The Reading Room

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BESW

03:25

Tumblr thread: Accessibility is expensive because it's an afterthought.

4 hours later…

Bookworm

07:14

Q: what would a term for diminishing of magic, diversity, beauty, and power be?

I am trying to figure out what the proper literary term would be for the following description. In many books and films there is a theme where the world is or was full of magic and beauty and then that age ends and the following is more mundane. Sometimes this is accompanied due to results of a...

Mithrandir

@Bookworm migrate to ELU

1 hour later…

Bookworm

08:45

Q: A book about a clock keeper

This is a dodgy question as I have few details about this book, however: I am trying to find a book that was already around in the 1990s and famous enough to be translated into Dutch. (It wasn't a Dutch book but was read in the Netherlands, in Dutch, around then). Its main character was a clock...

story-identification

2 hours later…

Mithrandir

10:47

I was just wondering about the 'Truly! Twas...' quote in your profile, @Emrakul. I Googled it, and apparently it's from a 2012 contest. Hmm. Interesting.

2 hours later…

Gallifreyan

13:08

@Mithrandir By the way, thanks for the edit on that Tom Sawyer question. I was all for downvoting it to hell and then deleting it, but you managed to uncover the good parts. (@Hamlet Thanks to you too)

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan sometimes you have to have a comment discussion to uncover the question :) thanks.

Gallifreyan

yesterday, by Gallifreyan

@Bookworm Is this guy joking?

I wasn't sure if he's a troll.

4 hours later…

Bookworm

16:46

Q: Why did Shakespeare write in iambic pentameter?

Shakespeare is incredible famous for writing a lot in iambic pentameter. But why did he choose to write in this specific style of having ten beats and 5 stressed syllables per line, considering it was not at all a requirement for plays at the time and many poets wrote in a completely different me...

poetry william-shakespeare

3 hours later…

Gallifreyan

19:54

So, is anyone readying any questions for the challenge? :)

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan unfortunately, not now - busy. But Rand is back, so maybe he'll have some questions for the challenge.

Hamlet

@Gallifreyan I tried the challenge, but I found it to be an incredibly boring read (and I enjoy reading oral literature)

Mithrandir

@Bookworm still not sure what he means by 'why'

Gallifreyan

20:12

Just found 3 books about The Sandman I want to read: The Sandman Papers, Hanging Out With the Dream King, and Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman

2 hours later…

Gallifreyan

21:59

I proposed to have graphic-novel as a synonym to comics here.

Mithrandir

I was thinking about that recently.

Riker

not all comics are novels though

Mithrandir

We have a question about this...:)

Q: How are graphic novels different from comic books?

I always get confused between the terms comic-book and graphic novel. What makes a comic-book be referred to as Graphic novel? What is the difference between both of the terms?

terminology comics

user15026

@Gallifreyan not all comics are graphic novels and vice versa

Gallifreyan

22:15

@Ash I know :D; but since the division is somewhat arbitrary, and all graphic novels are surely a subset of comics, I thought collecting the former under the latter is the good choice, as opposed to having graphic-novels spring up a month later with just one question and a debate on what is a graphic novel and what isn't.

user15026

@Gallifreyan I don't think that is a good reason to do it.

Gallifreyan

Should we then leave graphic novels to hang by themselves? A separate tag?

user15026

Why not?

Gallifreyan

Then what is a graphic novel and what is not? I'm not aware of the existence of an all-encompassing definition which would separate the two.

In our specific case, right now, every question with comics is eligible for graphic-novels as well (well, except 2 or 3).

Hm. We should probably chuck manga in as well. Anyway, I'll write up two meta posts tomorrow.

Gotta sleep now.

BESW

23:22

The Bering Strait Theory Is First Title For Indian Country Books http://buff.ly/2qLV84x https://t.co/f6gM7vHVp7

Tweeted by indiancountry on May 21, 2017 at 8:23 PM

Gilles

23:42

@BESW wow, that description is almost caricatural anti-science conspiracy theory stuff

is it in line with the book, or is it a very bad advertisement?

BESW

Over the last few years there've been a number of interesting archaeological discoveries which cast doubt on the Bering Strait migration theory.

Many Native Americans tribes have always held that the Bering Strait theory is inaccurate, and recent scientific discoveries have also supported other previously dismissed Native American understandings about the history of their areas.

And while I don't know specifically about the idea that the Bering Strait has more academic inertia than the strength of its evidence would justify, I know that's true of plenty of other scientific concepts--especially ones with sociological implications.

So, I don't know anything about that book outside the article I linked, but I wouldn't say it sounds like conspiracy theory fodder.

There's an ongoing worldwide discourse about reconciling Western scientific epistemologies with other ways of knowing, and this looks like another part of that conversation.

The idea that academia would ignore challenges to a popular theory, or be reluctant to brook changing a concept in the face of new evidence for any number of reasons, is not anti-science; it's an established flaw in the academic model.

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