Ryan

I did see that. It's interesting, but I don't think it fits. For one thing, if they have 50 symbols, why do they use two symbols for numbers larger than 16? For another, the "god metals" are myths in this age, and I'm not sure their symbols would be known, let alone those of their alloys.

And then we both posted the same reply to each others' topics. Are you sure you're married? You may just be my soul mate. (Joking, of course, in case it wasn't obvious...)

No way did we two just post the same topic at the same time. That's freaky Edit: In the interest of consolidation, here is the topic I posted about this, at the same time as Guinevere: Something in the broadsheet caught my eye. Centered below the title are six metal symbols that look like they're supposed to be read as a number. This, combined with the symbols at the head of each chapter, led me to think that there is a numbering system that uses the metal symbols as numerals. The only clue I've found as to the meaning of the numerals are the chapter headings themselves. If we assume the chapters are numbered both in our numerals and in metal numerals, it's easy to see which symbols represent which numbers. The trouble comes in deciphering numbers higher than 16. At first I thought it would be a base-16 system, which would make a great deal of sense considering the importance of the number 16 as well as there being 16 symbols. But it doesn't appear to be a positional notation at all, being more analogous to Roman numerals. Chapters higher than 16 are numbered with two symbols. 17 is numbered as "16 1", 18 is "16 2", and so on up to 20, which is the highest chapter number in the book. But this isn't enough to decipher the system, especially since the prologue and epilogue use symbols that aren't assigned to any metal, and the six numerals at the top of the broadsheet also use two symbols that don't belong to any metal. The broadsheet number is: "* 15 * 6 16 10" (using *'s in place of symbols whose value is unknown). Now, I'm at a dead end. I don't think there's enough information in the book to decipher the whole system. We know how to count to 20, sure, but beyond that I'm stumped. Has anyone seen any clues I'm missing, or have any further insights?

Something in the broadsheet caught my eye. Centered below the title are six metal symbols that look like they're supposed to be read as a number. This, combined with the symbols at the head of each chapter, led me to think that there is a numbering system that uses the metal symbols as numerals. The only clue I've found as to the meaning of the numerals are the chapter headings themselves. If we assume the chapters are numbered both in our numerals and in metal numerals, it's easy to see which symbols represent which numbers. The trouble comes in deciphering numbers higher than 16. At first I thought it would be a base-16 system, which would make a great deal of sense considering the importance of the number 16 as well as there being 16 symbols. But it doesn't appear to be a positional notation at all, being more analogous to Roman numerals. Chapters higher than 16 are numbered with two symbols. 17 is numbered as "16 1", 18 is "16 2", and so on up to 20, which is the highest chapter number in the book. But this isn't enough to decipher the system, especially since the prologue and epilogue use symbols that aren't assigned to any metal, and the six numerals at the top of the broadsheet also use two symbols that don't belong to any metal. The broadsheet number is: "* 15 * 6 16 10" (using *'s in place of symbols whose value is unknown). Now, I'm at a dead end. I don't think there's enough information in the book to decipher the whole system. We know how to count to 20, sure, but beyond that I'm stumped. Has anyone seen any clues I'm missing, or have any further insights?

Posting my reactions before reading anyone else's. Sorry if I echo what everyone else said. Knowing how long Brandon took to produce this book, it is far better, and far deeper, than it has any right to be. It is mind-blowingly awesome to be able to watch how Scadrial develops post-Final Empire. The allomantic gunfights are incredible, and almost make up for the lack of mistborns (allomantic or otherwise) in the world. But more than either of those things, I absolutely loved the depiction of faith and religion in the book. It's the most honest and realistic depiction of faith I've seen in (non-religious) fiction, and it is subtly, almost deviously done. I see this book as the story of many people of faith doing the best they can by their religions and their gods. I about died laughing when "High Imperial" turned out to be Spook's indecipherable eastern slang. Even now it makes me chuckle. As much as the hopeless romantic in me would have loved to see a Wax/Marasi relationship work out, the way things actually unfolded feels far more honest and realistic. This single thing really made the characters come to life for me. It is a little sad, but so is life. Now, if I may indulge in a bit of gloating, I totally called that Suit was Wax's uncle. I had him bang to rights from his second appearance. There's a Mysterious String-Puller archetype where a character is shown to pull the strings from the shadows, without either us or the characters knowing their identity—the point being to eventually reveal who they are, to the shock of all involved. The archetype has a flaw, though, and that is that, in order for the big reveal to mean anything, it has to be somebody known both to us and to the main characters, and this usually reduces the set of who it could be to one or two characters. In this case, the choice was between Harms and Uncle Ladrian, and the latter fit the profile better. Lastly, Mr. "There's always another mystery" just couldn't wrap everything up, could he? He just had to leave a bunch of loose ends lying around at the end. This is either setup for trilogy 2, or setup for AofL 2. I'd laugh if Brandon wound up writing an AofL trilogy between the first and second trilogies...Wait, did I say laugh? Actually, that would be fantastic.

I have the Kindle edition. This is at location 5259: Earlier, Miles had ordered Push and Pull to use Allomancy to make sure all of his men were free of any metal. Now, this may well not be an error; it could easily be that Push and Pull blew off the order, or it could be that the Vanisher stuck coins in his pocket after the sweep. But I figured I'd make sure it was done on purpose, and not on accident. The only other error I found has already been reported. Congrats to Peter and anyone else who proofread the book on a job very well done!

Meh, that length would take 2-3 hours tops to pound out. It's the *research* that's the trouble...

Who said anything about real life? We're talking about a video game.

And the journey is full of tedious manual labor. Just sayin'.

I recently had a roommate that was into minecraft. I watched him play a bit. Frankly, I don't get it. It's like a game level builder with an unbelievably crappy UI. Oh, and resource scarcity. He had to work very hard for the materials to make the tools to mine the materials he needed to build what he wanted to build. Oh, and he occasionally died, losing some of his hard work. And for what? Blocky 3D models? Hardly seems worth the trouble.

Snuff, by Terry Pratchett. He is not losing to his Alzheimer's. He's still at the top of his game. Though, it must be mentioned, his prose these days has a more rambling feel than it used to. Due to the aforementioned Alzheimer's, he has to dictate his books, and I suspect that is why.

At the moment I'm playing through Half Life 2. Again. Any bets on whether Valve will ever actually make HL2:EP3, let alone HL3?

My confusion was that I thought they were dead serious. So much anime is so incredibly stupid that I can't always tell when they're joking. And I didn't actually watch the first episode because Crunchyroll only carries the most recent 5. The episode I watched had a series of annoying villains, one of which was always shouting "Non! Non! Non!".

So what I view as retardation is actually supposed to be comedy?

I watched that the other week on Netflix. Now, normally Netflix is not the place to watch Anime because it's dubbed, but given that this one is set in 1930's America the dub actually worked very well, especially because of the many accents involved (both 30's Gangster and European). I don't think I'm capable of hearing an accent in Japanese, so for that at least I'm glad I saw the dub. I'm going to have to watch it again. Because of its non-linearity, the first six or so episodes (of a 16-episode series) don't make much sense. I think the story does need quite a bit of non-linearity, but I also think they went a little overboard and could have made a greater effort to ensure that things made more sense early on. Oh, and some of the characters get annoying. Actually, quite a few characters are annoying. Ladd Russo, Jacuzzi Splot (what a name), and Isaac and Myria top the list. (Although those last two are actually awesome most of the time. It's mostly Myria's exclamations of "INCREDIBLE!" at every little thing Isaac says that annoys me.) Those caveats aside, I absolutely loved it. A word of warning, it earns its TV-MA in bloody violence. There is little language and no sex.

You read my post without reading the book? I pretty much spoiled everything! Anyway, it is good that there will be sequels. It would be better if the book could stand on its own. :\

Fairy Tail is awesome? How do you get past all the retardation? (Granted I only watched one episode. It was pretty to look at. That was its only redeeming quality.) Psych is back!

That Skeptoid podcast reinforces my disdain of philosophy as field of study. All that time and effort spent debating the philosophical ramifications of the paradoxes, when in truth they are an easily-explained and understood math error.

I finished Robison Wells' Variant a few hours ago, and much as I've tried to change my mind, I've still gotta say: You call that an ending, Wells? Don't get me wrong - I loved the book. I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. It starts fast and never slows down. It grabs you and it doesn't let go. It was absolutely fantastic. But that ending, argh, that ending! When I said the book never slows down, I meant it. There is no denouement. There is no conclusion. I literally turned the page and was shocked by the sight of the acknowledgements page. The book just...ends, and so much is left ambiguous. You'll probably think me dim for saying this, but I don't much like ambiguous fiction. Maybe it's my choice of profession. I'm a computer science student, and we spend considerable effort chasing ambiguity from our work. So I don't want to finish other people's stories, or fill in the details. I can write my own stories for that, but when someone tells me a story, I kinda expect to be told a story. Y'know? First of all, we are never told if Benson is a robot. There is considerable evidence that he is. His physical endurance seems abnormal to me - he's able to keep up with Lily, who trains hard for speed and endurance. He takes a lot of punishment without sustaining serious injury. And, he's very strong. His background is a little sketchy. No friends, ever? No chance to play sports, ever? Seems mighty neat and tidy. Almost like it was programmed in. He is practically a tailor-made agitator. As Benson noted several times, many things about the school seemed set up to coax them into escaping, like that was the goal of the testing—they wanted the robots to figure out how to escape. They dropped Benson in to shake things up and push everyone towards that end. The way they walked out under the watchful gaze - but not interference - of the animal bots supports this. But, there is a major knock against him being a robot. Why did the school not just stop him when it became obvious they wanted to? Why did he never get possessed, like the other androids? I can't reconcile it in my mind. I can't decide. Is he, or isn't he? So I want the opinions of others. What do you think? So, back to the ending and its deficiencies. We are never told if Benson makes it out. We are never told what happens to Becky. What's more, right at the very end, Benson is put into a very unusual love triangle, with the revelation of a Jane successor model that remembers him. It's no great mystery how; data driven programming is like that. To retain the benefit of her experiences, they need to keep the database. I guess they tried to repress things they didn't want her to recall, probably betting on Benson never actually appearing before her sight. Anyway, there's material for like 10,000 more words. The love triangle could be resolved. The escape could be resolved. Becky could be resolved. The book is quite short anyway; it's not like he'd be breaking the word bank. But instead we get...ambiguity, and an ending too soon. Argh! (Yes, it's true. Robison Wells has turned me into a pirate. Argh!)

"A research paper on fantasy novels" is a topic far too broad to be useful. What *specifically* are you focusing on?

Yeah, spoilers: Oh, and I'm still reading A Night of Blacker Darkness. I just can't seem to muster the motivation to stick with it. I mean, yeah it's amusing, but the plot just doesn't carry its own weight. I bet it would make a good movie, though.

This is going to be the most random reason posted here. When I was in 7th grade, I was pretty into computer graphics and, and did a lot of stuff with a program called Bryce. I was on a mailing list hosted by the people who made the program, where people would post tips and tricks, answers to questions, and links to stuff they'd done. One person posted a bunch of fan art for the WoT. I thought it looked pretty interesting. And so I began to read. At that time the newest book out was book 7, and I read them all. I was so hooked that if the library didn't have a particular book, I'd scrape together my allowance and buy it, even if the book store only had a hardcover in stock. (You think I'd wait for shipping from Amazon? Pssh. I was a kid. I was FAR too impatient for that.)

The Wedding of River Song just blew my mind. I'm sitting here geekin' out about it. It makes me want to watch the whole of Dr. Who again from the beginning.

One of my favorite things about these books is the storytelling craft on display. Themes, symbols, and even insignificant things echo repeatedly throughout the series. A simple example: when Kvothe demonstrates his arrow catch to Kilvin, he has trouble naming it, and remarks, And then in the end what is it called by Elodin? "The Bloodless", which is one of the names people have given Kvothe. These sorts of things are all over the place in these books, and I can't remember any other examples off the top of my head. It actually makes me wish I'd taken notes so that I could easily find the ones I've noticed again. It's done so subtly that you have to be paying attention to notice it. What makes this most impressive to me is that I know that it's the result of years of painstaking revision. I don't know, if I were an author, if I would be willing to put in that kind of effort for these lovely details.

I view fillers like I view season breaks in normal TV, because, let's be honest, that's what they would be doing if they couldn't make more money by running fillers. It would be really great if manga artists planned for the adaptation to anime by writing their own "filler" arcs that are part of the canon. These would be textual interludes placed between major arcs that manga readers could read and Anime makers could burn time animating. The Erfworld webcomic does this to great effect (they don't have animation in mind, but rather just want to tell more story than they can through the regular pages because the art takes so long). I know it's a pipe dream because manga artists are already overworked and underpaid. But if it could be made to work, it would be a much better solution than anything they're doing now.