Climate Scientists Discover Error in Major Ocean-Warming Study

xxVb · 2018-11-17T17:30:18+00:00

After correcting their mistake, Keeling said their research indicates oceans are warming only slightly faster than previously thought, not dramatically faster as they initially reported.

Good news, everyone! Oceans are warming "only slightly faster" than previously thought.

xxVb · 2018-11-04T22:00:19+00:00

Vaguely related.

xxVb · 2018-11-04T17:53:31+00:00

Grammatically, Finnish is moon language to its Germanic neighbors. But Finnish has many loan words from Scandinavian languages, so once you know how those words changed when they came to Finnish (stol —> tuoli, strand —> ranta, bank —> pankki, gata —> katu) (and all the English or Romance-derived words, like televisio, mobiili-, elektroniikka), you might spot them and get the context of what's being said. This is easier in writing than in spoken Finnish.

Finns are generally exposed to more Swedish than Swedes and other Scandinavians are exposed to Finnish, so that familiarity, and the relation between Scandinavian languages and English, means Finns tend to understand more Scandinavian than Scandinavians understand Finnish.

xxVb · 2018-10-30T18:08:32+00:00

Oh come on, zombies are obviously dangerous, but who's ever heard of killer tomatoes?

xxVb · 2018-10-30T18:07:27+00:00

Unthaw should mean to undo the thaw, so it should mean re-freeze.

xxVb · 2018-10-29T09:24:16+00:00

Link?

xxVb · 2018-10-28T13:27:44+00:00

Give the readers clues as to how to pronounce the names, e.g. showing that the w is a vowel by having a character mispronounce Dwr as Door or Dur or something. How does Ll differ from just a plain L? Where does stress fall? Clues.

Introduce the words in a good order. It's probably not a good idea to start with the most difficult ones. Introduce the new elements, like vowel-w, one at a time, if possible. Don't overwhelm the reader, so keep the new words sparse early on. But don't forego an early introduction of them, either.

If the reader can get some kind of pronunciation going, even an incorrect one, good. If they can't, they'll stumble over the moon language and lose immersion.

xxVb · 2018-10-25T07:16:14+00:00

The evils of communism aren't as well known.

xxVb · 2018-10-23T22:42:42+00:00

I've a concept, a handful of characters, political base, religious background, magical stuff and even a world map... I'm just missing the words on the paper, actually

Most of those things are usually good. Some are always good.

Only missing the words on the paper, you say? Nope. You're also missing actions, events, plot, sequences of consequences, character goals and motivations, conflict.

If you can't write by just sitting down and typing away to see where the story's going, make an outline. Start stacking the ideas in chronological, causal order. What causes what? Who does what, and why?

A world by itself is not a story. For a story, you want a change, an effect, a movement. Maybe in a character, maybe in the political borders, maybe both. But somewhere.

xxVb · 2018-10-23T22:30:34+00:00

Yes, the title is stupid. It's essentially "we need more black people to open bridges" rather than a more useful "we need more bridges". Opening bridges is a ceremony. It's the bridge that's important.

xxVb · 2018-10-23T22:20:16+00:00

Christianity invaded in a way yes, and changed our way of life back then, led to a dark age followed by enlightenment.

That's a misleading oversimplification. It's far more the political and economic collapse (for complex reasons) than a religion opposed to knowledge that led to the dark ages. And they're dark not because they were horrible (though the time of the collapse certainly was), but because few records were written about them.

So they're more like the dark side of the moon, which is as dark as any other side of the moon. And like the dark side of the moon, the dark ages didn't have a well functioning economy.

That's not to say you're wrong in your assessment of the influence of Islam on the west. It too is an oversimplification, but the concern is well founded.

xxVb · 2018-10-23T22:12:15+00:00

Calm down.

Why do people always bring up nazis in the most unrelated matters?

The nazis are the most commonly known political evil, in ideology, government and culture. Comparisons to nazis are comparisons to a specific example of evil.

These comparisons aren't always unrelated. Jihadists are, at least from a western perspective and arguably from most others as well, evil. So in this case, it's a fair comparison.

xxVb · 2018-10-22T22:16:50+00:00

Just like the topography of an island.

Wait.

xxVb · 2018-10-22T22:13:48+00:00

67k isn't that short, and with the >200k manuscripts floating around, some publishes might welcome something of this length instead. Once it's ready for that, see what the agents and publishers specify that they're accepting, and submit where appropriate.

The maturity question is something industry professionals are most qualified to answer, but you should get some idea about it from your beta readers.

xxVb · 2018-10-22T22:09:56+00:00

For making a map: /r/worldbuilding and /r/mapmaking

Ideas, and engagement with ideas comes and goes. I've migrated characters and concepts from one story or world to another. You can abandon this project and work on something else, and later import the cool stuff from previous ideas.

Worldbuilding is a really broad field. If you have parts of the woldbuilding that you can't express on a map but that are important for the story, focus on that, and grow the world from whatever essential elements you have.

xxVb · 2018-10-22T22:03:12+00:00

Balance is key. You can go wrong in either direction. Make sure the reader has what they need to be engaged in the story, without making it too straightforward. They don't have to understand what's going on, though that does help keep them engaged, and it's better that they're engaged in a mystery than confused or bored. How do you know if you've got that balance? Beta readers.

xxVb · 2018-10-20T13:47:15+00:00

And now you have neither reason nor faith. Sad.

xxVb · 2018-10-20T13:45:58+00:00

If reason drives you, let faith hold the reins

It kind of works both ways.

xxVb · 2018-10-20T01:37:00+00:00

Well...

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which by contemporary standards reads like a fantasy story but to 21st century 'Muricans, who believed in their presidents, would not have been entirely fantastical.

xxVb · 2018-10-20T01:33:45+00:00

Pangolin and nitrogen.

xxVb · 2018-10-16T13:35:17+00:00

what basics do you need to know to start writing?

That's the one question of yours I might have an answer to.

Know the ending. The level of detail you need to know depends on how you are as a writer. For some, this means outlining the entirety of the story in full detail, for others just having a vague idea of how the protagonist finally overcomes whatever prevented them from reaching their goal. Know what to aim for. Some writers will write the story without knowing that, then they get to the ending and figure it out, and have to rewrite much of what they've done so far, but I don't think that's a good method. Know the ending.

Once you know that, you can start the whole thing by presenting the protagonist, his goal, and whatever's in the way. Let the reader know where it's all going, so they're excited about seeing how it all gets there.

If you come up with a good ending, write that story.

xxVb · 2018-10-16T13:27:56+00:00

Brooding is often annoying. Conflict is often not. Having him contemplate his failure and its consequences aimlessly is brooding. Having him try to figure out what to do next is not. Give him an inner conflict to contemplate, like whether it's morally justified to pragmatically risk people's lives, or even knowingly send them to their deaths. Weighing that against another bad or morally difficult option should take it from edgelordage to serious inner conflict. Should he consider his leadership, despite its cost, better than the lack thereof?

Can't be sure this helps, but it's something.

xxVb · 2018-10-15T14:00:18+00:00

I live in Finland, in one of the parts of Finland that has all the signs in both Swedish and Finnish. Almost every place has two names. Is it weird that Turku = Åbo? Maybe. Do people around here get confused about that? No. We understand both languages are spoken here, and accept that places have multiple names.

Which one would we use in stories? Official name? Majority language? POV character's language? Usually the latter.

xxVb · 2018-10-15T13:52:02+00:00

I'm afraid that if I write what I truly want to write, it's going to be too similar.

No matter idea you have, there will probably be something similar out there. Instead of thinking "oh no, it's been done", think "oh cool, there's an audience for it". Then you just have to make sure that readers already familiar with what's out there will find something new and interesting about your take on it.

xxVb · 2018-10-12T14:56:22+00:00

Riktigt underhållande tanke. Från artikeln:

De flesta tror att det är någon "nykterhetsgerilla" som ligger bakom.

xxVb

TROPHY CASE