OOTS #1082 - The Discussion Thread

[8BitNinja]

If I was him, I'd ditch Hel and try my luck with one of the ice giantess.

Taking the place of Zeus much?

[Cazero]

Taking the place of Zeus much?

Norse gods were doing it too. And other greek gods. Zeus is infamous for it because he one-upped them all with his wacky metamorphosis antics.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Now I'm wondering why no one ever calls him Cykon.

My off-the-top-of-my-head hypothesis: to type an 'x', a fast typist will use their middle finger. To type a capital 'x', you slide your hand sideways one spot to the shift key, and use the index finger. But if you aren't completely on the ball, you might just use the middle finger (that your brain associates to typing 'x'), meaning you end up typing a 'Z'. In that situation, typing a 'c' is quite hard - no finger naturally falls atop the 'c' key when holding shift - you need to voluntarily stretch your hand to it.

most people her have a qwerty keyboard which has the C far from the X

Incorrect: in qwerty keyboards, the lowest line starts with zxcv.

GW

[Peelee]

No love for Dvorak keyboards here, I see.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

No love for Dvorak keyboards here, I see.

Nor for the qwertz, colemak, maltron nor jcuken.

GW

[danielxcutter]

Let's be honest, most of us have never even seen a Dvorak keyboard, or heard about any of those others.

[Dr.Zero]

The worshipers' devotion don't indicate how great a deity is to have as patron deity. The clerics of Thyrm did say that the giants were going to thrown in a very unpleasant afterlife (for them) if they failed their mission, after all.

True, but, on the other hand, if his comment about the giants' effort wasn't only meant to appease Hel, but something he genuinely believes, he could be quite good as a God, too.

"I'm sorry my Lord, I failed to accomplish the task you have given me. I failed you. I'm ready for eternal punishment and anguish."
"Hey, dude, no worries. You gave it an honest try, that's what is really important. Today you will sit at my side in our frozen heaven!"
"I am so lucky to be one of your worshippers, Thyrm!"


While this seems quite reasonable for a God (a God who punishes who fails to accomplish a divine task -and dies trying- might create a deterrent to try at all), it seems anyway that Hel is of some other ideas about who fails at a given task.

[hamishspence]

Let's be honest, most of us have never even seen a Dvorak keyboard, or heard about any of those others.

Some of those names wouldn't be out of place in a sci-fi or fantasy setting though.

I could see Star Trek using "Dvorak" as the name of an alien species, for example.

[JumboWheat01]

I wasn't even aware there were other keyboards besides QWERTY and AZERTY before the others were mentioned.

[martianmister]

Oddly, the last one was the only one that involved a spell to make Thor actually look like her instead of it just being Thor in a dress.

Make sense to me. Thor would like to look beautiful, even if he has to wear a dress...

By the way, compared to myths, OotS version Hel is much more similar to Marvel's Hela.

Spoiler

Show

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Some of those names wouldn't be out of place in a sci-fi or fantasy setting though.

I could see Star Trek using "Dvorak" as the name of an alien species, for example.

That would feel weird to me, although maybe it's just because I know the name Dvorak as a composer, not as a keyboard set up. It would be like naming an alien species Mozart.

[Centaur]

Nor for the qwertz, colemak, maltron nor jcuken.

On Colemak, the bottom row still starts with zxcv, and that’s half of the whole point of Colemak.

[danielxcutter]

That would feel weird to me, although maybe it's just because I know the name Dvorak as a composer, not as a keyboard set up. It would be like naming an alien species Mozart.

We named a bunch of planets after the Roman gods. That's not much farther.

[martianmister]

Xykon is miswritten as Zykon because they're homophones.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

We named a bunch of planets after the Roman gods. That's not much farther.

...Interesting point. I guess if the IAU opens up naming planets to the public again I'll have a few thoughts on who to submit.

[Peelee]

That would feel weird to me, although maybe it's just because I know the name Dvorak as a composer, not as a keyboard set up. It would be like naming an alien species Mozart.

Or like if you were a big history buff, and they named an alien species Romulans or Vulcans.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Or like if you were a big history buff, and they named an alien species Romulans or Vulcans.

Well, the Vulcan one makes sense because we tried to use that as an actual planet name back here on Earth. As for the Romulans, I got nothing.

Edit: Basically, planet names are very Earth-referential and I probably should have realized that before opening my big mouth.

[Kish]

Officially, the Romulan homeworld (which they settled after being exiled from Vulcan) is one of two tidally locked planets. Humans named those planets Romulus and Remus. "Romulans" was never the Romulans' name for themselves, but what the English-speakers in the Federation called them, and accordingly a Universal Translator set up to translate everything into English translated the name for the Vulcans' unfriendly cousins into "Romulans" whenever anyone said it in a different language.

[Curupira]

Xykon is miswritten as Zykon because they're homophones.

No, you're a homophone!

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[KorvinStarmast]

Ah, yes, well, I certainly cna't begrude taht. UNless I took 8 rnaks in HYpocrisy my last level-up.
(POst deliberatly left unb-edited.)

Makes perfect sense to me.

[Quebbster]

Make sense to me. Thor would like to look beautiful, even if he has to wear a dress...

By the way, compared to myths, OotS version Hel is much more similar to Marvel's Hela.

Spoiler

Show

Ironically, Marvel's Hela was later revealed (by Norse myth nerd Walt Simonson I believe) to be half-dead too (the right half is the dead one), but her cloak suppresses this and gives her an ordinary look.
It will be quite interesting to see if this is bought up in Thor Ragnarok.

[danielxcutter]

No, you're a homophone!

(sorry, couldn't resist)

Argh, you beat me to it.

[dtilque]

Now I'm wondering why no one ever calls him Cykon.

The Cylons wouldn't like it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

He's the god of trickery. He sweats potions of glibness.

Ew.

Help is coming across as pathetic to me. She obviously desperately wants to be loved but doesn't realise love is not a one way street. Nobody is going to love her if she doesn't give them a reason to.

And it's pathetic because there is a guy standing right next to her who is obviously desperately waiting for her to give him the smallest reason to shower her in love but she keeps pushing him away.

In Hel's defense, just doing nice things to someone does not entitle you to their love (which should be obvious if they said you were just a resource). In fact, this "Nice Guy" attitude is one of the things I and others mocked Thrym for earlier.

not only was it his idea but it was penance for him being the guy/god responsible for the giants stealing mjolnir in the first place
I can just imagine how that went
"okay, my bad but I'll make it up to you, I have a plan to get your piece of iron on a stick back, it involves you in a dress, in fact that was the skeleton of the plan, I build the rest of it up around it"

It seems to be Loki's main defense mechanism against being beaten to a pulp for his pranks. (And it's a lot more effective due to the number of times that he's done more good than his schemes did harm, like that time he stole Sif's hair and commissioned Mjolnir and other treasures, or that time he tricked a giant into building most of a wall for free).

[N]o finger naturally falls atop the 'c' key when holding shift - you need to voluntarily stretch your hand to it.

Am I the only person who uses their pinky to hit shift?

We named a bunch of planets after the Roman gods. That's not much farther.

Aside from the fact that planets aren't sentient and don't have names for themselves. It would be like if Europeans named Native American tribes after their favorite playwrights...erm, except that the people doing so should be aware of why treating other cultures as something you can claim by discovering is wrong.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Am I the only person who uses their pinky to hit shift?

My hypothesis assumed that the pinky was used to push shift. But the pinky is usually placed atop the 'a' during normal typing. When using the shift, you can either stretch your pinky and ring fingers sideways, or just shift the whole hand by one key (so that the ring finger now lies atop the 'a'). I do not know which method is more common, and I suspect most of us do one or the other at times.

GW

[JumboWheat01]

My hypothesis assumed that the pinky was used to push shift. But the pinky is usually placed atop the 'a' during normal typing. When using the shift, you can either stretch your pinky and ring fingers sideways, or just shift the whole hand by one key (so that the ring finger now lies atop the 'a'). I do not know which method is more common, and I suspect most of us do one or the other at times.

GW

According to my old typing classes back-in-the-day (we actually had to take those!) you are supposed to use the Right Shift to cap up left-hand keys and the Left Shift to do the same for right-hand keys, so fingers are supposed to remain where they are on that half.

Though I use my Left Shift for pretty much everything these days. I blame using a laptop keyboard, it's just easier to hit the Left Shift than the Right Shift, which is closer in size to the Enter key than the Caps Lock is to the Left Shift. When I use it, I just stretch my pinky. It's quite flexible, and enjoys being used instead of ignored.

[Unoriginal]

Pretty sure that is how she was always described in Norse myth.

Not really. It's a modern interpretation of the rather unclear and sparse description we have of her.

Xykon is miswritten as Zykon because they're homophones.

X and Z aren't pronounced the same, so no they're not homophones.

Norse gods were doing it too. And other greek gods. Zeus is infamous for it because he one-upped them all with his wacky metamorphosis antics.

Zeus's actually far from the most outlandish in that regard, it's just that his kids tended to be famous (or infamous), so everyone told their origine story like if it was the first movie of a superhero franchise (or reboot).

Loki used to transform into a milkmaid and have kids with mortal men, for exemple.

Officially, the Romulan homeworld (which they settled after being exiled from Vulcan) is one of two tidally locked planets. Humans named those planets Romulus and Remus. "Romulans" was never the Romulans' name for themselves, but what the English-speakers in the Federation called them, and accordingly a Universal Translator set up to translate everything into English translated the name for the Vulcans' unfriendly cousins into "Romulans" whenever anyone said it in a different language.

To be fair, not even the Vulcans knew that the Romulans were their unfriendly cousins when humans coined the term.


Funnily enough, there is a scene in Voyager where Tuvok, who is Vulcan, speaks with the hologram of Leonardo da Vinci and is surprised when told there is an island called "Vulcan"

[Peelee]

X and Z aren't pronounced the same, so no they're not homophones.

Nrxt time you have to spell "xylophone," use a Z. When someone says, "Hey that's wrong," say, "No it ain't. If you think that's wrong, you need to get your head Z-rayed." It's like X wasn't given enough to do, so they had to promise it more. Okay, you don't start a lot of words, but we'll give you a co-starring role in tic-tac-toe. And you will be associated with hugs and kisses. And you will mark the spot. And you will make writing Christmas easier. And incidentally, you will start xylophone. Are you happy, you ******* X!?!

X can make the Z sound. Also, now I'm wondering how you pronounce Xykon. "Ks-yuh-kahn" sounds kind of awkward, three consonants in a row, like that. Make X sound like Z, Y sound like I, and it's so much cleaner to pronounce. I think Start of Darkness addressed this as well.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

X can make the Z sound. Also, now I'm wondering how you pronounce Xykon. "Ks-yuh-kahn" sounds kind of awkward, three consonants in a row, like that. Make X sound like Z, Y sound like I, and it's so much cleaner to pronounce. I think Start of Darkness addressed this as well.

I can see Xykon pronounced in various ways:

Soft z: /Φaɪkon/ (This could have zykon and cykon as homophones)
Hard z: /zaɪkon/ (This could have zykon as homophone)
Soft x: /saɪkon/ (This could have Sykon as homophone)
Hard x: /ksaɪkon/

I happen to use the last one. Not sure why you think it has three consonants in a row, though.

ETA: I wonder if Mitch Hedberg spells fish as "ghoti"?

GW

[GrayGriffin]

It seems to be Loki's main defense mechanism against being beaten to a pulp for his pranks. (And it's a lot more effective due to the number of times that he's done more good than his schemes did harm, like that time he stole Sif's hair and commissioned Mjolnir and other treasures, or that time he tricked a giant into building most of a wall for free).

I mean, he also tried to sabotage the creation of those treasures due to not wanting to lose a stupid bet he made.