Ryan

Since I last posted, I have finished TEotW and am 200 pages into TGH. <Peter Parker Voice>I've been...busy.</Peter Parker Voice> So, fair warning, this might be kinda long. First, I enjoyed The Eternal Walk to Caemlyn far more this time through than I ever have. I think it's because I'm finally able to appreciate what Jordan pulled off with it. Take Perrin. The part where he kills the Whitecloaks is incredibly complex, both from a moral standpoint and a character standpoint. If that case were brought before a court of law, and you were sitting on the jury, how would you rule? Because, from the Whitecloaks' point of view, the attack is entirely unprovoked. However, Perrin could make a very sound self-defense argument, and also a momentary insanity plea. I want to say the attack was justified, but then there's a little voice in the back of my mind that says it's just because I like Perrin and don't like Whitecloaks. Regardless, the fact that the book is making me think and feel any of these things is astounding in and of itself. Then there's Rand and Mat. I never liked their stretch of this arc. But now I've come to realize that maybe that's because it's just plain depressing. RJ really conveyed the sense of hopelessness and desperation the characters were feeling, and I can appreciate that. Now, the bit where Nynaeve participates in the rescue of Perrin and Egwene is the first time she gets to be awesome. Nynaeve has gone from one of my least favorite characters to one of the best, and it wasn't until book 12 that I really came around. Now I can look past her unfortunate personality in the early books to all the crazy awesome stuff she does. I had to laugh when Gawyn told Rand that Elayne ought to pick a husband from the Two Rivers. Heh. Hehehe. After the whole gang was reunited and started for the Blight via the Ways, I came to realize that Moiraine is the best - the very best - of the Aes Sedai (and Lan is the best of the Warders). If all Aes Sedai had been, and were, and ever would be like unto Moiraine, the series would be a lot shorter on a account of not having all the petty squabbling that mires the middle books. I'm looking forward to the final book, when maybe, just maybe, we'll finally figure out just what exactly is up with the voice that Rand hears in Tarwin's Gap. To close out my thoughts on the first book, I'll mention that Ba'alzamon said something along the lines of "this time around feels different. Now change rides on the winds of time." Also, there's the dark prophecy on the walls of Fal Dara Keep at the beginning of TGH, which mentions the Time of Change. There are other hints and references all over that point to this being a special time, even amongst all the repetitious turning of the Wheel. AMoL will tell, but gosh I hope so. As for the beginning of TGH, well, I'm not a huge fan. Rand pushing his friends away is just painful to watch. It's a case of the phenomenon that plagues so many of the interactions in the WoT, where most of the drama could be averted if the characters would just talk to each other. Sigh. Anyway, the bit in the village where Rand goes in a house and the same two paragraphs get repeated about 4 times, ending with Rand seizing Saidin to kill an imagined horde of flies...man, it's seriously creepy. I'd forgotten about it, and I'm not sure what's going on, except to say that I suspect Lanfear is manipulating Rand, trying to create situations that would push him to channel. That's all for now, folks!

If (when) I buy a hybrid, I'll get a "SAZED" license plate. Because hybrid cars are totally feruchemists.

I know that it's stated many times in the story that this has happened many times before, and will happen many times again, but...I kind of hope that THIS time around proves to be special in some way. Somehow, just putting the Dark One to rest for one more age would make for a less satisfying ending than if they are somehow able to change the cycle...or even break it.

That honor appears to belong to me. TTTTHHHHHPPPPBBBB! I never would have played Infinity Blade had this not been written, which would have been a shame. It's apparently stupid at first, but then is sucks you in. The ebook adds a ridiculous amount of depth to the storyline, of which there is but little in the game itself.

Likely true. I think of all the times in New Spring where Moiraine's serenity is just a mask. And about how, when she's disposing of the bodies of the slain at the end, he calls her "a hard woman"; but then, once she bonds him, he can see how knotted up her emotions actually were and immediately tries to comfort her. Even still, it takes nerves of steel to do what she did in the way she did it. The fact that she was likely faking serenity only makes her tougher. ...and then once you get the book, you realize that immediately after Shadar Logoth comes The Eternal Walk to Caemlyn, the dullest section of the whole book. That's where I am now. I'm not really looking forward to it. So, more observations! When Perrin and Egwene meet Elyas, he laughingly tells them they're headed for the Waste and how little they'd like it there. It made me smile since Eqwene winds up staying there longer than any other character and liking it. Speaking of Egwene and Perrin, leadership is first thrust upon Perrin during this sequence, and he whines about it just as much now as he does during every book up to TofM. No wonder everyone gets tired of it. He spent 12 books getting over that hurdle. Seems a little silly. Last bit on P/E, when they're with the tinkers, we get the strongest glimmer that Perrin is ta'veren we've yet seen: Elyas' premonition that they have to stay with the wagon train. Oh, sure, there have been other times, but always they are faint hints. This is as much as a beacon for those who know to look for it. To close, an observation on Rand. His second use of Saidin, when he moved the boom to hit the Trolloc off the ship: he wasn't looking at the boom at all; his gaze was fixed on the Trolloc. How'd he move the boom without looking at it (since you need to see in order to weave)?

Just read the shadar logoth sequence. This is the part where everything goes south for poor Moiraine and Lan. Having read New Spring and therefore knowing that she has spent her whole adult life searching for one of these three boys...then watching her calmly leave them on their own with Mashadar closing in and Trollocs in pursuit...well. The woman has iron nerves. Or is just really good at faking them, better than most any other Aes Sedai in the book. I wonder if any significance can be attached to What Morreth told the three ta'veren before he disappeared. "You are all dead." Did he just mean that he thought they were going to die? Or could it be that he sensed that they are incarnations of strong souls from years past? Lastly, Rand has a nightmare after the encounter with Mordeth where someone is chasing him shouting "I only want your hand!" More foreshadowing.

Brandon tweeted recently that none of these are likely ever to happen. They don't want to risk exploiting Jordan's legacy. Also, it wasn't stated, but reading between the lines, I believe Brandon wants to be done with the Wheel of Time so he can have all of his time for his own projects again.

SMF's extension mechanism is not conducive to clean upgrades. Rather than using plugins, they use patches. SMF mods actually modify the core code; they aren't segregated at all. Its package manager automates the process of patching (and unpatching) the code, but it still means that any update to the core distribution could cause you to have to make significant changes to your mods. What's more, I'd bet money that they didn't bother patching their mods through the package manager. They weren't going to distribute them, so why spend the effort? Instead, I bet they just changed the code. Applying upgrades to an open-source web app that you've customized is not fun. You have to merge the new code into your installation, updating your customizations as you go. But which changes were made by you, and which are part of the update? Best case, the old version you customized is still available for download, so you can compare a clean install with yours and identify the files that need to be merged. Worst case, you need to carefully compare each and every file, identify your customizations in the diffs, and merge them. Like I said, it's not fun, and it takes a lot of time. Last time I upgraded a heavily-customized web app, it took me about 20 hours. If I had it to do over, I'd have factored my changes into separate files at the least. Ah well. Anyway, none of this is an issue with software that has been built with a proper extension mechanism. I'm operating on the assumption that IPB supports plugins. Yes, you may need to update the plugin when applying major version upgrades, but point releases (like the security updates that could have prevented the TWG breakin) rarely require it. And when updates are required, they're usually minor. All that is to say, I'm not too concerned about it.

After Christmas I could look into adding that in...

I'm reading the wheel of time for the third time in preparation for the release of AMoL. I want to talk about things I notice, but I don't want to tweet spoilers. So, here I am. Fair warning, expect this thread to contain spoilers for the entire series. I started with New Spring. I don't really have anything to say about the experience of reading it again (this is my second time through that particular book). Now, I'm about a quarter into The Eye of the World. Things I've noticed so far: When Moiraine heals Tam, Rand totally gets the goosebumps on his arms. Not sure if that means he had already touched Saidin at some point in the past or not. I'm noticing a bit more of what people are talking about when they say the early books do foreshadowing for the entire series. For example, after Moiraine helps Egwene touch Saidar, she tells her she has the potential to reach the Amyrlin Seat. Or when they're running from Trollocs with catchpoles, Mat is the only one that gets a noose around his neck. (I think there was another reference to the hanging, but I can't recall it right now.) Lan and Nynaeve's romance was totally set up from the first time they meet. In the first Ba'alzamon dream, Ishamael tells Rand that he was the one who caused Artur Hawkwing's army to be sent across the sea, and that by so doing, sealed two dooms: that of his empire, and one still to come. The doom still to come obviously refers to the Seanchan invasion, though that has not come to "doom" quite yet, if it ever will. But, if Aviendha's vision in Towers of Midnight unfolds as seen, the Seanchan are the doom of Aiel and Aes Sedai both. I find it striking that, even with only one book left in the series, we still don't know what a bunch of Min's first viewings mean.

More votes for Blackout All Clear and Pastwatch. Also worthy is a newer book by Orson Scott Card, Pathfinder. I admit I'm not widely read in this sub genre. But I have read the original, HG Wells' The Time Machine. Which, in all honesty, is not really that great, but is worth reading as a historical curiosity. As a plus, it's freely available from gutenberg.org.

I'm most of the way through Leviathan Wakes, which is awesome, but where I am right now, is just a bit depressing, and I just didn't need that. I'll come back to it eventually, but in the meantime, I've begun my pre-AMoL WoT reread. I'm through New Spring and about 50 pages into The Eye of the World. I'm...not sure if I'll read Crossroads of Twilight this time through. I know it's one of Brandon's favorites, but it's so boring.

Happy birthday! Mine is on monday. ;D

I loved the Pern books in middle school. They still have a place in my heart, though I haven't read one in ages. Maybe I should. It's sad that she's gone, but I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise. She was already pretty old when I first started reading her, and that was, like, 16 years ago. I just realized, all of the authors I grew up loving are now dead. Dr. Seuss, Shel Siverstien, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, Robert Jordan, Brian Jacques, Arthur C Clarke, Roald Dahl, John Bellairs, Lloyd Alexander, and now Anne McCaffrey. Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's. Orson Scott Card better watch out—he's the only one left.

Or, you could go to Escape Pod or Pod Castle to listen to some free audio fiction. They only do short stories, but at an average length of about 45 minutes, they're plenty long to get a feel for audio fiction. And, of course, there's hundreds of episodes up.

It's too bad Arsenic isn't allomantically active...

I thought this might come up eventually. Here's a primer on how numbers work. Our number system is big-endian, positional, and base-10. Big-endian means that, when reading a number from left to right, you encounter the big end first. Positional means that the value of a numeral depends on its position within the number. Base-10 means that the mathematics that determine what a numeral in a given position means are based on the number 10. In positional systems, in order to determine the value of a number, we multiply each numeral by bp, where b is the base and p is an exponent whose value is dependent on the position. In the first position, the exponent is 0; in the second, it is 1; and so on and so forth forever. Let's look at an example number: 385. The value of this number is determined by the following expression: 3*102 + 8*101 + *100 = 385. In other words, 300 + 80 + 5. This way of thinking about numbers looks daft until you realize that it allows for numbers in bases other than the familiar 10, which can occasionally be very useful. The only example I know of is computers, which only have two numerals to represent information, and so have to use base-2. In base-2 (or binary), our example number is 110000001: 1*28 + 1*27 + 1*20 = 256 + 128 + 1. Of course, binary numbers are hard for humans to work with, so to make our jobs easier, programmers started using base-16, or hexadecimal. Our example in hexadecimal is 181: 1*162 + 8*161 + 1*160. The chapter numbers cannot be a positional system, at least not in the way we use them. Consider chapter 17, which is numbered (16 1). If this were a base-16 system, that number would be 16*161 + 1*160, or, IOW, very much NOT 17. Instead, the two numerals are added together, much like Roman numerals. The only way to get those chapter numbers to work in a positional system is to posit that every TWO numerals occupy a single position. In such a system, you add pairs of numerals together before applying the base. So, in the three-digit number (6 16 10), you first add 16 and 10 together to get 26, then apply the base: 6*161 + 26*160 = 96 + 26 = 122. Such a system is not without problems, as eri has pointed out: It is true that all of our positional number systems use the same number of symbols as the base. Thus base-10 uses 0-9, base-16 uses 0-F, etc. In this system, there are 17 symbols: Spike-Duralumin. I realized this when I proposed it, but I ignored it because it's not an issue. All it means is that there is more than one way to represent certain numbers, but this system would have that property anyway due to the two-numbers-per-position thing. So, yes, it's an inefficient and stupid way to write numbers. But, then again, so are Roman numerals, and the greatest empire of the ancient world used them to create feats of engineering never before seen. And speaking of Roman numerals, that's another system that has many ways to represent some numbers. If we abandon the notion of shoehorning these numbers into a positional system, we'd end up with a system where all numerals are added together, except for those that are preceded by a letter, in which case that number is multiplied by some value before being added. In the edition number, under this system, the two unknown letters would be value-modifying prefixes on the numbers 15 and 6. I'm pretty much convinced the numbers work in one of these two ways. Now, we just need more information, which means that someone needs to bug Brandon (or we could RAFO, but that's no fun ).

6*16^1 + (16+10) * 16^0. If I'm right about the two numerals per position thing, that's how it would work. I initially thought it was a non-positional system like Roman numerals, but I can't come up with one that fits. At least, not based on information we already have. And for such a system to work, you'd need to have multiplicity modifiers in order to handle larger numbers. Come to think, that could be what the unknown symbols in the broadsheet are. But I find that dissatisfying, because it means we don't have enough information to figure out what they are.

He could well just have been a zinc ferring. Lots of extra mental speed = decreased reaction time? I think the idea is that he would put the bubble up right as Wax was firing, see where the bullet was flying, move Lessie into its path, then drop the bubble before the bullet reaches it. It would be insanely tough to pull off.

I like that theory a lot. I'd also mention that the Blessings convey an enhancement above and beyond sentience. I seem to recall that any given Hemalurgic spike can only steal a single attribute. One for sentience, one for enhancement? As for how to convey sentience, I note that Aluminum, when used in Feruchemy, stores identity...

Okay then. Here's a hypothesis for how the system works. It IS a base-16, big-endian, positional numbering system. But, instead of a single symbol occupying a single position (as in our positional system), the Steel Alphabet number system uses a pair of symbols for each position. This is the only explanation I could come up with to reconcile both the chapter numberings and the broadsheet edition number. The pair-per-position system seems a bit odd, but it also makes a kind of sense. There are two shards on Scadrial, they both have to work together in order for life to happen, and the whole reason they're using base 16 is due to the nature of those shards. The one thing we're missing is a zero. Every positional number system needs a way to represent an absence of value in a given position. I posit that the spike that heads the prologues is the zero. It makes sense for the zero to have no associated metal. (Now, here's a tangent for you: the spikes are obvious symbols of Hemalurgy/Ruin. Then, the crescents in the metal symbols would represent Allomancy/Preservation. Spike the crescents, and you have Feruchemy/Balance, and also Harmony, and life. Use just a spike, and you have only Ruin; you have nothing. Now, I know the symbols were originally designed just to look cool, so I'm probably reading too much into it...but you've gotta admit it's cool.) SO. If we assume the edition number follows the volume/issue format commonly used for periodicals in our world, we can posit that the unknown symbols are "v" and "i". Putting it all together, the edition number says: "Edition: v.15 i.122".

So, it seems that Sazed (Harmony) is limited in what he can do by the need to maintain balance between his two shards. Back when they were held by two people, neither could accomplish much, because whenever one tried to do something, the other would try to block them. (Hey, sounds a lot like Congress!) I found this very interesting, because I assumed that, now that both were held by a single mind, more could get done. But, it seems, not very much more. Hmm...

No, they aren't. At least, not in HoA. The maps in AofL don't have a compass rose that I can see. But, they have something better! Symbols along the margins! You know how maps have numbers along the sides, and letters across the top and bottom, in order to be able to locate things with a grid? Well, one map has metal symbols for these, and another has numbers and letters. Sadly, on the Kindle edition of the book the symbols are too small to be very decipherable. Someone with a hardcover would have to contribute. That said, from what I can see the numbering doesn't match. At this point, I'm wondering if we're not reading too much into this. Is Peter here, and will he confirm or deny?

Ok, I copied my first post in this topic into my first reply to your topic. Let's have all further discussion there.