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b_jonas
b_jonas
00:30
heh, synchronized reactions to news on SMBC and xkcd.
smbc-comics.com/comic/phosphine and xkcd.com/2359
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
Well, it seems to be da big thing in inclined nerd circles.
 
5 hours later…
b_jonas
b_jonas
05:51
@NapoleonWilson No, the big thing was NVDIA (the video card manufacturer) buying ARM (the CPU designer)
b_jonas
b_jonas
06:03
I have one self-answer on Sci Fi where I posted when I already knew the answer; one where I knew a partial answer but posted because I wanted to know more; multiple where I posted the question then kept researching and posted an answer within the same day; and multiple where I found an answer or an additional answer later, sometimes much later.
And on Mythology I have a question where I posted as a self-answer an answer that I got from someone else after I cross-posted the question.
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
06:36
@b_jonas Oh, that's interesting indeed.
(Well, the other thing is kind of, too. But this is a little more than a possible sign of something we know exists possibly having existed somewhere.)
 
2 hours later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
08:55
@Bookworm Several people cast close votes on the Eudora Welty question without providing suggestions on how to make the question less broad. If you are new to this site, that just doesn't help.
@Bookworm I cast the fifth close vote on the Marx & A.H. question. Source material for what?
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
09:08
@NapoleonWilson We can only speculate about what Marx would have thought. What is clear is that "Zur Judenfrage" has been read as anti-Semitic (but see also Karl Marx's Radical Antisemitism about reading those anti-Semitic statements as "ironic" or "witty"). CC @EddieKal
It is also ridiculous to present all of Marx's writings as collectively representing a single ideology that we can label "Marxism". Even during his lifetime Marx noticed that people were taking his writings into directions he had not intended, which prompted him to say that he was not a marxist. As far as I know, most of what Marx wrote was not even "ideology".
Regarding the discussion on self-answering questions: I have done this several times. I usually don't know the answer at the moment when I post the question. Sometimes I find the answer using better internet searches, sometimes I read or reread entire books to find an answer (cf. the the-stranger questions I answered several months after the end of the topic challenge).
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
09:54
Looking for earlier chat room discussions mentioning Marx, I came across a comment by Emrakul/Aza: "Western philosophy as a whole is often a self-referencing web of nightmare. (...)", with a follow-up using Spinoza and Descartes as examples.
This reminded me of something I read in Herbert Schnädelbach's introduction to Hegel: whereas we are used to referring to "Hegel's philosophy", "Sartre's philosophy", etc., this would have sounded strange to Hegel and his precursors. According to Schnädelbach, each philosopher regarded their work as contributing to the single construction of Philosophy, as opposed to coming up with new, original "philosophies".
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
Sensible.
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
10:29
@Tsundoku It did seem like a "just asking questions" question — that is, an attempt to push an agenda in a semi-deniable way
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
10:46
That too, especially when you're already so sure about it to make the very same claim in your profile description.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@Tsundoku I didn't have time to review it properly, so left it to others to comment/edit, but it's not only clearly a homework copy-paste with zero effort (not reason to close in itself) but also rather "homeworkishly" open-ended: "describe the point of view" doesn't seem quite like an SE-style answerable question.
Knight
Knight
What allusion does this first sentence of Finnegans Wake make?
> river run, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@Tsundoku Relatedly, it feels like it's easier these days to get more close votes on a question. That one is already on 4 votes after 11 hours. The problem we discussed before, of electing two of the site's most active voters as moderators, is being ameliorated by several new people hitting the requisite rep level and being active in reviewing stuff.
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
@Knight finnegansweb.com is a good place to start for this kind of question
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
(Now I wonder if "Riverrun" in the A Song of Ice and Fire books is a Joyce reference.)
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
11:02
There's probably a few rivers that run.
Faded Giant
Faded Giant
11:12
"Riverrun" sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe's raven would say repeatedly.
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
11:25
@Randal'Thor This means that people have to get their skates on in order to answer questions before they are closed.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@GarethRees Of course it's a bad thing if close votes are coming in fast to questions that shouldn't be closed, but at least it's good to have more people actively reviewing and voting on content.
I feel like we're also quite good at improving and reopening questions that are rescuable but get closed at first ... not sure if you would agree?
(Not that that's necessarily a good consolation prize, as questions that need to wait to get closed and reopened have less chance of reaching HNQ or good scores.)
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
@Randal'Thor How would I know? I'm not a moderator, so I can't easily look though deleted questions to see which ones should have been rescued.
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@GarethRees Hmm, true. Still, all new questions get oneboxed in chat, so a search like this will give you a list to scan through that includes now-deleted questions. If something got roomba-deleted and you mention it here, chances are it'll at least get undeleted, if not reopened.
Gareth Rees
Gareth Rees
Looking at the close queue, these Lem and Faulkner questions could be rescued but don't seem to be making any progress since they were closed
This question about running titles was wrongly closed as a duplicate of a question about signatures
Other recent closures via the close queue seem fine
 
3 hours later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
14:15
0
Q: Was the title "The Lord of the Rings" picked on purpose to be ambiguous?

B. BraunsdorfIn one sense, it might refer to "the lord of" the rings, as in the person or entity currently in possession of The One ring. In another way, it could (IMO) mean that The One ring is "the lord" out of the rings. As in, it "owns" the lesser rings, and rules over them (and everything and everyone el...

j-r-r-tolkien the-lord-of-the-rings
 
1 hour later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
15:29
0
Q: Is this sonnet in iambic pentameter?

AnnaI can’t be with you, not another night Even nothing makes something more than you My freedom, leaving you, my only light A window, glass, with no way to come through The way I had felt towards you was great You kept losing me, now I must be free But it could not work out, it was not fate Now I'm ...

poetry william-shakespeare meter
New Topic Challenge Suggestion
New Topic Challenge Suggestion
0
A: New Literature SE Topic Challenge Suggestions Thread

TsundokuThe works of Maryse Condé Maryse Condé is a Guadeloupean/ French novelist, playwright and critic. Her "novels explore racial, gender and cultural issues in a variety of historical eras and locales" (Wikipedia). She has won awards for several of her works, which include the following: Hérémakhono...

Tsundoku
Tsundoku
15:51
@Mithical Another one for your collection of multilingual puns: During a chess game I played on a train, I brought my opponent into zugzwang situation and I couldn't resist pointing out that you could even be in zugzwang in a train.
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
16:17
But isn't that just a monolingual pun?
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
We were talking in English at the time, so it was multilingual.
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
Hmm, but even if they actually call that zugzwang in English, it's still ultimately just a normal German word with a double meaning. The joke itself isn't crossing language borders.
But okay, I'll leave that to the inclined humour theorists.
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
You need to know that the German word for train is Zug, otherwise you don't get the joke. (Zug: train; move.)
Napoleon Wilson
Napoleon Wilson
But the double meaning itself doesn't profit from bringing English into the mix.
But granted, I give you that the conversation being in English and the word being a loanword helps adding another layer to it.
 
2 hours later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
18:22
@EddieKal "Some of my best friends are black": see Sean Lock's take on that (just the first two minutes).
Bookworm
Bookworm
1
Q: Who is the 'one who had lifted it' in Shelley's sonnet about 'the painted veil'?

Tom HoskerIn Shelley's famous sonnet, which begins 'Lift not the painted veil', the "turn" is placed - unusually - in the seventh line. Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread,—behind, ...

poetry allusions percy-bysshe-shelley
North Læraðr
North Læraðr
19:02
@Tsundoku Hmm what to do with pommes-penyeach?
I guess it's alright. It's regarding the entire volume itself, published in its own form etc etc
Bookworm
Bookworm
19:37
0
Q: What does the line "and who will bear the consequences" mean in Ishay Ribo's "Keter Melucha"?

MithicalIn Ishay Ribo's song "Keter Melucha / כתר מלוכה" (Royal Crown), a song written about, essentially, COVID and lockdown, there's a stanza that goes like this: בין תצווה לכי תישא אסתר פורים משתה שמחה מי יחנה ומי יסע ומי ישא בתוצאה Between Tetzaveh and Ki Tisa Ester, Purim, feasting, joy Who will st...

song-lyrics hebrew-literature ishay-ribo
 
1 hour later…
Eddie Kal
Eddie Kal
20:47
@Tsundoku That first joke was really hard to get for me. I didn't get it until I put in quite some research and figured out it hinged on a Britishism
Bookworm
Bookworm
0
Q: Where can I locate the letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to A.A. Milne?

StudentQuestionsAKA the author of Winnie the Pooh? This web page ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/JRRTolkien ) claims far far down that Tolkien once wrote a strongly worded letter to A.A. Milne complaining about his stage adaption of Wind in the Willows, which it seems Tolkien had much disliked. ...

j-r-r-tolkien kenneth-grahame the-wind-in-the-willows
Eddie Kal
Eddie Kal
21:01
@Tsundoku To be honest that is a comic I could become a fan of. Never heard him before. I was a little rattled by the part talking about gender but he handled the topic of race relatively well and quite laudably IMHO
Bookworm
Bookworm
21:41
0
Q: Why is a mongoose a "special needs goose"?

Eddie KalI just watched a comedy bit by Sean Lock. I was at the zoo the other day and I got told off. I said, "Look! There's a mongoose!" Can't say that any more. "Special needs goose". That's what we got to say. Why is a mongoose a "special needs goose"? This joke escapes me. Why is it funny and why is...

meaning sean-lock
Eddie Kal
Eddie Kal
And the scope stretching exercise continues
For reference:
9
A: Should questions about speeches by authors be on-topic?

user111I think speeches should be on-topic. There are a lot of interesting analysis questions you can ask about famous speeches. (In fact, I just posted a question about speeches.) We already have questions about comic books, questions about video games, questions about songs... Why not questions about...


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