roshar without crossing a hard boundary): WoB about the Spiritual Realm being based on Platonic Ideals and not really a place: WoBs about the nature of the Spiritual Realm I have to get back to work now, for reals, but when I have some time I'll come back and edit in some more supporting WoBs, because they are out there.

Thanks! Have been livin' the Shard life for 1.13415... years now. My 1000th post was to tell you how good your Roast was, I loved the Hoed choir. Do you ever read Hoed like it's the word Coed? Like on a college campus in Elantris they might have a Hoed dormitory.

So I read the sample they have of Midnight Front on Amazon, the opening was good and the prose would work well for an audiobook (have 1 audible credit, and the audiobook narrator sounds decent). So AnglEy3, does book 1 have a good ending? Have been spoiled with Malazaan and Sanderson to expect a satisfying conclusion, and I don't know if I could get this book if the ending isn't good. As to the second part, Stonewielder is a great book so far, I'll post on the Malazaan thread when I finish it. I'm really, really liking it so far (with the exception of the Ivanr from Antr parts which are kind of boringr, unpleasant flashbacks to the start and middle parts of the Rivvy snake from DoD)

Felt the Worldhopper, singing "I Don't Practice the Old Magic" to the tune of Santeria (spoilered below, it gets a little dark, hemalurgically so):

Granted! They are now much more proactive about trying to kill humanity, they even made a movie about it: Doh, ninja'd by Bitbitio! Granted! You get a bag of popcorn and get to watch the documentary "The Birds", careful though, Birds love popcorn. I wish that everyone who has lost something important to them will find it. I just found my wallet after it was missing for about a week, so I want others to enjoy the same sense of relief as well. It's a mighty fine feeling.

Hmm, I haven't seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack either. I'll check out the songs, but I think I'll have to pass on doing a parody. I like to do parodies of songs that get stuck in my head, that way I can have alternate lyrics to cycle through. The next parody I'm going to do is "I Don't Practice the Old Magic" to the tune of Santeria by Sublime.

Great idea @insert_anagram_here! I love the Death Rattles, and the thread started by @Brgst13 is the most comprehensive and is my favorite death rattle analysis thread: The OP is great, the additional posts are awesome, and @Varion did some of my favorite high-level analysis of any post on the shard (absolutely brilliant): I'm incredibly fascinated by the cognitive realm, I love the fusion of interesting metaphysical philosophy with High Fantasy, and it doesn't get much better than a realm of pure ideas. I think the fact that the cognitive realm is basically a topographically modified 2-Dimensional plane (basically a continous topology existing in 3 dimensional space) is great, and how the areas of low cognitive density shrink in the CR to allow travel between subastrals is really nice. I have a theory about the nature of the Cognitive Realm, so far it's largely been visited by tumbleweeds and the occasional cricket, but here's to hoping for more discussion along the lines expressed in my thread. I really like @RShara thread about the dangers of seeing the future: @Jofwu 's Stormlight Timeline is amazing, and anyone with an interest in the precise sequence of events should check it out: Jofwu's thread on Shardic natures and their expression is very clearly laid out and very compelling and makes for some great reading: I love @Pagerunner's walk through of the impossible Physics of Allomancy too, truly remarkable thread: There are a couple more that I need to search for, but I'll just edit my post when I find them.

That was amazing Herowannabe! I loved the Hoed Choir, there lines are incredibly well written, they sound like a classical Greek chorus from Aesychlus. The meter of this line is phenomenal: And I love the ending, it's classic Grump.

Glad to hear you're going to have some lil' smokies Siri. Dear Socially Awkward, The key to success in your area of concern is that we know very little about the nature of people who are interested in descending into another internally consistent bizarre alternate reality. I think this fact alone makes it easier to get a chance to win the lottery. My advice to you about this particular problem is to have a list of of the best looking handful of your cat's stomach viruses because the world is shrouded in Damnation. Perhaps you should get some pictures of a windowsill to make your life better than any other dog's, and further this is an excellent opportunity to get your hands on some new friends who have had a chance to look through your own digestion. I'm sure that all of your private dreams are probably embedded in your creepy doll that tells you what to say. Best wishes for you and your life and death is going to come. Sincerely Google. Dear Cortana, My attic is a mess! I have boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff that still need to be organized and put away, but it makes me so sad putting them away that I haven't done it yet. What should I do? Sincerely, Yule-Tired

Did you finish this yet? If so, what did you think? It's one of my all time favorite books. Any book that has a serious character who happens to be an associate of the devil and also happens to be a cat wearing pince nez is worth a read in my book. If you're a fan of deal with the devil Faustian bargain stories, you should check out Peter Sclemiel by Aldebert Von Chamisso, it's about a guy who sold his shadow to the Devil for a pair of 5 league boots. I'm reading Stonewielder right now, and just got some info about the mysterious Ruthan Gud. Very interesting... Also reading the Johnny Dixon books by John Bellairs with my daughter. Those books are awesome and Edward Gorey's illustrations are so beautifully rendered, atmospheric, and creepy.

Granted! The next person to post will give your bane. The Nightwatcher mutters to Cultivation, maybe should of thought that one out more...

Sounds probably, here's some footage of him taking out Autonomy (spoilered below) @Dr. Dapper and @goody153, Rand 'al Thor's a pretty safe bet, especially if he fought Hoid while he still had the male Choedan Kal key, but really if he hit Hoid with Baelfire, it's pretty hard to imagine Hoid healing himself out of that one (seems pretty much like destruction on all 3 realms to me). Yeah Goody153, I think the fullborns Rashek and Kelsier 2.0 (the Sovereign) have the best chance, especially if they were hemalurgically enhanced a bit.

Just saw this animated visualization of the sin and cos of θ as θ sweeps out the full 360 degrees of a circle, and it's amazingly beautiful (spoilered below):

Awesome the Dead Milkmen are great! slontzein' Camaro* is one of the funniest songs ever, and Dean's Dream is one of my favorite songs ever (spoilered below): I agree, Jasnah and Blackthorn Dalinar are totally in (maybe Jasnah on guitar/background vocals and Dalinar as the lead singer). I think Lift is pretty punk rock. She's already given Dalinar the perfect stage name, Tight butt, so I'd say she's in (probably drums). Shallan could explore her issues by writing angsty songs about dislocated identity (teenagers will get it), play the bass and do illusions during concerts. This band would also have the benefit that they could all be their own lightshow. Oh and two of the band members can soulcast water into beer, that's a crowd pleaser for sure. Sebarial could be their manager and the Lopen could be their roadie. Your version of Storm desolations this is Braize is still playing in my head, so thanks again for that. Went for a nice walk with my wife and dog, it was a beautiful sunny day, and as I was waving to neighbors while we were walking down the street, inside my head I'm hearing: In the end the good will reclaim the tranquiline halls The bad will suffer in the depths of Braize But how could Braize be any worse when life alone is such a curse Storm desolations this is Braize Storm desolations this is Braize (this is Braize) Storm desolations this is BRAIZE Can't help but smile sometimes. *swear filter kicked in, just look up "Dead Milkmen Camaro and you'll find it

Rad! That is so freaking good!!! Truly inspired to have this being sung by the Blackthorn, especially with the following line: and this is SO GOOD, it fits the acual song so well! Love it, totally going to be singing this to myself for the next couple of days. Nice work! Here's the Bad Vorinism album cover (spoilered below).

@Paranoid King, @Gray to and @Toaster Retribution those were amazing! Paranoid, that was some seriously gripping, edge of your seat, capital T theater. Really nice work! Wish we had the whole play. I love the fitting end you devised for Sebarial, Kelsier knowing how much he loves money gives him a Scadrian boxing, so clever! Gray to great job on your Roast! It sounds just like Sebarial. This line was great. Toaster, that's some funny rust! Yours was definitely a Shakespearean Comedy. Marsh the reluctant roaster was great, the bit with the added th endings was hilarious.

Bad Religion is Awesome! There were actually 2 bad religion ones, there is a swear filter on the shard that turns expletives into their Rosharan equivalent, So Storm Desolation this is Braize is really "rhymes with duck" Armageddon this is Hell. Looking forward to see what you come up with!

Thanks @Pagerunner, that was remarkably easy. Now I'm even more impressed with Arcanum.

Awesome @Xavier Iriarte, can't wait to see what you come up with. I always have more ideas, so here are a couple more suggestions. METAL: Countdown to Desolation by Megadeath. This is How the Shards Kill by Danzig, based on the recent WoB where Brandon confirmed that Shards can smite people. PUNK: I just Wanna beat the Hog, sung by Tien's old squad boss Sheler (sung to the tune of I just wanna be your Dog) Storm Desolation, this is Braize by Bad Vorinism (sung to the tune of Storm Armageddon, This is Hell) Dark Eyes, 2nd Generation by Bad Vorinism (sung to the tune of White Trash 2nd Generation)

Hey, I was just listening to the latest ShardCast, which was great by the way, and you guys mentioned a fragment of a WoB about Felt from the Seattle Skyward signing, namely this one: This was a clarification of the answer he gave me in one of my signed books, here's a photo of the question and the answer: I tried to edit the WoB and add the source photo on Arcanum but couldn't figure out how to do it (since the entry has audio and a photo). Here's the question and answer transcribed: Hoiditthroughthegrapevine: Is Felt an agent of Harmony? If not, is he a member of a secret society we have seen? Brandon Sanderson: Felt is different in his allegiance depending on the part of his life. (Then the fragment of the WoB that you already have transcribed). If it's helpful for me to do this, I can add this picture as a source to Seattle Skyward event on Arcanum. I also got another personalized book WoB, it was just a RAFO. Do you guys want personalized book WoBs that are just RAFOs too? With a written RAFO there aren't really contextual clues to scrutinize, though now that I think about it this one does have exclamation mark (which implies it's an emphatic RAFO, so maybe a good one to avoid asking in the near future) Here's the personalized book RAFO (just in case you want it, and I can also add this as a source to the Seattle event on Arcanum if you'd like). You guys do amazing work, I am continually impressed by Arcanum, the Coppermind and the 17thShard. Thanks a bunch for all that you do!

Umm, I haven't converted these to MP3 yet, I can do this later and PM you with the link. I'll wait and see what the order is that Firerust suggests, and append the track number to the file name so they play in the right order.

Rad, your Awesomeness was set to 11! And as a prompt, for Anarchy in Roshar, sung by Johnny Rotspren, backed by Sid Viscous on the Electric Ryshadium, you could use the following lines (if you are so inclined): Anarchy in Roshar, It's comin's some time, fubar And I wanna be Ra-di-ant