The Reading Room

12:09 AM

@verbose No, they were upvoting questions - hence why Tsundoku, Mith, EJoshuaS, and I were most affected as the site's most prolific askers. You're more of an answerer here.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the gold badge for voting (Electorate) can only be earned by upvoting 600 questions.

@bobble Looks good. A few suggestions: maybe replace "non-novels" by "companion volumes" or such; "intended and recommended reading order" might (?) be a bit opinion-based.

bobble

Well I actually submitted it, oops

You can fix it up in the queue

The "recommended reading order" thing came from the same question I linked to for chronological order

Rand al'Thor

@verbose No, but I've heard in the past that some people use scripts to automate their voting just for badges, and those votes wouldn't be considered valid if SE staff find out about it. (I don't know much about this specific case, as it was handled at a network level not by site mods.)

Tsundoku

@Bookworm This question isn't about any of Mark Twain's works nor about his life as a writer. Is it on topic?

(It's easy to write up an answer, but that's not what I'm asking.)

verbose

12:27 AM

@Randal'Thor ah

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Hmm, not sure. We seem to accept questions about quotes even if the quote isn't necessarily from a piece of literature or a writer of literature (like this Spassky question), but asking about a quote about quotes takes that to yet another level of abstraction away from literature.

verbose

@Tsundoku i think it's on topic, just generally. I mean, it's about Twain's afterlife as a writer

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor An unattributed quote about quotes falsely attributed to Mark Twain ...

Rand al'Thor

@verbose To be honest, I didn't even notice my own rep loss until clicking the achievements dropdown. The first thing I noticed was EJoshuaS, who probably lost proportionally the most rep, at least among high-rep users.

And don't feel bad about you being so close to him. He's posted a lot of interesting questions, but probably none of them had as much time and research put into it as a good verbose answer.

verbose

12:54 AM

@Tsundoku "Why do people misattribute so many quotes to Mark Twain?" seems like a really interesting question to me about how literary reputations are built and circulate in popular culture. I fail to see any argument for considering it off topic?

verbose

3:34 AM

@Randal'Thor oh yeah I actually had noticed that there was some dude who had upvoted a bunch but who didn't appear to have ever asked or answered anything. Just checked the voters page and he's gone.

bobble

3:49 AM

This question may need to be protected; it currently has 1 deleted and 3-4 (depending on your view) visible very low-quality answers

(though the latest of those answers if from a >200 rep user)

this question is hanging at 4 close votes (one mine, so I can't do anything else at the moment)

bobble

4:04 AM

@Randal'Thor I think the Topic Challenges now have a bus factor of 2, if that makes you feel better

verbose

4:38 AM

@bobble I voted to protect

@bobble and one is mine, so I can't do anything either

Bookworm

8:26 AM

0

Q: What is the "Isle of the Blessed" and why should a girl see it before marriage?

In Chapter 3 of Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest, which I've recently started reading online, Effi and her mother are spending some days in Berlin before her marriage, accompanied by her cousin Dagobert. The following paragraph puzzled me: Every day passed according to program, and on the thi...

Rand al'Thor

8:43 AM

Oh nice, @Ayshe has earned a well-deserved tag badge in identification, becoming the only sub-3k-rep member of the tag badgers club.

verbose

10:00 AM

As usual Randolph is going to complain that my answer is too long, but I maintain that the bulk of it is quotation and references. It's actually quite a reasonable length otherwise.

Rand al'Thor

12:58 PM

@verbose Not at all; I already read it, learned something interesting, and upvoted it, not long after it was posted.

b_jonas

1:54 PM

@Randal'Thor No, that's one of those cases where negative numbers don't have square roots, yet those nonexistant square roots have such interesting properties that mathematicians had to figure out how they work: madore.org/~david/weblog/…

The most famous such case, according to that article.

b_jonas

2:16 PM

@Randal'Thor I feel like you shouldn't mention π in there because if someone asks why pi isn't rational you won't be able to give a simple answer. Mention e if you wish.

@Randal'Thor People say that and give such proofs, but I think that's misleading. It's not all that difficult to find an explicit example with elementary methods either. You know how sqrt(2) is irrational. log(3)/log(2) is irrational because if log(3)/log(2)=p/q where p and q are positive integers than 2p=3q, both sides are integers but the right side is odd. So just take (sqrt(2))**(2*log(3/2)) = 3.

So yes, keep giving that puzzle if you wish, and accept non-explicit solutions, but don't propagate the folk wisdom that this is a good example for an elementary question where you expect people to give a non-explicit proof.

But these are just nitpicks.

The basic idea of teaching mathematics here and everywhere is good.

And the general idea that log(3)/log(2) is irrational is useful even outside the puzzle.

@Randal'Thor No you don't. That simplifies thinking about these proofs and writing them for more complicated cases, but just to prove sqrt(2) irrational it's an overkill.

b_jonas

2:43 PM

@Randal'Thor Nice

@bobble I, on the other hand, prefer if text is available as text too, even if you also show an image, especially if you already have the text in digital form so it's not extra work for you to copy it.

> The Dragonriders of Pern series is a sci-fi/fantasy series of novels and short stories set on the fictional planet of Pern. The series was started by Anne McCaffrey in 1967. Other contributing authors include Todd McCaffrey, Gigi McCaffrey, and Jody Lynn Nye. There are also several non-novels about this universe, such as *The Atlas of Pern* and *The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern*.
>
> Though publication order is the intended (and recommended) reading order, [a list of books by their chronological order can be found here](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/1476/).

@verbose But then you have to ask the same thing about Oscar Wilde, Bejnamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and a few more popular titles of quote misattribution.

b_jonas

3:12 PM

Oh, let me reask my recommendation question. Which children's books from Christine Nöstlinger should I read?

1

A: Was Harry Potter the first magic series to use wands?

I have heard it argued that the staves of Moses and his brother Aaron were magic staves as a religious miracle, such as Moses parting of the red sea, and magic are one and the same; the only difference is the view of the reader.

^ I feel like something like this might have been asked on Sci Fi.

Yes, found it: scifi.stackexchange.com/q/71209/4918

^ @Randal'Thor

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas Well, that's another way of looking at it, I suppose. Now we're getting into the philosophy of mathematics and reality.

@b_jonas Oh wow, that's really neat! I had no idea it's so easy to prove log(3)/log(2) is irrational. Noted.

@b_jonas True, I was thinking that while writing the proof here. Even power of 2 vs odd power of 2 is enough, right?

@b_jonas Interesting. I had apparently seen and voted on that question before. It's better than the Lit version IMO, reflecting a bit more research and knowledge, and is also a lot more specifically and narrowly scoped.

b_jonas

3:30 PM

@Randal'Thor Yes, you can count the powers of two without the full power of unique factorization. Or the way they sometimes tell it is the implicit proof: take the smallest positive q for which p**2 = 2*q**2. p must be even because the right side is even. But then p**2 is divisible by 4, so q must be even as well. But then (p/2)**2 = 2*(q/2)**2 would be a solution too.

Rand al'Thor

(why not just use ^ instead of ** ?)

b_jonas

This is relevant if you consider this as checking the sides of the equation modulo some number, modulo 4 in this case. You can have such a proof where the numbers aren't divisible by a prime factor. Consider p**2 = 3*q**2. In the smallest solution, p is odd or q is odd, or else divide both by 2. Then both sides must be odd, so p and q are odd. So the left side is 1 modulo 4, the right side is 3 modulo 4, which is impossible. There was some interesting discussion somewhere about how

for some primes like 3, a proof modulo 2**n is possible, but for some primes no n works.

@Randal'Thor I refuse, ^ should not be used for power, not since we decided on this version of ASCII. You may use ↑ if you wish.

Mithical

4:39 PM

So... sorry for the rep loss everyone, I guess?

bobble

hugs the Mithical 'tis for the best, they weren't legitimate votes

Mithical

Let's see. It took... 17 days since I reported it for it to get processed.

@bobble indeed

bobble

Question: is there a way to get to the "mod" tools without typing out the URL directly?

(2k/10k tools)

Rand al'Thor

@bobble Yes: go to the review page (reachable from the topbar dropdown) and click "Tools" in the top right.

bobble

ah, that's much nicer

Rand al'Thor

5:30 PM

@Bookworm HNQ.

Eng Lit Learner

6:09 PM

0

Q: What's the meaning of "can only be recounted in Latin"?

What's the meaning of "can only be recounted in Latin" in the context of the following passage? Of course, I know its lexical meaning but I guess it's some kind of allusion or in some historical context that I do not know. people in parts of Asia who carry their sick outside and leave them to di...

meaning meaning-in-context sentence-meaning literature

Tsundoku

7:30 PM

More silver.

Napoleon Wilson

7:41 PM

I wonder why they only killed some of their accounts, though. Is this one of these things where the SE employees are still feeling their way into their own site framework?

Gallifreyan

8:33 PM

Coraline Chapter 1, read by Neil Gaiman

►

verbose

8:57 PM

@Randal'Thor thanks! And in case it wasn’t clear, my comment was a joke

Mithical

@NapoleonWilson They left the ones with posts, apparently.

verbose

I don’t actually think you complain unfairly about my verbose tendencies

@b_jonas I don’t see that as problematic, but even if one could argue that we might get flooded by questions of that nature, well, a good answer to any one woukd generalize: “authors with these characteristics tend to get quotes misattributed to them,” and then any other question along those lines would be closed as a duplicate

Bookworm

10:00 PM

0

Q: Does Renmark meant that he himself was in a lack of self-conceit in the old days in "In the Midst of the Alarms"?

In In the Midst of Alarms (1894) by Robert Barr, Yates was talking to his old friend Now, then, Stilly, let’s talk business. You’re not married, I take it, or you wouldn’t have responded to my invitation so promptly.” The professor shook his head. “Neither am I. You never had the courage to prop...

in-the-midst-of-alarms robert-barr significance

Rand al'Thor

10:30 PM

@verbose I don't complain at all :-) If an answer's so long that I have to wait for some free time to read it properly, that probably means it's a damn good answer.

@Tsundoku Congrats!

Also congrats to @PeterShor on the poetry bronze tag badge.

bobble

10:49 PM

There are two questions tagged both quote-source and identification-request; do either need retagging?

Bookworm

0

Q: How can someone "make a lot of money and fail" in the same time?

In In the Midst of Alarms (1894) by Robert Barr, Yates was talking to his old friend about another old friend that had caused Yates to be expelled from the academy: But what I detested was the way the principal worked the thing. He allowed that villain Spink to turn evidence against us, and Spin...

in-the-midst-of-alarms robert-barr

Tsundoku

@bobble I'd say just identification-request for the question about the poem. And allusions instead of quote-source and indentifcation-request for the Camus question.

Tsundoku

11:14 PM

@b_jonas Christine Nöstlinger wrote quite a lot but I am not familiar with her work. Do you read German or are you looking for translations?

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