The Reading Room - 2021-03-30

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2:06 AM

@GarethRees Apparently the idea of the heat death of the universe has been around since 1851, so 1925 is not too early as these things go. But the answer presents no evidence that Eliot was referring to this. Also, world ≠ universe ...

@bobble Maybe the Eugène Sue question is an identification request? It's atypical of the ones we usually have, which are more on the nature of remembering details from a story/poem rather than knowing who the author is to begin with, but I think it qualifies. I wonder what others like @Randal'Thor and @Tsundoku think though

I'm not convinced the name-significance one would fit ... but again I'd defer to others.

@Randal'Thor I've read the ones that I had, and therefore in the order that I had them. I think it was Mossflower, Mattimeo, Salamandastron, Triss. I don't think any of those were particularly connected to each other, so I was able to read them all as standalones (obviously within the greater setting), and apparently I had enough background information to not be lost.

I should probably read the rest of them at some point, though I've read all of the above multiple times.

2:48 AM

help: literature.stackexchange.com/q/18196/11259

-1

Q: identify the name of characters in this passage

What are the characters in this passage? This passage is from the Edgar Allen Poe story "The Masque of the Red Death" p14.15 But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sound...

short-stories edgar-allan-poe

1 hour later…

4:03 AM

Anyone think the edit helped this question: literature.stackexchange.com/q/18193/11259 ?

4:24 AM

@verbose Then they asked him to chop down some trees, and after that they had lots of baby snakes. "How did you manage?" Noah asked. "Well," they explained, "we're adders, so we need logs to multiply."

4:50 AM

@bobble Probably yes, in the same vein as this or this identification-request.

@bobble I dunno, could go either way on that. Since arguments could be made both ways, maybe a case for leaving it in the OP's form (if they'd tagged name-significance, don't edit it out, but no need to edit it in either).

1 hour later…

5:54 AM

0

Q: hunt for forgotten book

i’m looking for a book i read a few years ago, it featured a family with a single mother and three or so children who runaway due to financial issues i think. the eldest of the children takes them to a hollow tree in the park and they scab off leftovers from a cafe nearby. in the end of the book ...

6:31 AM

@Randal'Thor ah, that makes sense.

@bobble It didn't. I VdTC

2 hours later…

8:43 AM

@verbose That would be funny, because it was only in the early 20th century that people started to understand how stars are powered by nuclear fusion. Indeed that would have been hard to figure out before radioactivity was discovered on Earth. But then they could have made general predictions about the heat death of the universe just assuming stars don't break the laws of thermodynamics that we observe.

@bobble I think the question makes sense. If ideas are presumed to be independent of words, then once Newspeak is imposed on people, what is to stop dissenters from assigning 'heretical' thoughts to innocuous words, so that they cannot be justly punished? (Does this have to do with linguistic determinism?)

1 hour later…

10:13 AM

@verbose I'm not saying that Ivo Soljan's interpretation is convincing, just that it is reasonably clear what it is. ("Universe" is one of the meanings of "world")

1925 seems quite early to me for the use of the heat death of the universe as a literary trope -- this is an idea that I associate with the 1960s and 1970s. See the SF Encyclopedia, or Colin Greenland's monograph The Entropy Exhibition.

10:32 AM

0

Q: Anyone know what book this quote was written in?

"A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be". What book is this quote from? I know the author is Steven Brust.

3 hours later…

Prince North Læraðr

1:53 PM

@Randal'Thor When it comes to puns, nobody wins

2:05 PM

@bobble There was a similar question (which I can't seem to find now), where a comment pointed out that a Google search was all that was necessary to identify the book (I believe the question was closed afterwards, on account of the lack of research by the asker). Frankly, I expected this question to be closed likewise, and didn't think the effort I put into my comment should merit an accepted answer. — Soyuz42 57 secs ago

Is this true? Is this what should happen to such low-research quote-source questions?

Prince North Læraðr

2:27 PM

I'm not sure

3:05 PM

@bobble No, quote-source questions don't get closed for being poorly researched AFAIK. Maybe Soyuz42 saw a question which was closed for some other reason?

Perhaps tell Soyuz that?

3:39 PM

Hazy memory; the question I refer to had either negative votes or was closed. I've posted an answer nonetheless.

Ah, negative votes are what should be used, not closing

Lack of research -> down vote
Off-topic -> close vote

My bad.

It's s distinction that people have trouble with, because things that are off-topic are often low-research or plain poor questions, so people down and close vote. But the two votes are not the same

(Does one delete one's comments once the confusion that engendered them has been cleared, or does one leave them as a model to posterity?)

I'll delete my stuff

2 hours later…

5:16 PM

@bobble @Soyuz42 Relevant:

user image

(credit to former CM Shog9)

142

Q: A Close Vote is not a Super-Downvote. Please don't use it as one

So, yesterday a dumb question was asked.. It was closed as Not A Real Question in less than an hour, and reopened mere minutes later. This isn't the first time that this has happened. It usually results in lots of arguing and acrimony and generally all comes out of a simple misunderstanding. The...

discussion closing voting

That too. I've written "close vote is not a super-downvote" meta posts on a couple of sites, and innumerable times in comments/chat.

And you just did again :)

user image

2 hours later…

7:15 PM

@Bookworm This question (that I tried to defend) now shares third place for most downvotes.

2 hours later…

9:12 PM

@CowperKettle :D

Every question about Fontane's effi-briest now has an answer.

the answer-doku strikes again!

@bobble heh

Mar 26 at 7:21, by Rand al'Thor

Our Unanswered percentage is at 23.97%. First time it's gone below 24%, I think :-) (of course, Area 51 will still show 76% answered until it gets to the 23.5% threshold)

There are many other questions that could be asked about that novel, e.g. about the meaning of the motif of the Chinaman, or about the significance of colours in the novel. But I assume that Rand al'Thor stopped reading the novel after the challenge ended.

we now show 76% answers :D

9:16 PM

Oh, and another revival badge for my latest answer :-)

@bobble *answered

Some of the remaining Fontane questions are difficult to answer. I wanted to read a Fontane biography but the Rabelais challenge starts the day after tomorrow. Oh, decisions, decisions...

@bobble Too late to edit?

yep

You should present yourself at the next moderator election (whenever that will be). As a mod, you can edit chat messages and comments.

Oh, and I missed his royal highness @PrinceNorthLæraðr !

Prince North Læraðr

Hehe

9:22 PM

Still busy?

Prince North Læraðr

A little, yeah

I have a history thing to finish up today

More tests?

I'm surprised that we are still allowed to say "history" instead of "theirstory".

Prince North Læraðr

Had one today

Hehe

Well, there is herstory.

Prince North Læraðr

huh

Didn't even know that

Though the root word for history wouldn't exact fit "herstory" :P

9:33 PM

Oh, I think feminists know that.

@Soyuz42 is so much better than Sputnik V ;-)

@Tsundoku I actually chose the name because I liked the Soviet national anthem.

Ah. I'm unfamiliar with the text of that anthem :-(

It begins "Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh..." if I'm not mistaken.

'Transliterated' of course, and I haven't the foggiest what it means.

I read a little Pantagruel, and unsurprisingly, six months of French does not enable one to understand a word of it. But no matter...

We shall read French literature on the beaches...

@Soyuz42 I am fairly fluent in French but I read Rabelais in an annotated edition.

@Soyuz42 When the beaches get reopened ...

10:14 PM

@Randal'Thor The meta from Arcade that @bobble posted is super useful. Could we steal it for our meta?

Might want to ask Arqade? chat.stackexchange.com/… <-- chat rooms

@bobble I'm sorta disinclined to pop into chat rooms to ask for a favor when nobody knows me there. Do you hang out in those chats, and do you feel comfortable asking?

No, I don't. Though I've bothered them once before about a meta post...

in The Bridge, Jan 25 at 4:48, by bobble

Popping in from Puzzling to say that this meta question here is probably related to this one from RPG.SE meta, and the same thing happened at Puzzling.... I don't want to make an account but I can help here.

@Soyuz42 It actually is worthy of both downvotes and close votes. I believe it's one vote short of being closed.

@bobble ah. Since you found the relevant meta from Arquade so quickly, I assumed you have an account there and are buddies with the powers that be.

Nah, I've just skulked around lots of other sites' metas

I know some useful metas, and then also some non-useful but hilarious ones

Personal favorite:

40

Q: Evidently, we are porn

I tried to log in today from a private club, and got back the following error, which I have never before seen, I think the error page identified the censoring service as being provided by Sonicwall. If anybody has friends there, perhaps ask them to expedite having this fixed. Also let them kno...

discussion status-completed

10:24 PM

but mathematica is porn

Their 4th-voted question isn't helping matters:

291

Q: How do I draw a pair of buttocks?

I'm trying to develop a function which 3D plot would have a buttocks like shape. Several days of searching the web and a dozen my of own attempts to solve the issue have brought nothing but two pitiful formulas below. They have some resemblance to the shape I want, though not quite. Could you...

plotting graphics3d generative-art

10:40 PM

@GarethRees Ah. I guess @b_jonas was making the same point, that it's too early to be a literary trope in the way that ivo soljan claims

10:53 PM

@verbose It's licensed under cc by-sa, like all user contributions on the SE network. So with proper attribution, it can actually be copied to our meta.

@Tsundoku oh cool!

11:10 PM

Oh, here's another good Arqade meta (though more relevant to Puzzling than here):

57

Q: Please don't leave redundant comments on non-answers

I've been going through the flag queue a lot recently and it seems that we get lots of non-answers (comments, other questions, etc.). I see a lot of helpful comments on these posts talking about rep required for the commenting privilege and so on, which is fantastic. However, on some posts ther...

discussion flags comments

11:53 PM

Would this question qualify for spanish-literature (or any other [language-literature] tag, if I'm confusing myself): literature.stackexchange.com/questions/2584/…

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