curi

regarding the plan where you get 2 datapoints far apart that make circles that barely overlap: you can design it like that if you know where her base is, but before you know the base location you can't know what 2 perfect spots to get data points in. as a process of discovery of base location, what should happen is is you get some not-great data points somewhere which narrow it down some, then you try to get more data points at the right distance (in any direction, tho perhaps limited by where the city is) to narrow down some of the remaining area. so at first they want any data (preferably towards the edges though, datapoints in the middle still probably not really gonna help due to her large range relative to manhattan size), and then once they get some decent sense of the base location they need pretty specific data at the right distance so a circle drawn around the new data point will cut into a portion of the possible base locations area. the leeway on the how wide an area provides useful datapoints is basically the same size as the current leeway on where she could be. if u have her narrows down to a 500 meter diameter, then the useful data points will be approximately in a circle around that, 5 miles away, and that circle will have 500 meter thickness (tho if ur right on the edge of the useful data points, u'll only get a small gain, like only removing 1 meter from her possible base locations. so from a practical perspective, the width of the circle around the possible base locations denoting useful places to get a data point is even narrower than the area you already narrowed her base down to). i think this perspective is a bit different than starting with knowing where her base is, then figuring out a minimal set of datapoints that would perfectly pinpoint it. part of the problem is you don't know which datapoints will be useful until you know roughly where her base is. the more accurately you know where her base is, then the more accurately you can know what datapoints you need to pinpoint it more (and the fewer places in the city are useful anymore). regarding a fix for the book without moving where the action is: just saying south instead of southeast would help i think. and making it sound like they want one datapoint in the south in a key location (or arc of locations with a thickness), rather than just needing data from the south in a vague general way. and lowering regalia's range could help too. i don't really agree with this because i think some of their data comes from before the novel starts. they would have data points from where regalia had been seen in the last year, say, while some reckoners were monitoring the city. and they could ask people who lived there where regalia had been seen. older data or data from non-reckoners is going to be a bit less reliable (maybe she moved at some point, maybe someone misremembered the exact location, maybe someone was making up a story), but i figured in the book they were using some data like this, not just relying only on fresh sightings during the story. EDIT (click the picture to expand) ok i drew another picture but i suck at art so bear with me. not perfectly to scale, etc. red is where her base could be (realistically you won't narrow down to exact circle which makes things a bit more complicated but the concepts are similar). green band is where you can get useful data points to narrow down further (the more in the center of the green band the better, the edges aren't as good). orange is very loosely manhattan (it's more than 10 miles long so this does fit). if it was perfectly to scale, the green band width would match the red circle width (diameter). then the black shows an example datapoint within the green band (useful, though in this case not on land) and then the circle around it (about the right scale relative to the green circle size, not 100% perfect but pretty close). i wanted to get across really clearly the green band thing. any datapoint that's inside of the green band (like in the white area inside) is too close. the circle around it would include the entire red area, so you wouldn't learn anything. any datapoint outside the green band (the white beyond the band) would be too far, the circle you draw around it wouldn't overlap the red at all. the green band is where you can get a datapoint, then draw a circle around it for where regalia could be located to appear there, and have it overlap part of the red (so you could narrow down to only that part of the red. or rule out that part of the red if your datapoint was she didn't appear and you think she can't appear there). note some parts of manhattan are too far south in this case (it depends where her base actually is specifically, if her base was further south you could have the entire southern green in water). not in the green band. not useful. you don't just want the furthest south possible. note also, the green band shrinks every time you narrow down her base location. it starts out really big and gets smaller with every new useful data point. so there's a kind of discovery process over time, you don't wanna think about it as just jumping to the end where only 2 datapoints matter. earlier datapoints even if they get obsoleted could have been useful along the way. EDIT 2: i wanted to also say, this is not triangulation, don't think of it like triangulation. triangulation is (wikipedia) "In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly (trilateration)." that's rather different. like it has to do with angles between stuff, and triangles. unless you're a math guy who knows a lot about triangulation, i'd suggest just forgetting about triangulation and leaving it out of the conversation. also the goal here is NOT to get data on all sides of regalia and kinda surround her with data points. it's about having this green band and getting a data point in it which then narrows the green band and the possible base locations, and then getting another data point in the new thinner green band, and repeat. (note once you have just one single data point, it gets you a very big red circle and a very thick green band, this is basically how it works from the very start after you have one data point then you can do it like this. though at that point with only one data point, the red and green will actually overlap)

btw David's grape catapult idea has problems too the catapult scenario has the appearances (grapes) in random locations, but Regalia appearances aren't at random places in the city with equal probability. another way the catapult comparison is wrong is that with the catapult the idea is to say where the catapult was located with a probability of being right (unless you know the exact max range and have some very perfectly places grapes and then the rest of the shots don't matter), whereas the regalia search method has (given the premises) a guarantee. the catapult comparison also kinda suggests all the datapoints are relevant, but many of them aren't actually. the idea is kinda like the catapult forms a circle shape (on average longrun) and then it was located at the center of that circle. that isn't how the regalia search method works. and the part about the catapult being able to shoot different distances isn't helpful.

i'm west coast so i may not have understood that and missed it. i suck at east coast geography and city layouts. but that sounds like a possible plot issue then because my understanding of Regalia's plan involved her intentionally giving them data to finish narrowing it down so they can go to her trap. i thought the idea of the ending was she gave them a bit more data, then they went where it led them. so that would have to be in the area they'd already narrowed it down to (city center), otherwise they'd have contradicting data and just be confused instead of knowing where to go. EDIT: also in any case, that doesn't affect how coherent their analysis earlier in the book was, given what they knew/assumed at the time. EDIT 2: checking book it says: "One showed a map of Babilar with a circle on it. A place out in New Jersey—this house? It seemed likely, as the other screen in front of him flickered, then showed a shot of the room I was in. Regalia dead in her bed. Me, standing with bloody arms, wrapped in a cloth at my waist." i think what it's saying is: her real base was in new jersey out of assumed range. but the fake trap base she led them to with the data points was city center. so that makes sense i think, and doesn't really change things except we could be careful to specify the "possible regalia base area" they were narrowing down was, in actuality, the trapped building she was tricking them into going to, not her REAL base.

i think regalia's base is near the center of the city so this doesn't really work. for example, in the comment about southeast it says, "From what I eventually worked out, my points had helped a lot, but we needed more data from the southeastern side of the city before we could really determine Regalia’s center base." this indicates that at the same time he thinks they need southeast data, he also thinks her base is somewhere towards the center of the city. also later in the book it again indicates her base is in the center, so they can't have ever had a situation where their map showed it was near the northwest corner, "On the walls she’d plastered maps of Babilar that showed Newton’s routes. In the center of the city, several pins noted where Tia thought Regalia might be hiding. There were still too many buildings to search effectively without giving away what we were doing, but we were close." so there was no prior point where they'd narrowed it down to the northwest with the center excluded. also let's look at the area where they would need data in your scenario. assume they have it narrowed down to a fairly small area. in that diagram it looks like the possible base area is over a mile wide if it's to scale, so try to imagine it a little differently, so the overlapped area is small and towards the north west of the city. now to narrow it down further, they need datapoints in something like a thin circle with around a 5 mile radius around the possible base area. and your point is, a lot of that circle is in the ocean, but it overlaps the city towards the south east. in that case, what i want to point out is, the place where they need data points could then be described something like "a small arc covering 2% of the landmass of the southeast quadrant" (and not touching any other quadrants if you place things carefully enough), not just data points in the southeast in general. EDIT: here i'm just assuming the city dimensions would work out for what you're saying to be possible. i haven't looked up the actual city size and shape. EDIT 2: not to scale very well but here is kinda a rough concept to show a thin arc. they'd want data points in the orange line i drew on (the rest of that line, not drawn, is in the ocean around the city), which is kinda different than just wanting data from the south east.

so then you need data points near the edge of her range (at the right distance) in any direction, not to the south east in particular. if you want to blame stuff on character errors instead of book errors ... well you could be right and i don't really find that interesting. i think the geometry is much more interesting than whether to blame David. for the High Epic thing, whether to blame David for the mistake is more interesting, but in that case i'm not really convinced, he is a maybe to join the lorists, he's a great scholar who can handle details well instead of just randomly ignoring lorist definitions after learning them.

do you realize your post is itself aggressive to me? e.g. you say i "really need" to do an order you've just given me. and you attack me as "so aggressive". that's aggressive. and you did this with a 100% off topic post, not even trying to address the thread topics, just ignoring them.

It didn't dampen my enjoyment of the story either. It increased it. Figuring this out was fun. I don't know why people get so touchy about it.

so what you mean is: you are unable to provide any diagram where the book is correct, but wish to go on believing the book is correct, while ignoring the fact that you said several things which *contradict basic geometry* and without retracting them.

guys this is pretty simple. draw any shape. this is the area that regalia's base could be in, narrowed down so far. now try to draw circles that overlap it to refine the search further. notice that no matter what the shape is, these can be drawn from any side. the geometry isn't biased by direction.

you are, like the others, making what sound like arbitrary false statements about geometry (combined with trying to add extra premises that aren't in the book about e.g. city limits to try to rescue things). so i'll say to you the same as to them: draw a picture. show what you're talking about instead of it just being a few vague words. i am aware of the city limits concept. it isn't in the book. meanwhile you are saying things like "if Regalia is located closer to the SE then they need data points from the far SE to narrow down the position" which has nothing to do with the geometry, it's just an arbitrary assertion. and you have no mathematical argument and no picture. you're just trying to throw everything at the wall and hope it sticks, for one side of the debate only.

you are factually-mathematically wrong and have no counter-argument to what i said. look at my picture, read what i said, i show this clearly. i cover this exact case in the diagram i provide. in my diagram you can see with circles from 3 quadrants, you get a closed area, not an undefined length. and then a 4th circle in the 4th quadrant OR in any of the others all can narrow it down further. i don't get why people who don't know math, and can't draw a diagram, try to argue math. are you really that eager to insist the book has no flaws? i like the book too, but c'mon

you're just plain getting the geometry wrong. all directions from the possible base area work equally well. if you want to deny this, draw a picture or give math details.

and the point is, you don't need any data points from the southern side of the city to figure out her location. geometry doesn't work that way. see my blog post w/ diagram.

For nice formatting and details+quotes, see my blog post version: http://curi.us/1698-two-firefight-errors In short: 1) Regalia isn't a High Epic because she doesn't have powers to prevent dying in a regular way. Tia explains this. Later David kills Regalia and says he killed his second High Epic for the day. 2) The geometry doesn't make sense when David says, "From what I eventually worked out, my points had helped a lot, but we needed more data from the southeastern side of the city before we could really determine Regalia’s center base." Actually the direction or area of the city isn't important, the key thing is getting new data points at the right distance from the potential base area, and that works in any direction. I have a diagram and geometry explanation at the link above.

i am unclear on whether rlain thinks Taln had a spren himself that was killed, or is talking about the shardblade's spren being killed. or he thinks Taln had a spren/shadeblade before the recreance? or something? pretty vague. i'm not sure it matters though, it's just wild speculation combined with maybe not paying attention to how dalinar did have the shardblade scream. but anyway i'm posting cuz i wanted to talk a little about nightblood. i think partly people are really impressed by nightblood because it *felt* very unique, special, powerful in warbreaker. i think this helps explain the speculations here. they feel like they could fit nightblood because of awesome nightblood is. but actually i think warbreaker presents it more like this: more similar swords could be made. nightblood is actually part of a major category of magic item (so its mechanics are actually normal stuff that fits into the standard cosmere magic systems without creating exceptions). nightblood is just unique, currently, because the scholars didn't make more. and while it's powerful, other powerful things could be made, it's not unique. the reason it's able to be so powerful is it consumes tons of magic (investiture) whenever it does anything powerful, rather than it actually having a lot of its own power. the most unique aspect of nightblood in a theoretical way, i think, is its mission to destroy evil. if more swords would made they could be given the same instructions or different.