The Reading Room - 2017-04-24

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12:00 AM

@Shokhet IKR.

@Shokhet I entertained myself by imagining an alien watching that unfold from space and assuming each bomb was targeting an enemy because nobody'd be stupid enough to bomb themselves.

They spent half the twentieth century nuking the crap out of themselves.

And the Pacific ocean :-/

The alien was very impressed with the resilience and tenacity of Nevada, which just wouldn't give up.

@BESW I probably will never visit the state, and I'm no longer certain I want to.

@BESW Thanks! I'll check it out.

12:03 AM

@Randal'Thor Finding resources like this is a treasure hunt; the first few passes are usually just looking for clues that'll narrow your search.

I use MedievalPOC because she cuts an unusually broad swathe across historical information about diversity without a lot of tangential unrelated stuff to filter out.

@BESW Absolutely! My Hebrew got much better while I was studying in Jerusalem; I'm afraid I lost some of my fluency since I came back to the States :/

She's introduced me to everything from contemporary authors to Roman hairstyles. MedPOC is even where I ran across that article about 6000-year-old fairy tales.

1 hour later…

1:35 AM

Hey, #comics are books too! Why not take a look at our comics questions, or ask your own? #WorldBookNight… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/856319308468596736

Tweeted by StackLiterature on April 24, 2017 at 1:30 AM

2:06 AM

@Gallifreyan Well, you said you liked the question. Here it is :)

I did not find an answer in the pages of The Doll's House; perhaps there is something elsewhere in the collection.

0

Q: What are nightmares for?

What purpose do nightmares serve in the world of The Sandman? In the second volume of The Sandman Library (The Doll's House), Dream spends most of his time tracking down and dealing with a number of errant nightmares (Brute, Glob, and the Corinthian). He refers to these as "his creations" many ti...

comics neil-gaiman the-sandman

1 hour later…

3:22 AM

Hey, @neilhimself. What are nightmares for in The Sandman? @StackLiterature https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2402/481

Tweeted by MTL613 on April 24, 2017 at 2:43 AM

Huh. Apparently someone serial downvoted me. I just got +6 fake internet points back

2 hours later…

5:19 AM

@Shokhet אני יכול לדבר אתך בעברית כן:)

5:33 AM

@Shokhet Will take a look. Morpheus describes Corinthian's role in The Kindly Ones, but I'll have to look for the other nightmares.

2 hours later…

7:27 AM

I just added Decolonizing Methodologies to my want-to-read list.

Today I'm reading Holocaust stuff :/

@BESW I can recommend five or ten better books to read on the subject

Read Haraway if you want to learn about science

"Better" in what way?

She seems downright unqualified if I'm looking for an indigenous perspective.

@BESW if you're just looking for an indigenous perspective then I suppose that's a good book.

I think you may be thinking of a rather different use of the term "decolonize" than Smith intends.

7:34 AM

But there are other books that do a better job breaking down some of the patterns she is describing, there are other books that would probably do a better job of that.

But if you want to learn about how indigenous people are conducting their own research/taking control of knowledge production, then I guess Decolonizing Methodologies is a good book.

I can get deconstructions of colonial paradigms from within the system by swinging a dead cat. I'm interested in what indigenous people are saying about their active role and place in that situation; that's harder to find.

I'm looking for the action, in the words of the actors.

@BESW I haven't actually read the book, I looked the book up and I may have spoken too soon. But my impression of the book is that it's a social science methods book; I personally don't find methods books very interesting.

If you've got suggestions for that, I'd love to read 'em.

But if you're interested in learning more about social science methods, go for it.

Mmm. It came to my attention as one book among several being read by the local university professors in their work developing a new entry-level English composition class better tailored for their Pacific Island students.

7:43 AM

@BESW I don't know anything written by Pacific Islanders, so I can't help you there

These are people I work with, and although I don't have anything to do with this particular task I like to not be totally ignorant of the discourse because it helps me get where they're coming from when I do have a job with them.

@BESW ok that makes sense

My reputation as a desirable graphic designer is hinged largely on being at least aware that these dialogs exist.

(Frankly, a lot of academia seems to revolve around reading people you disagree with and then explaining why they're wrong.)

@JNat:

24 hours ago, by Mithrandir

Oh, hello there @JNat. Mind taking a look over here and tell us if we can borrow the logo?

Mornin', just getting in. I'll have a look when I'm catching up from the weekend pings ;)

7:55 AM

8

Q: Requesting permission to use the site logo as the Twitter account's profile pic

Now that we have a community-run Twitter account, I'd like to know if we could use Stack Exchange's logo for this site as the profile picture for the Twitter account. I'd noticed that the Mi Yodeyan Twitter account uses their Stack Exchange logo as their profile picture. (I assume they asked perm...

discussion feature-request site-promotion

Okay, thanks!

1 hour later…

9:03 AM

Did taxis in New York ever had a sound recording instructing passengers to strap themselves in seatbelt? Or is that just an invention of this fiction story I'm reading?

You could try Skeptics, maybe. I'm not sure how it'll work with their notability requirements. Or maybe History.

@Mithrandir Um, why? It's clearly a fiction story. It doesn't try to claim that New York is like that in the real world. I'm just wondering.

I'm slightly confused today. Ignore me o_o

And I'm European, I often don't understand how America works. I heard that people like Uber because over there they don't have taxis where you can pay on the internet or with a bank card. Apparently they still use paper checkbooks and stuff over there.

Heh. I'm technically American, and I have more experience with taxis in Israel.

9:14 AM

(Actually, I hear they no longer like checkbooks, and use credit cards instead.)

@BESW Well sure, why would you take a taxi in your own home? You use taxis when you're traveling. That's normal.

Guam's very much a car culture place, as little sense as that makes.

If we had better public transit I'd use that as much as I could.

@BESW I almost never take taxis here. Or busses. Or any type of transportation except for my bike and the family car :P

9:46 AM

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I thought you would be interested:

1

Q: In Kin-Dza-Dza! why are matches so precious?

Matches, aka Ketse, is the most valuable currency in the Kin-Dza-Dza universe, and even half a match is enough to buy a transportation device. The setting is dystopian/resource depleted ("we used our oceans for fuel") and the value of the matches are said to be "because of the chemicals" Wef is e...

plot-device economics kin-dza-dza

10:43 AM

Reminding everyone that voting is needed here:

3

A: How should we tag Scandinavian/Nordic questions?

Using different tags for the different countries would only make sense for relatively modern literature. If we had separate norwegian-literature and swedish-literature tags, which would we use for a question about a book produced in Norway, written in what we might now call Norwegian, while Nor...

11:41 AM

Posted my first question for the Libraries proposal:

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/108040/…

11:56 AM

@Mithrandir אוקיי, תודה. מה נשמע אחי?

@Gallifreyan Thanks

@Shokhet אחלה!

@b_jonas I probably haven't used NYC taxis more than a handful of times, but I don't recall that recording. Then again, it's been a few years.

אולי אתה יכול להגיד לי ולהמלת ועמרקול את הפרטים של התוותר?

@Mithrandir זה נעים לשמוע.

@Mithrandir אני צריך ללכת לבית כנסת עכשיו. יהיה לנו עוד הזדמנות לדבר בעברית, בעזרת השם.

@Shokhet טוב! להתראות!

12:03 PM

(וגם קשה להקליד בעברית על הנייד)

@Mithrandir להתראות :-)

12:56 PM

@Shokhet few years isn't a problem. the book is from 2002 or so.

1:35 PM

0

Q: Meaning of "shade to shade"

In Ode on Melancholy, Keats writes For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul What is meant by "shade to shade will come too drowsily"?

poetry meaning john-keats

user15026

1:54 PM

@Gallifreyan awesome! And that reminded me to answer the meta discussion question there, because I modded LIS the last time. Heck, I should add some of my old questions to that.

2:30 PM

@Randal'Thor Was that supposed to be russian verb or English one? I can't make that out from the question linked.

sigh

@DVK-on-Ahch-To ?

Someone starred a 4-letter word again

gosh darned rand, always saying those 4 letter words

@Riker 247 times

lol

2:35 PM

And I have learned the power of clickbait.

fear him

13

Q: Stack exchange communities are different! How? Speech bubbles!

When doing a Google search for 'stack exchange', you get this top result (at least I do): Under 'Stack Exchange: Hot Questions', we see the following line: Stack Exchange Q&A communities are different. Here's how: Speech bubbles. Expert communities. Each of our 166 communities is built by ...

3:10 PM

@Gallifreyan Enjoy :) oper.ru/news/read.php?t=1051606820

3:59 PM

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Thanks, but I haven't actually seen the film :(

0

Q: Why does the cover of the 5th TombQuest book not have an amulet?

The first 4 books in TombQuest all have an amulet featured on the cover: (Images from Scholastic.) And then... the fifth book: It features this really cool scary guy, who I'm assuming is Anubis, and makes a cool profile pic for the Twitter. But... why was the decision made to change the...

michael-northrop tombquest

user61230

5:00 PM

@Mithrandir This is my new favorite bug.

5:31 PM

@Emrakul Gracias.

5:47 PM

@Shokhet - you around?

6:04 PM

@Mithrandir Yes, for a little bit. What's up?

Was wondering if you could write up that Twitter docs

Oh. Not right now, sorry. I don't have the time.

I hope to have it done by the end of the week.

Alright. Great!

Thanks for the reminder :)

6:43 PM

in Literature Tweet suggestions, 1 min ago, by Shokhet

1

A: Requesting permission to use the site logo as the Twitter account's profile pic

It's really cool that you want to do this, but unfortunately we can't let you use the site logo for the account. The reasoning comes down to the way current trademark rules work. I won't belabor that point since you're clearly already familiar with our trademark guidance page. We absolutely supp...

in Literature Tweet suggestions, 41 secs ago, by Shokhet

...I guess that means I'll have to put up a "Let's design a profile pic" meta post.

in Literature Tweet suggestions, 26 secs ago, by Shokhet

(None of the ads will work well as a profile pic, I think. Too much detail for too small a picture)

@Shokhet Haha, good luck designing a non-generic profile pic :)

2

Q: Are quotes from a character technically quotes from the author?

I was recently browsing for some quotes from a few of favorite authors, and I noticed that in all the lists of "Top Quotes by..." were quotes from characters within the story. I understand that yes, of course, the author came up with and published those words, but whom should the quote be attri...

@Gallifreyan I envision something with the letters "Lit" in it, for a start. I'll write up the meta when I get a chance

Unless you (or Mith or Hamlet) get there first :p

@Shokhet Going to get my koala sleep now :) And tomorrow I have to finish like 3 separate projects... that I have barely started :D

@Gallifreyan Good luck

I'm studying for some more tests. (Don't those ever stop?)

6:49 PM

@Shokhet sure, maybe at around midnight

@Mithrandir Okay. I'll check meta (or chat, I guess) and see if you've posted. I'd love to stay and chat, but I've gotta go now. להתראות :)

שלום!

@Shokhet Cheers!

1 hour later…

8:03 PM

0

Q: Is there any real need to read Herodotus?

I am extremely intrigued by what I have read of him, in particular while skimming the first few pages of book 1, I noticed a remarkable resemblance in writing style with that of Plutarch. Something to the effect of "To engage in kidnappings is unjust, but to rescue prisioners foolish." Very succi...

history-of-literature historical-context myths greek-literature historical-accuracy

8:52 PM

Nate is foolishly giving this Pro Lettering Advice away FOR FREE. This could - and maybe should - be a book we'd ha… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/856549007769956357

Tweeted by SteveOgdenArt on April 24, 2017 at 4:42 PM

9:04 PM

Your Henrietta Lacks Reading List

0

Q: Design a profile picture for our Twitter account!

As our request to use the site favicon was status-declined, we need something else. The goal: design a suitable profile picture for the Twitter account, that sizes well, and has something to do with books/literature and isn't copyrighted or anything. Can you help find or make something? This po...

discussion site-promotion

2 hours later…

10:56 PM

Yuuyaraq: The Way of Being Human by Harold Napoleon. (PDF link)

Has been turned into a short film.

11:33 PM

@BESW Cool! I think I've read the article from The Root before, but I haven't seen the others.

Now you're making me wonder about how the whole story would have happened in a halachic (Jewish legal/ethical) system. Perhaps something to write an article about (files away idea for later)

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