king of nowhere

either the armor is well padded, or it behaves elastically so it absorbs shock. also, i remember renarin being dazed after the jump, so he did feel the deceleration. it was just cushioned enough to make no damage. it's fully realistic to me. it's mostly what would happen if you wore an helmet designed for a motorcycle. except that doindg that jump with just the helmet, it would protect your head but you'd break your neck. shardplate of course covers that too.

ah, don't worry about that. if you start a career in academy, you may end up flipping burgers even if you don't screw anything. It's the way research works, always needing to get a new financing every few months, no certainties. But look at the bright side: if you end up fllipping burgers, you'll probably be paid more, work less, and it will be a more stable job. Also, when you'll be flipping burgers in a few years, ask your coworkers if they read sanderson: there's a good chance one of them will be me. Don't take that too seriously, it's the kind of self-bashing humour we researchers do among ourselves. Sort of gallows humor, only with being fired instead of being killed as the subject of the joke. I hope it still sounds funny when written down. EDIT: in practice, despite our show of pessimism, only some of my colleagues have had to work for free for some time, and even less had to find another temporary job. Ultimately, everyone who wanted to pursue an academic career is still in the academia, and those who dropped put did so because they decided they didn't like it. and they found jobs related to their skill. At least in the STEM field; those I know who are graduated in humanistic sciences are in a much worse position, and only few could find a job related to their studies. but if you study biology, you should be fine.

as i said previously, being cautious is entirely reasonable, being afraid is another thing. I know I can trip, so even if i had no vertigo at all I would still walk cautiously and stay away from precipices. I wouldn't go on the tip of the pinnacle for a picture anymore. however, I am afraid if i go anywhere near an unprotected, or insufficiently protected, drop. I almost feel like I could be sucked down. In a similar way, while I am on the sidewalk near a busy road I could trip and fall on the road and be crushed by a car, and therefore I try to not stay close to the road. but I am not afraid off being near the road, I am merely choosing to be cautious about it. or, if i drive a moto in a mountain road, i may be afraid that i will slide right and fall down the cliff. I am not afraid that I may slide left and make a head-on collision with another car, despite the chances of sliding one side or the other being the same. If I drive a car I am not afraid because I feel more protected, even if in practice I driive the moto much better than the car. Those things make the differene between rational caution and fear. Ah, that brings memories of dreams. I am not concerned about my career, because as long as I get to stay in the field of chemistry I am satisfied, and I feel there are enough options of it that even if I screw up a few of them I will still have enough to try. But my father is much more concerned by me about my career. One day I had to give the final exam of the year, and it was the last chance I would have that year, and failing would mean being expelled by the prestigious place I gained admission into. I was quite unconcerned, because I felt prepared and I don't mind failing if I feel I gave it my best shot, but my father felt differently. that night he had a dream that I would spend the night partying, then I would go to the professor still drunk, and the professor would be enraged and shout 'how dare you come to me in that condition? Go away! I don't want to ever see you again!'. My father got up and could not sleep the rest of the night, and he had to take something against stomach acidity. I passed the exam without problems, on the other hand. And another dream I made on a completely unrelated exam; it was an exam of mathematical chemistry, stuff about how to use the schroedinger equation and the like, and I was grossly unprepared, having studied for another exam until a few days before, but I decided to give it a try anyway, just to see the questions if nothing else. The night before, I dreamed that I was making the exam. the proofessor gave us the papers, then he went away leaving his assistant behind. I read the first problem. "A oil tanker is sailing near the coast of japan. the crew spot dolphins, and throw them some food to make them come close. but a boat of the coastal police comes and tell them to stop, because in japan it is forbidden to feed dolphins". And I thought, what the **** has that to do with chemistry? so I go to the assistant to ask for clarifications. "Excuse me, I have a question for the professor" "the professor is gone. Unless you have an helicopther, you won't be able to reach him. But you can ask me" "so, there is this problem here where they set the situation. but there i no question asked" "let me see... [it is clear he is not aware of the content of the test] uhm, I suppose, if there is no question, then it means that with the data you are given there is only one question relative to the course that can be answered, and your task is to find that question and answer it" [assumes a cool and satisfied expression] I go back to my place feeling more than a bit puzzled... There were many other problems in that dream test. Unfortunately I forgot most of them. I only remember "One specific substance has eight different [allotropes? tautomers? isomers? simmetry planes? I don't remember which one]; how many mice bones can it penetrate?" to which I answered 3 hoping it was by chance the right answer and it would be counted right without further questions. The day after, I went to the exam. I was absolutely calm because I did not expect to pass and it was still june, there would be other chances until september. I loooked at the questions, and was relieved that, compared to the ones in my dream, they at least made sense. I still did not knew any of them, so I retired. But I got to see a few questions, which helped me study and pass that exam later. and I got one of the funniest dreams I remember, so it was well worth it.

whether the cosmere is the name for the whole universe or only for that local cluster oof stars is completely irrelevant. calamity is not a shard. the non-cosmere stories are not related in any way to the others. no, they are not happpening in a faraway galaxy. they are just totlally unrelated, and that's it.

brandon has said that all cosmere world are close to each oother, in cosmic distance scales. say, a few hundreds of light years, a few thousands at most. a dwarf gallaxy or a small part of a normal galaxy. series based on earth are not cosmere.

be hopeful. medical technology is advancing quite fast. I'd call it a coin flip that by the time you become completely blind, they will have find a way to fix you. I also developed vertigo only when I grew up, starting as a teenager. When I was a kid, I was absolutely unconcerned about them. i remember when I was maybe 7 or 8, I went to the "strada delle gallerie" (road of galleries) of which I attach a picture. You see on the lower left of the image, that rocky spur departing from the path and leaning over the drop? i remember going to the very end of it (or a very similar one) to let my father take a picture of me. nowadays, if I were to walk on that path again (which I never would if I have a say in the matter) I would keep my shoulder firmly brushing on the rocky wall.

I wonder if we could ask sanderson to pay us a percentage of his earnings for all the advertising we're doing for him...

i wonder about vayne. in AoL, vayne claimed that he was a small criminal, he accidentally killed a guy during a robbery, was sentenced to death, and wax decided instead to put him on a rehabilitation program. Now, I don't have my copy of AoL here, but I remember that Vayne ony met wax after the latter became sheriff of wheatering, which hasn't happened yet in the prologue. how do the two things reconcile?

well, jasnah believes that the stormfather and the nightwatcher are possibly real, and if so, they are very powerful spren. that's because all she had for proof were vague voices of people who visited the nightwatcher or that had seen the stormfather. she certainly has no reason whatsoever to suspect the existance of shards, or their actions and scope. a good scientist should balance a willingness to change opinion in the face of new evidence with a healty dose of skepticism - after all, for one einstein who revolutionized his field, there are hundreds of people who made claims to revolutionary discoveries which later turned out to have been genuine mistakes or hoaxes. jasnah is drawing the conclusion that any good scientist should draw with the evidence she has. she cannot be blamed for not knowing things she has no way of knowing.

except that if you skip thosebooks you won't understand anything of what's happpening later....

Yes. But you can disbelief that something is divine without disbelieving the thing. Take, as an example, lightning. the ancient greeks said that lignthning was sent by zeus. so if one did not believe in zeus, does it mean that he rejected the existence of lightning? Not at all. you believe the lightning is real, you just don't believe there iss a zeus up in the sky throwing it. or if there is a zeus up in the sky, you don't think he's god. he may have supernatural powers that you cannot comprehend, but that does not make him holy. after all, all the marvel superheroes have superpowers, but not many people are worshipping them as gods because of it. And yes, jasnah is an amazing character and brandon did a wonderful job at describing her. I would have never thought someone as religious as brandon could do such justice in describing an atheist. he said he lurked into atheist forums ("but not church haters or angry people", he said) to get more insight on atheistm. Yes, you should definitely read the stormlight archive.

maybe because you regularly cut your nails and hair, but not your skin.

1) maybe those healing epics are gifters like prof, so their power would not work on another epic. or maybe steelheart did not trust themm enough for it; remember, he was paranoid, letting somebody else heal him could have required more trust than he has. or maybe again, those epics work by regenerative powers, so once the wound was healed and with a scar there was nothing those powers could do. really, there are tons of possible explanations. 2) he wanted to keep secret what harmed him. everybody knows any epic has a weakness, but by killing alll witness he could ensure his weaknes would remain secret. which it did, until david. 3) maybe to get a more oppressive atmosphere, or maybe he could not care either way about the sun, so he just let nightwielder do it. it's true that steelheart, personally, had no interest in obscuring the sun, but he had no interest in not obscuring it either. EDIT: Well, yes, of course, but that's the author's reason. just the same as the city being made of metal to get more in touch with a cyberpunnk atmosphere. We were talking about steelheart's reason.

i never realized how some of those spren really fit the emootional state they are attracted to. a pity not having a bigger image

I'm with vaidd. I'm currently into my fourth reread of the series, so I found it well worth my time. Especially if you like to explore an expansive world with a large and full set of characters. If you prefer streamlined stories devoted entirely to ffulfilling the plot, then wot is not your cup of tea.

They don't "go to any lenght" to set up spam files. they are automated programs. they find forums, they post there. they have even no way of knowing if it is active or not.

I am sad for you. To me not liking rollercoasters would like to melody muns not liking ice cream. My only problem is that I got too used to them and they don't excite me as much as in the past. I'm even capable of carrying out a normal conversation with my brother while on them. Oh, right, I was forgetting this one: if i am at sea, and I can't reach the bottom, I get very uncomfortable. This despite being a passable swimmer and therefore being in no danger whatsoever. Even if I am 10 meters away from the shore, I still get uncomfortable. In a swimming pool I am fine. It's another of the things that I did not count because I can just avoid the situation. Plus, "getting uncomfortable" is different from "paniking and being unable to function normally". Also, empty big buildings are creepy. If I am alone in my parents home I sometimes carry a knife with me to feel better. In smaller houses I have no problems instead. But I assume that's a quite common reaction.

I'll also go with a real sentence, one uttered by giulio andreotti, one of the most powerful politicians in the italian first republic. Once a journalist asked him if power wears people out, and he answered "power wears out those people who lack it". It is still a widely used aphorism in italy some 40 years later.

500 survivors? the shin certainly had plenty of dead, but not to the point of the population being wiped out. they just wheathered a highstorm without cover. There have been hurricanes hitting the united states regularly at least since the end of the last ice age, yet the natives managed to survive them without having stone buildings. Maybe I'm making a fool of myself, because I have never seen a hurricane, but I think, if you lie down on the ground and cover your head, you're going to survive, and just get wet and a bit bruised. Also keep in mind that in the west a highstorm will carry rocks with it, but in shinovar there aren't many rocks for the storm to toss about, and dirt does not hurt. at most you can get hit by a tree branch, which is still much softer than a stone. So, I'd say the vast majority of the shin population survived the storm. I would however expect that most of their buildings have collapsed (5-10% of total people dead, mostly in collapsed buildings). Luckily they don't have harsh winters, so they can survive even that. food storage seems a bigger problem: most crops would be destroied by a highstorm, and if it comes every few days they will never be able to get an harvest. the shin may be doomed to starvation in the long run. In the short run, their main danger comes from the voidbringers. I'm not sure if they used parshendi slaves like the rest of the continent or if they did not for some cultural reason. in the second case, they may be the ones whoo got hit more lightly.

no, you love the ground. That's why you can't bear to be separated by it. I also have a pretty bad case of vertigo, which I would not counnt as "main fear" because it's strictly situational and not bothering me in normal life; I mean, it's not like I worry that I may fall off a cliff, I just stay away from them. But it's quite a strange version of vertigo, because it does not manifest if I am safely secured. Just being 2 meters away from an unproteccted 10-meters drop can make me uncomfortable, or driving a car on a road with a cliff on its side, but if I am harnessed with a rope I can go climb a rock wall and dangle from it without feeling bad in the slightest. I also have no problems whatsoever with airplanes and rollercoaster. I'd like to claim that my vertigo is a rational feeling that only activates when there is real danger, but then, the chances of tripping on a mountain path and falling down the cliff to death are no greater than the chances of tripping while walking along the road and being crushed to death by a passing car, yet I only fear one of the two things.

Now I'm picturing the lord ruler with goku's haircut. damnation you!

There were discussions on the price of breath in the past, and I think the general consensus was that it was between 5000 and 10000 $ at purchase power parity. A poor family can live one year with that amount. but if you conssider it at a nation-wide level, 300000$ per day aren't that much in a nation with a population of several million. Same for the luxury, it's not really worse than what the egyptians spent for their religion (think of how many people and even animals they mummified) and it is a pittance compared to what was wasted in imperial rome. Add in that the nation is ludicrously rich for having world monopoly of dyes, and you see it is reasonable. As for vivenna, even if she lost control of her locks for a moment, people would not recognize her for the same reason people do not recognize superman (or, in the real world, famous people on the road): what's more likely, that the woman you casually glanced is the princess of a foreign nation there on a secret mission, or that if was just an effect of the sunlight on her hair? You'd dismiss it as your mistake without thinking twice.

I sincerely don't have the slightest idea. Can't think of anything that would qualify as "fear". There are plenty of things that I would consider frightening, but they are all unlikely enough that I don't worry about them really happening.

the question cannot be answered because the power of goku (or every other carachter in the dragonball universe) is totally inconsistent. I mean, near the beginning of dragonball Z vegeta (I have only looked the italian cartoon, and I know some names have been changed. if you don't recognize some name, i will have to rectify) was fully capable of destroying a planet by himself, before he even met goku. not just erdicating life from a planet, but reducing it to a debris field, which requires a much greater energy. then goku beat vegeta, then goku does some training at 100 g and it is difficult for him. he just defeated a guy who could summon the power of billions of billions of atmoic bombs, and he has troubles lifting 100 times his wheight? then a while later, after all the main characters could go at least supersahyan 2, and maybe 3, videl (a normal girl who absolutely lacks any kind of superpower) hits gohan and make a bruise on him. considering the energy levels they deal with, being hit by the dinosaur-killing asteroid should have done him no harm whatsoever, yet he get bruised from being hit by a regular person. even if we stay conservative, his skin is at least completely immune to modern artillery. just the fact mentioned above that he was able to lift 40 tons, and that was an achievement, shows how the guys who wrote it had absolutely no regard for measures. he already deal in planet-destroying forces. if nothing else, he had thrown people through mountains several times. think of how much strenght it takes to throw a body so that it pierces several kilometers of rock. and he needs to go supersahyan to lift 40 tons "effortlessly"? So, any estimate on goku's power level can be off by at least 5 orders of magnitude. you just cannot seriously discuss how strong he is. I have to say, dragonball is a complete breach of all of sanderson's laws. the "magic system" is very poorly defined and it is totally unclear who is stronger than whom (at least among opponents: most of the times, the power of an opponent is only shown in that he beats a protagonist, or is beaten). Yet the whole plot resolution always lingers on people beating up each other. It also violates pretty much the "limitations before power" (I can't really think of anything goku cannot do, except beat someone even stronger than him) and the world goes wide instead of deep, with random elements added randomly from time to time. Its only rule seems to be "as long as it looks cool, run with it". that I would say is the only good thing of the series, as my main reason for watching through all of dragonball, dragonball Z and part of dragonball GT was that I was just curious to see what happened next. that, and I found it fun, in a silly sort of way. still, I would never dream to watch it again.

yes, shallan was soothed or rioted by hoid. that was an easy question.