Oudeis

I will find you quotes when I'm not running out the door. You said there are three possibilities. Natural skill, extreme training, and outside influence. Neither of the first two make any sense from the text. Kaladin's skill the very first time is supernatural. Yes, some people are naturally talented at things and pick them up quickly. But in Kaladin's first fight he showed traits that you only get from practice and procedural memory. Someone who is an actual natural at a quarterstaff could train for an hour or so and then be good enough to take on a slightly-trained upstart like Kal's friend. Without Invested help, there simply is not a way for Kal's blows to be as accurate. That's like saying if you grew an extra arm that had no sense organs in it, you'd be able to use it to type even faster than you currently do as soon as it popped up. A stick is a big, heavy, unwieldy thing that lacks proprioception. Hitting a specific target with it (a boy's knuckles) on your first try when you have had seconds to adapt yourself to its length, heft, counterbalance, etc., is beyond the bounds of what can be accomplished by a mundane "natural." A "natural" isn't someone born with actual skill, a natural is someone whose specific talents lend themselves to a new task. Kaladin might have had superior hand-eye coordination, balance, pattern recognition, a prior understanding of basic physics, and all of this would have made him a natural. There's no such thing as a person born with inherent genetic knowledge of how to hold and swing a staff. As for training. You pointed out Kaladin's display in the chasm with the Bridgemen. He hasn't touched a spear in months, hasn't had the opportunity to train, really train, in 8 months (closer to 10 earth months). And he breaks out an expert series of kata without a flaw. Training gives you primarily procedural memory, the difference between an implicit and an explicit action. It's not information saved on a flash drive, able to be booted up at a moments notice. There's a reason "off-season training" exists; if basketball players could finish their last game of the season, spend months relaxing, then show up to practice over half a year later making freethrows like they'd never left... they'd do that. But that's not how training works. If Kaladin had taken even just one day, worked out the kinks, remembered the balance and moves, sure. His incredible training would have helped him get back to where he'd been in record time. But in the real world, no amount of training in literally any skill lets you not do it for nearly a year, and then use your skill to a master level without a flaw first time trying. And in case you wonder, in that very chapter, many references are made to the fact that there is absolutely no Stormlight to be had, so it's not a matter of Stormlight enhancing his skill. The only explanation is that something is granting him skill. Syl says it's the Nahel bond. Mr. Sanderson apparently says it's not. If it's not the Nahel bond, it has to be something else Invested, because mundane reasons will not explain his actions. And recall, when Syl "dies", Kaladin's skill leaves him. If his skill were the result of training or "being a natural," he'd be as good, or nearly so, without her as he is with her. But without Syl, he's awful. In addition, on three occasions from four different perspectives, one of them "all the bridgemen," either the wind or Syl herself visibly warps around Kaladin when he uses the spear. However good he is at surgery, that can actually be explained by talent and practice, and most notably no one ever points out the wind swirling around him as he heals anyone. You bring up how that distant day was before Syl found him. I'm sure I know a quote where they talk about it. When I return this afternoon I will try to find it for you.

Okay well... the rest of us were talking about the common cold. You're the first person who said it was "the flu". So.... if you know the difference between a cold and the flu, then please don't tell us we're talking about the flu when we're talking about the common cold.

Um... you think the flu is minor? Per the Center for Disease Control, nearly 10% of all deaths within 122 monitored city were due to pneumonia or influenza. This is in a first-world country with advanced medicine against a virus that we specifically target with vaccinations. The flu is never minor. (Get your flu shots.) Imagine a world where literally no one has ever developed an antibody even close to being able to overcome this disease. In a world with stormlight, where minor diseases are easily gotten over, even something as simple as a common cold would typically reach epidemic potential, even if it was non-fatal. Now, with the Stormlight healing, more people than you'd expect would survive. Interestingly, the virus itself is a microcosm for how people react to the virus. Peoples immune systems are entirely unable to deal with the cold, and stormlight healing, while salubrious, is not enough to cure the disease on its own, so people get ragingly sick. Look at Roshar as a body. Because of the healing, plagues are all but unknown. I live in a city that literally shuts down when there's an inch of snow, because people simply cannot even. When the weather report says a 75% chance of snow the next day, toilet paper and milk gets sold out, schools get shut down, everything closes, even if the snow itself never falls, because my city just can't deal. So even when the disease is something which by our standards we'd consider minor, just as my ancestral home of New England would literally not notice just an inch of snowfall, the people of Roshar who never have to worry about epidemics would flip their lids trying to deal with it. They don't usually have to react to it, so they're totally unprepared to do so, so something which should be minor becomes a huge deal. Whether you're talking about one immune system or a nation's capacity to handle widespread illness.

Eh, parallel evolution. Some of us read the chapter The Weeping from Way of Kings, and the scene in the Chasms where Kal points out that Shallan does to him what Tien used to, and came up with the idea on our own. Others heard there was at least one more LIghtweaver out there, and wondered who it was. Some EXCELLENT questions asked here! Very interesting stuff. And an adorable little Cryptic you've got there.

Mine has it currently over. I'm guessing people pledged more than $20 to help out, are now realizing their help wasn't needed, and are reducing their pledges back to $20? Regardless, I'm sure in the next four hours it'll level off north of $40K. On to $45K? For my fourth metal I'd add aluminum to match the duralumin I want as number 3.

But not an allomantic power. Emotional allomancy can be noticed, prepared for, dealt with. I personally feel more exposed to someone who can not only see the mistakes I've hidden in my past, but can even see mistakes I never made, but could have.

Four more hours and less than $100 to a third Exclusive.

5.5 hours, and just barely more than a thousand dollars to the next exclusive. We've had surges that big in the past; can we pull off one more? EDIT: ninja'd by the campaign. Just under a thousand, in the time it took me to write that last sentence.

I plan to bring my phone and its external battery. However, my ride had work the next morning. If the event runs late, either I might have to leave, or even with the charger my battery might die. If you think you can stay later, maybe set yours up after the first hour or two to catch what I miss? Or if you don't think you'll be staying late, just back up my recording in case one of us has some sort of glitch.

As Weiry pointed out, I'm not sure you can make an alloy of iron and steel... that'd be like saying you can mix pure water with saline and get something other than saline. Except not really because of the chemical changes, which really only muddy the waters even more... basically this is the inversion of a David analogy, it's neither humorously expressed nor technically accurate. Still, if anyone smart enough to figure out what I mean happens by, perhaps they can explain it better.

You live on Scadrial. Your buddy comes up to you and says, "That dude over there is a [fill in the blank]. He could be using his power on us right now. Kinda creepy, right?" Which power do you think best fits that blank? i.e. which power you do personally think is the most invasive? Which would you be most sympathetic to hearing someone say they hope never gets used on them?

You're welcome! Yeah... no. I'm trying to find the thread where I addressed this all before so I can avoid rehashing it all. Basically, the text doesn't support this sentiment. Kaladin had unnatural skill the very first time he ever touched a quarterstaff, his trainers were stunned the very first lesson, and when he fights the wind visibly warps around him. He talks about his hours of training, but that's his way to justify his skill to himself before he believes in magic; he eventually has "the talk" with Syl and confronts the grim reality that he's only the fighter he is because of her. As for Teft... he knows very little, and most of what he knows is wrong. The people who taught him thought that just about anyone would become a Radiant if they were about to die, and so invented Rube Goldberg suicide machines. He didn't even know how one draws in Stormlight. He didn't realize there were different Orders of Radiant; he told Kaladin that Kaladin would have every Surge, and that's not how it works. Apart from "Stormlight = powers" and "You're only a Surgebinder and I don't know what you have to do to be a Radiant" Teft has not gotten one single fact correct. His role is more to show us that most of what people believe about magic is wrong, than to be the Surgepedia. Basically, at this point, if Teft explains something, I take it more-or-less on faith that it's wrong.

Yes, I think this is the premise we're all basing our arguments on. (Or rather, more specifically, the Rosharan equivalent of "the common cold" is simply very different from the equivalent on some other planet.) Basically, some people are raising the question, if the WoB itself says that Rosharans have a stronger resistance to disease, why should a weak virus from another planet affect them? And the rest of us are trying to explain why it does, in fact, make sense.

Wait so... do you mean if you took one bead of lerasium-and-steel and one bead of lerasium-and-iron? Or one bead of lerasium-and-iron-and-steel?

Sweet! 2nd Dice Unlocked! I would be surprised (albeit pleasantly) if we made it to the third unlock. If we do, which three would anyone want? For me, 1. Electrum 2. Lerasium 3. Duralumin, I think? I could see the case being made for Bendalloy, finish out the Temporal quadrant before moving on. But everyone knows that burning duralumin with this many other metals would have epic results...

I misunderstood a previous post of yours... I thought you were replying to someone else. About the Kharbranth hospitals... You seem to be implying that I'm saying Stormlight lanterns = magic instant healing and no one ever gets sick. So let me reiterate what I've said twice now; I think stormlight lanterns will heal you a VERY, VERY small amount. Not enough to eradicate the idea of disease, but enough that "death by disease" will be statistically lower than it would be in a culture of analogous ecosystem and technology to this one. As I've also pointed out, only rich people have a lot of sphere lanterns. Even when the poor use them for money, they keep them safely tucked away in pouches or like cabinets or something, where the light won't show thieves where to get them... but where they also don't shine on the inhabitants, so they don't get extra healing. Recall also, that most of what Lirin (Kal's father) dealt with were injuries, not illnesses. Stormlight obviously has no more power to prevent you from getting gored by a whitespine than (Mistborn spoiler) Stormlight might heal wounds, but you're not Investing like Kaladin does. You'd heal a drop, like the difference between getting splashed when someone drops a glass of water next to you, compared to leaping into the ocean. Someone who gets 1% of their daily recommended dose of Vitamin C will have a tiny boost to their immune system, whereas someone with 100% will get a huge boost. So, yeah, there'd still be plenty of work for the Kharbranth hospital. Injuries for everyone, and the sick, inordinately from the poorer classes which couldn't afford a hospital anyway. Sidenote, something that's been kicking around in my head for a while. This also implies that the spheres in Lirin's surgery do more than provide steady, even (ish) light, they'd actually be a decent factor in providing a tiny boost to the patient's capacity to heal, especially when they're at their most vulnerable, inner parts exposed to the world.

Well, as someone pointed out, it's really hard to figure out how much Stormlight gets lost over time or used for any specific action. Recall that healing uses up Stormlight pretty rapidly, and the Lopen started regrowing an entire limb. Actually that just now made me realize... It's flat-out stated earlier in the series that Stormlight healing is more rapid than the accelerated healing of a Thug, but far from instantaneous. In the first Prologue, Szeth says that his crushed skull will eventually heal, if he gets enough time and Stormlight. Kal rarely heals from anything major terribly fast. And another thing. Kal draws in "a fraction of a clip" and it's able to heal superficial wounds across his entire forehead instantly during the tattoos. Yet after the Highstorm, he takes in an entire sphere and it heals him but uses itself up within seconds. Same with Lopen, the light disappears almost instantly from an entire (presumably freshly infused, because it came after the first Highstorm in weeks, so it has to be either freshly infused or totally dun) sphere. I'm wrestling with various possible ways and scenarios to justify how all these facts could be true. Every model i construct feels strained to me, more like it's a justification constructed after the fact, rather than the facts are illuminating an underlying structure. Maybe I just need more points of data.

I find this WoB confusing, since in the text Kal asks Syl, "I fight really well. Is that because of you?" And she basically says "Yes." So... I sit here trying to reconcile that with his pretty unequivocal "no" in re: the same question.

If we make about $100/hour we'll have the opportunity to make that choice. If we don't, all of the "I want both Lerasium and Electrum" people will have to come to a concensus, or we'll split the vote and malatium will win. EDIT: Or instead of doing it like Vin, we can do it like Elend, and allow the dice to decide which is the extra die. Of course, we run the risk that they decide they don't want to be rolled by us at all... UPDATE: In the 15 minutes since I posted this, we made $20 more. Doing the math in my head... I think that is just barely not a fast enough rate. Still, if there's an hour left and we're within $60, surely there are some backers out there who will decide to bring us over the edge and get themselves extra votes.

Come say hi to us!

Hey! I wasn't the first person to bring it up. Twenty did before I did, and I didn't go back farther to see if someone else brought it up even before him.

I'll be the guy in the mistcloak! ... If I finish it in time.

There are two concerns with this plan. First, as people have brought up, if there are a majority of people who want "lerasium and electrum" the first vote might get split, meaning we'd end up with malatium, even if it's the third place choice overall. The same could happen the second time, and then we'd end up with malatium and (just speculating) duralumin, when neither of them were the top two choices. And second, it's not as quick and simple as holding one vote and letting everyone pick two metals.

You've sorta missed the point. Regardless of how heavily anyone's vote is weighted, the models should stand up with some simple multiplication. That said, I suppose you point out an assumption I made. I had assumed that the votes themselves are simply weighted, that if I spend $20 and you spend $30, your vote will be counted as 50% greater than my own. It's possible they actually will give me 20 different ballots which I can divide how I wish. I would be surprised if this is the case, as it would make the process far more complicated for both the backer and the pollster, but I was remiss not to point out the possibility. Regardless, even if people cast multiple votes, my models should still stand. Every individual vote will be either "pick your top two metals" or pick one of the following 55 options. Basically what I'm saying is, part of why I didn't address the "weighted votes" is because however they're addressed, they won't affect the models very much. @Arum: Yes, exactly. Your point is precisely what will be fixed with my "pick your top two" option. @Weiry: Watched your STV video. Eh... all of the examples dealt with oversimplified situations. I'm going to have to crunch some numbers on my own and see if the system would still work in more complicated situations (like if less than all of the people who voted for White Tiger had Purple Tiger as their second choice). For all I know the simple versions were presented to us because they are actually representative of situations which are more complicated. However I'm always leery when someone shows me their new model and says, "see it works perfectly fine as long as the situations are simple and easy to deal with." I wanna know how it handles real life.

And there's his talk with Syl... I forget which book it's in, but he asks her point-blank, "are you why I'm so good at fighting?" and she says "Yes."