king of nowhere

the bullet moves too fast to see, therefore the coinshot doesn't have the time to react and push it. he only can if he's prepared in advance and has good timing. It's like grabbing arrows midflight, really. it can be done, but it requires incredible reflexes. just because humans have hands they are not immune to arrows.

When you read an erotic story and praise it for its character development. And then you read another erotic story and you start googling all the places mentioned and all the medical informations given to check if the worldbuilding is solid. And then you laugh for some character-driven humour. Yes, in an erotic story. And you realize you are probably the only guy among all those who read it who ever cared about that stuff. Although in this case the cause-effect relation is inverted: it's not being a sanderfan than makes me do that, it's the care for that kind fo details that brought me to appreciate sanderson above all else.

well, experts of the field say that proper pc security is indistinguishable from paranoia. but that goes for the servers of very important stuff, like the government, or banks. normal people are generally safe with a firewall and an antivirus, if they don't do anything stupid like actually downloading and installing malware.

Huh, I wasn't implying that women are like broken legs and there is something wrong with them. I was implying that discrimination is like broken leg, and my example was meant to convey the image of fixing an injustice by doing another injustice in the opposite sense in the hope they will cancel each other. It often makes an improvement in the short term, but makes it more difficult to address the real issue because now there are two injustices going, not just one, and fixing any individually will make things worse.

huh, I never heard of that gamergate before. I can hardly believe it. I've been an internet gamer for four years and have never seen anything like that. Most times people treat women like anyone else, or are more supportive than they would be with males because they feel that they must try to make the women comfortable in what is perceived as a male environment. A few people will try to hit on female gamers, but I don't remember ever seeing something outspokenly rude. Guess I just have a knack for keeping away of bad companies. Well, that at least explains why someone organized a female-only tournamment, and yes, it explains even why they limited lesbians. But I don't know how much it is a good idea. Maybe it will make some girls feel safer to play, but it certainly will reinforce the idea of differences. Plus, men may feel the whole idea of catering to women as sexist: "Oh, if I was born a girl I would have much better customer service, that's unfair". Personally, I always felt that giving preferential access to women in activities/professions where there are few of them, for the sole purpose of encouraging them to "join the club", is counterproductive, as it establishes a sexist discrimination in favor of women to try to counterbalance existing prejudices. It's like you ahve a lame leg, and instead of trying to fix it, the doctor breaks your other leg to see if with two lame legs you'll walk straighter. And it also won't be liked by the lgbt community. Good intentions, the idea made sense, but it will probably do more harm than good.

which onlly goes to show how crappy his frequentations were. poor dude, i feel for him

True that taking a shard changes you, but you are looking at the wrong timescale. It does so within centuries. Vin was still herself after taking preservation. And she was able to use preservation's power to destroy ruin, something that preservation itself could not do. So, taking up a shard you'll basically die within a few centuries. But then, in a few ccenturies I'll expect I'll be dead anyway, so not much to lose. Also, how much personality warping counts as being dead? I'm certainly a far different person than I was 10 years ago, does it mean that my old self died and the new self was born? where is the demarcation line?

huh, that''s intersting. WEll, I assumed the lawsuit was ridiculous because I assumed harriet was telling the truth because she had no reason to lie. It is possible that the studio brought a page out of the aes sedai book and "informed" her in a way that she would misunderstand, so that she was officially told about that episode even if she had no knowledge of it. Or maybe she forgot (I suppose she has plenty of work meeting regarding the wot production rights), in which case she can claim it was an error in good faith from her part and retract the statement. I have no idea how that would result legally. Anyway, she can at least say that the adaptation is crap without being liable for it.

it's not new, at least to me (I work in the nucleic acids field). the potential to store inromation in the dna has existed for at least a couple of decades, since we learned to make automatic synthesizers that can assemble strands of dna with good speed and yield. However, it's not so easy as that. first, as the article said, there is the cost. those synthesizers require a lot of solvents and reagents to work, and they need to be in very high purity, which makes them very expensive. Second, reading it is also expensive. you need to degrade those silica shells first, then analyze them. to the best of my knowledge, reading a sequence of dna requires extensive preparation done by highly qualified personnel to do it. You can't just do it on your pc. Third, we are limited in our capability of making long sequences. those DNA synthesizers have an efficiency that is slightly above 99% for each base added. Try that for 300 bases. Now try that for the 4 million bases it would take to store a single megabyte of infomration. Fourth, reading it destroys it. the techniques to read DNA all require its degradation. Sure, you can make another copy of it after that, but the cost keeps growing. Fifth, the time factor. Reading a human-lenght DNA (750 megabytes) takes arounnd overnight. A DNA synthesizer can add one base (2 bits of information) in a bit less than one minute. SO encrypting your data in DNA is going to take a lifetime. All those aren't simple technical difficulties that can be solved with a bit of research. they are hard limits to our current DNA-manipulating technology. To go above that level we'd need to master the chemistry of life, to make artificial proteins. We are far from that. So very far. We had plenty of success in biochemistry with replicating what we already found in nature, we even made something new by putting together different bits from her and there, but are nowhere near being able to replicate it. We are like rennaissance scientist who had been given an unlimited supply of space shuttles to tinker with. We learned to disassemble and to assemble them, we learned to fly them around a bit, but we don't have the capacity to make starships of our own. I think it is at least as far as the space elevator. So, while storing information in DNA is possible, it is far from practical. Not even spies could make use of it. Sure, a nanoparticle coontaining the information stored in DNA is sure to escape detection, but to make it you'll need plenty of chemical stuff that is not found on a grochery store. Long story short, don't expect that to happen on a commercial level anytime soon. The title "death of the hard drive" is as much accurate as "death of the walking shoes" would be for the construction of the first prototype steam engine. Sorry to spoil your fun. P.S. I haven't read legion, so I don't know how realistic the plot is. I'm pretty sure, however, that brandon will have made a thorough research of it.

it would strongly depend on the situation. I would not kill a shardholder to get his, but if I happened upon a shard, and there was no one else there whom I feel is more qualified than me to hold one, I would step up and take responsibility for it (given the number of people who would like to have odium or ruin, now I'd probably take it just to keep it away from them). As for which shard, I don't think it would matter that much. in the beginning I'd be in control and capable of doing mostly what I want. In the end I won't be myself anymore and would have just become the shard. If I took a bad shard, I would just take it for safekeeping so that for the few centuries I'd be in control I could avoid it having an impact.

his books havve been optioned as movies several times and nothing ever came of it. before getting excited, wait until you are sure that the movie will be made and it will be good quality. personally, to me that means waiting until I'm watching the end titles on the screen. that said, tes could stand a better chance than other of his books; it's short enough that it can be adapted more easily, and does not require too much explanations.

I know that one: it must be bela! (this will be understandable only by those who have read the wheel of time)

actually it isn't. you are at your normal speed, but everyone in a short radius around you is slowed down dramatically. so you could, for example, beat peoople up and others would not be able to help them because if they come close to you they are slowed as well. actually, on second thought, if you hhave vast reserves of feruchemical zinc and steel then you can stilll beat them up while you are much faster than them, and you gain absolutely nothing by putting you into a cadmium bubble. so yeah, it's useless. it can at most be used to play pranks to other people.

as far as I know, it depends on how you have set your options. if you require your computer to ask you before running any kind of program or application or plugin then you should be pretty safe regardless. just say no to everything that you don't know what it is. If instead your pc is programmed to do everything automatically then it is fairly easy. However, I cannot guarantee 100%. my brother is the real expert, I'm only reapeating what I picked up from him.

I know that, but harriet said nothing false that I know of. she said - she hasn't been consulted about the stuff - she thinks they are doing it just to keep the rights (I really doubt that could be taken as slander) - she wants to sue them for it So suing her is quite stupid. maybe they just want her to back down. but if they really care about someone ruining their reputation, then maybe they should sue themselves. Really, sueing her because she wasn't happy with the adaptation has sooo much potential for a streisand effect. While no one outside of the wot-fans community would have ever read harriet's comment before, now in an attempt to shut her down they seriously risk becoming famous in all the world as "those guys who sued the wife of the deceased author for saying that she didn't like how they adapted the story". EDIT: To me it feels strange that the wife gets the name of the husband (most european countries did the same until a few decades ago, but I was born just after that so to me it's ancient history), so referring to her as "mrs jordan" would sound even worse.

they are suing harriet for saying that she didn't have any part in that? I thought we had free speech...

awaken a lifeless with the command "disobey every order you receive". which by the way makes for a fine paradox.

Now he's in taiwan, before that he was on the firefight tour. since the beginning of the year, it never passed more than a few days before he went to some events. Judging from his schedule, I have the impression that he's around the world more often than at home. So I am curious; how much time does brandon actually spend on conventions, defined as the number of nights he sleeps away from home during a year? one month? two? more? Also, how much that affects his writing? I know he can write while on the airplane (lucky him, I am incapable of doing absolutely anything on an airplane), but how much can he write while on a convention? Half as much as he writes from home? One third as much? Last but not least, does his family follow him, at least on the longer trips? thanks for the informations, if you know them.

You are telling me you read the two volumes of the stormlight archive (1000+ pages each, and big ones), the mistborn trilogy + alloy of law (2500 pages total, albeit on smaller sheets), elantris and warbreaker (almost other 1000 pages) in one week? Were you burning bendalloy or draining your zincmind? Anyway, what you can do to fill the wait is read his non-cosmere books. they also are good, should keep you busy for a few more days

Well, I say the same thing I said about thesteelheart movie: I believe it will happen when I will sit in the movie teather watching the end titles. plenty of stufff optioned for movies, but very little is actually made, and the producer are generally reluctant to do stuff for a niche public.

Well, I suppose I won't try to look it after all. thanks, guys, for committing to this deep sacrifice and telling the experience so that others may be spared.

MMy knowledge of fantasy is fairly narrow, and mostly restricted to the work of jordan and sanderson, because every time i tried something different I didn't like it, so I can't say for sure, but it is certainy likely. Tolkien feels dreadfully clichè to many modern readers because he's the guy who invented all those ideas and so many people aped him, so it is likely that a measure of it applied to jordan too. maybe 50 years from now people will find sanderson clichè because others have used his ideas... Now I am picturing the starting scene in twok with cenn buie in place of the young soldier, cursing the shardbearer with a crowd of congars and coplins behind him

Seems very stupid, and also nonsensical. if you suggest that lesbian women have unfair advantage, then you should not limit them to one per day, you should ban them at all and have them play among the males. and also if you think having a maale or female brain matters, than you should allow gay males. But as for whether it is justified or not, I wouldn't be so sure. To my best knowledge, science is still quite uncertain on whether the congitive differences between men and women are there because of biology or because of cultural pressure. I was going to say that on something not requiring physical strenght it is pointless to even put gender restrictions, but then, in chess there are gender differetiations, and also, like, 99% of the world top players are men, with judit polgar as the only exception. And while, as I said, science is uncertain on whether the difference is ccultural or not, my own experience suggests that it is likely at least partly biological. My chess club has been teaching chess in elementary school for years in an attempt to get more players. at that time, we still get many girls. most people quit after a few years, but generally there are a few that stays. And girls always quit. In 20 years, despite having almost as many girls as boys learning to play at school, we didn't got a single girl to stay with us past age 14. Notice that many of those girls had supportive families, some were even daughters of other chessplayers. Also notice that, while chess is considered nerdy, it is such for both genders. Therefore, I would not rule out that a biological difference exist. And if men were naturally advantaged at a sport, maybe it would be fair to keep a distinction. We live in a liberated, emancipated society that put emphasis over what you strive for rather than over innate advantages. "all men are created equals" is one of our most basic tenets. we recognize the idea that people are innately better than others as a remnant of racism and sexism and class separation, we associate it with those ideas, and we therefore want to reject it. Some people can be quite vocal about it. However, it is foolish to ignore data just because it conflicts with the desired result (thanks Jasnah). It is certain that the brain is regulated by genetics; we evolved from proto-apes because the smarter hominids made smarter sons, or we would not be here. So I think the belief "all men are equal" is inaccurate and should be instead replaced with "all men are different, but have equal dignity". Basically, it means that people have innate attitudes at something, and this give them an advantage over others, but that's no good reason to discriminate. it also means that no one is good at everything. I am good at science, you are good at personal relationship, well, it's not like one is better than the other, we are just that, different, and we all can give our contribution to society. Being better at something doesn't make anyone a better person. Also, "all men are individuals" should be in that. It means that while there may be genetic thrends so that one gender is on average better than the other at something, or there may even be differences between ethnicities, you should not judge a person for what the average of his group does, but for what he does. It means that, even if it was proved that men are better at science and women are better with people, you should never tell a girl to not study mathematics, or a boy not to study pshycology, because "that's not something for a woman/man". Individual people are not statistics, there are plenty of exceptions to the general thrend, there are plenty of women who are good at math and plenty of men who are good pshycologist, so you should tell people to follow their inclinations and what makes them happy. and if you happen to be a woman goood at math, well, that's uncommon. just like having blond hair is uncommon (in most places). just like rolling a 6 three times in a row is uncommon. nothing good or bad about it. So, under all that premise, I would say that making gender restrictions on a tournament over a videogame could make sense. I have no idea if spatial skills are related to the Y cromosome or to gender identity, so applying those restrictions to gays is doubtful at best. However, considering that brain differences are filled much more easily than body differences, I would not make gender restrictions for brain sports, including videogames or chess, except at the highest level. there's just not enough difference to justify it. So, I still think what they did was stupid. Also, can someone put a link to it? I would not surprise if all this turned out to be a urban legend, maybe originated by a misunderstanding. I would also be surprised if riot did such a blunder, because really, whether it is justified or not, in terms of public relations that's a huge loss.

awaken your keyboard with the command "post witty stuff on the 17th shard". Become a depressed alcholist once your awakened keyboard has more reputation than you.

what is written about him in the cover of alcatraz is true; brandon doesn't write his books, he has his potted plant writing them for him. All he did was take his perfectly normal potted plant and teach it to write. hardly an achievement worth noting, don't you think?