The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - 2018-09-03 (page 1 of 2)

« first day (478 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2054 days later) »

12:31 AM

@Randal'Thor Thanks for the association!

@Randal'Thor: For the American 9, that does include 5 Rhythm dances. Some of them are dances that some think of as Latin (yeah - you probably don't want to get into the distinction there). That includes rumba, bolero, mambo, and bolero.

@Tango why is bolero included twice? Mistake or did I miss something? :p

@Jenayah Because I meant to type "cha-cha" and lost track of where I was.

1:19 AM

0

Q: What is the first example of maritime command in a scifi movie or show?

It seems like just about every space exploration SciFi movie or show uses elements that we would expect to see on a battleship or submarine or other earth maritime environments. There are admirals, captains, first mates, torpedoes, pirates, etc. In many cases you could transpose the entire plot i...

science-fiction first-appearance

1:31 AM

@Mithrandir

Thanks, it works!!

1

Q: Story entitled "Something to Say"

Russians and Americans are competing to make an alliance with an alien race that lives on a planet with a very thick atmosphere. Most of the plant life on the planet lives hanging in the air from gas bags. Because it is so easy to fly, the natives have developed very primitive aircraft. The Russi...

2 hours later…

3:18 AM

0

Q: Identify this 1970's or 1980's "photobook" of alien worlds

Growing up in the late 70's and early 80's, I had this "photobook" of alien worlds. It was basically a collection of artwork with a short description of each world. It was a hardcover, but probably was less than 25 pages long. I only remember one of the pictures was of an abandoned world. Th...

1 hour later…

4:32 AM

Samba (software)

Samba is a free software re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol, and was originally developed by Andrew Tridgell. Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Microsoft Windows Server domain, either as a Domain Controller (DC) or as a domain member. As of version 4, it supports Active Directory and Microsoft Windows NT domains. Samba runs on most Unix, OpenVMS and Unix-like systems, such as Linux, Solaris, AIX and the BSD variants, including Apple's macOS Server, and macOS client (Mac OS X 10.2 and greater). Samba is standard...

I think the point was it could've been the dance, or the software.

5:15 AM

0

Q: What would have happened to Saruman if Sauron acquired the One Ring?

This question is the opposite of another one. The other question asks "what would happen to Saruman if he got the One Ring?" and this one asks what would happen to Saruman if Sauron got the One Ring. Saruman: The friendship of Saruman is not lightly thrown aside. (tortures Gandalf) Ganda...

tolkiens-legendarium the-lord-of-the-rings the-one-ring sauron saruman

0

Q: Marionette/puppet sci-fi with replaced limbs

Trying to identify a sci-fi show I watched as kid during the late 1980s in South Africa. The show itself likely came from Japan. It definitely wasn't a domestic production. The show's protagonists were human like, in conflicts with aliens The aliens captured many of the humans during the cours...

story-identification

1 hour later…

6:31 AM

@Alex I'll take a look.

@SQB Just be warned, they're very insignificant.

Was it № or was there space between the N and the o?

I now realise I may have the US editions of the books I have, since I don't recall seeing "and the".

@SQB I think for the seventh symphony there was a space and the eighth symphony did not have a space.

So it wasn't the numero sign, then? That's odd.

6:47 AM

@SQB The spacing may have just been an issue with the Google Books format.

Ah.

Interestingly, even the version that had "No. 7" had it as a superscript for the character's name "No 1".

@SQB indeed:

Aug 22 at 12:21, by Jenayah

Google says that apart from the Brazilian dance, it's apparently also an Ubuntu server thingy, but I didn't know that, ahah

7:25 AM

0

Q: Indicate if a new contributor is new to Stack Exchange, or new to the current Stack

I just came across a question by a new contributor to a Stack (in this case, SF & Fantasy), as indicated by the new contributor indicator. Since it was an ID request, I launched into a comment linking to our guide on asking ID requests and was about to invite them on the [tour], when I checked th...

feature-request new-users new-contributor-indicator

@SQB Isn't it the degree symbol?

@Mithrandir They're the same:

The numero sign or numero symbol, № (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no. (US English), or No or no (UK English) plural Nos. or nos. (US English) or Nos or nos (UK English ), is a typographic abbreviation of the word number(s) indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, with the numero sign, the written long-form of the address "Number 22 Acacia Avenue" is shortened to "№ 22 Acacia Avenue", yet both forms are spoken long. Typographically, the numero sign combines the uppercase Latin letter N with a usually superscript lowercase letter o, sometimes underline...

ah

The degree symbol (°) is a typographical symbol that is used, among other things, to represent degrees of arc (e.g. in geographic coordinate systems), hours (in the medical field), degrees of temperature, alcohol proof, or diminished quality in musical harmony. The symbol consists of a small raised circle, historically a zero glyph. In Unicode it is encoded at U+00B0 ° degree sign (HTML ° · °). == History == The first known recorded modern use of the degree symbol in mathematics is from 1657 where the usage seems to show that the symbol is a small raised zero, to match the prime symbol...

@SQB you have it the wrong way. You need to stalk their network profile, look if they already edited stuff or are likely to have, then check their badges, then decide if you put edit between brackets 👀

7:37 AM

@SQB It's not any worse now than when there was no indicator at all, is it?

7:58 AM

@Alex Hah. Up the irons!

@Alex they're not. The numero sign is one symbol, combining the N and the superscript o. Also, the o is often underlined.

8:54 AM

1

Q: Novel: Dream-inducing microchip causes young boy to accidentally leave his futuristic mega-city, he eventually destroys three towers

I remember: The boys classmates put a dream-inducing microchip into his cereals (I think) as a prank. He then dreams in the subway home, but oversleeps, and eventually somehow accidentally leaves his walled-off city. He can't just go back in. The book happens very far into the future. Outside, ...

story-identification novel

TheLethalCarrot

9:22 AM

@Jenayah Do you sleep?

@TheLethalCarrot mh?

TheLethalCarrot

You just always seem to be awake, whenever I look back at posts you always seem to be around no matter the time haha

@TheLethalCarrot in chat you mean? Or Q/A ?

In any case I don't usually sleep a lot and I can't here anyways, there's too much noise

TheLethalCarrot

I just mean in general, chat or otherwise

Might as well ~~write my internship report~~ dawdle there

Might probably change when I'm back home though, with school, actual stuff to do and real-life people to talk to without the urge to punch them

Well some of them yes, but in a friendly manner :p

TheLethalCarrot

9:37 AM

Lol, fair enough

9:56 AM

Oi, @SQB's doing that again with Zelazny :p

Doing what again?

Adding a tag, you mean?

Yeah, a work tag ;D

Only 4 questions though.

Kidding

Though consistency would need to tag every TV show question with the season or whatever, I guess

Tagging is a mess

"Always create a tag for the work" is a pretty solid policy, though.

TheLethalCarrot

10:04 AM

Except where other policies override that, like HP and ASOIAF etc. but I do agree

@Jenayah Tagging has always been a mess here

even after the, what was it, '15? cleanup

@SQB problem is, the same could be said of shows with several seasons since it's pretty much the same issue

Yeah. I still think it should not be overridden on HP and ASoIaF, but that's my personal opinion.

TheLethalCarrot

@Mithrandir Tagging is a mess everywhere, there's just too few users to clean up and stay in line with the 5 in 15

But nobody wants rwby-volume-1, rwby-volume-2 etc

10:08 AM

@Jenayah in the case of TV series, that is the work.

@SQB eeeeh... I kind of fail to see the difference between what a season is to a show and what a book is to a trilogy or stuff

@Jenayah hm... Conceptually, you may be right.

Although it depends on the series. It may be just a bunch of episodes thrown together until the episode count for a season is met, or it may actually be a season-spanning story arc, complete with plot twisting cliffhanger at the end.

@SQB granted a lord-of-light tag is prettier than revolution-season-2

That's the thing, though. Seasons usually aren't named.

@SQB okay, then let's assume we're talking about series that develop a story throughout the season, not something like Black Mirror

@SQB yeah, hence ugly tags. But they qualify as individual works too...

10:14 AM

@Jenayah let's say The Good Place, for instance. Currently at two seasons, with both seasons following a distinct arc.

@SQB distinct arc, but is season 2 completely independent from S1?

Didn't know what you weretalking about, I googled and I might give it a try after finishing Misfits

@Jenayah it's a continuation and actually makes less sense without having seen the 1st season.

@Jenayah be very careful with googling; it's easy to spoil.

@SQB yeah so it's like the second book or what. Might be a different story, but same universe and continuity

Yes.

@SQB read the 5-liner Wikipedia summary

10:18 AM

@Jenayah you're good, then.

You may want to avoid googling, though, until well into the 2nd season.

@SQB yeah I don't usually Google the series I watch

Okay, so another example could be Game of Thrones, or ST:TNG.

@SQB well basically 80% of tv shows would qualify

Well, Friends for instance, had episode-spanning arcs and did have cliffhangers, but nothing major usually.

@SQB ok, 80% of SFF tv shows.

(which are more prone to have an actual long-lasting story, no offense to Friends)

10:22 AM

I didn't watch ST:TNG regularly enough to tell, but from what I recall, it was usually episodic, with some background arcs.

TheLethalCarrot

Most TV series qualify in the same way that most book series do. Almost all have series spanning arcs as well as book/season and chapter/episode arcs

You can't really apply the argument to one media without it matching the other one

Of course there will be exceptions but they will most likely be in the minority

But if you equate a TV series to a book series and a season to a book, would that mean that a single episode is a chapter?

TheLethalCarrot

Yeah, isn't that what I said?

@SQB maybe, but we don't have chapter tags (yet...)

TheLethalCarrot

Or episode tags... thank god

10:30 AM

Don't we have episode tags for a few ST:TOS episodes?

TheLethalCarrot

Don't know, unless there are "lots" of Qs about a specific episode I doubt we need them though

@SQB I just meant that the superscript o is used for both.

I can see TOS movie tags, but not episode tags

@Alex Ah, okay. Got it.

@doppelgreener yeah, I'm not sure.

unless they don't have "trek" or "tos" or anything in their name and are just the episode name?

TheLethalCarrot

10:32 AM

Well movie tags make sense, episode ones don't really

Unless it really does have a lot of Qs about it

star-trek-qs?

TheLethalCarrot

That's about a species/race is it not?

(i'm doing a pun :D)

TheLethalCarrot

Ah, cos of my lazy shorthand

Gotcha

No, couldn't find one. Probably mistaken, then.

10:37 AM

What does it mean when Community closes a dupe?

It means the author agreed it was a dupe

Case at stake: I don't see "Glenn G" confirming this is Tunnel in the Sky, but there might be a deleted comment or stuff:

2

Q: Looking for title of a scifi story about a class trip

I read a novel from the mid to late 80's where a class was transported for a survival weekend but the transporter malfunctioned and the group wound up on an unknown planet. I believe the kids were stuck there for a couple before being found. At the end of the book one of survivors journeyed back ...

story-identification

Oh okay :D

10

Q: Under what circumstances does "Community" vote to close as a duplicate?

I proposed a possible duplicate for this question and it received four close votes (including mine) with the fifth vote attributed to the Community user. Under what circumstances does the Community user vote to close a possible duplicate? (Purely a matter of curiosity on my part; obviously, I h...

discussion closing-questions

@Alex ok!

Anyway, may I try a bottom-up approach? For written works, the smallest unit we would like to tag is a short story. We do tag those with the name of the story.

Next step up are books; either a novel or novella, or a collection of (already tagged) short stories. We tag the book as well if it's a novel (or novella).

10:40 AM

@SQB yeah, but they're more "individual" individual works than books of a series

We usually don't tag collections unless the question is about the collection, rather than a specific story in it.

I could imagine having an episode tag if there are really a lot of questions about that episode, like was mentioned earlier.

@doppelgreener yeah, me too.

I'm not sure if we would / should tag a question about a specific story with the tag for the collection as well, if it only appears in that one collection (and never anywhere else). We probably still wouldn't.

Books usually have smaller audiences than TV shows, so might not be as likely to assemble as many questions about just a particular chapter, even if it is the equivalently important chapter in that book

Then we have the book series, like A Song of Ice and Fire or The Laundry Files.

We tag those.

Funnily enough, for our largest series (by question count), we do not tag the individual books in the series.

Cases in point: harry-potter, a-song-of-ice-and-fire.

10:44 AM

@SQB because tagging HP with individual books tag would be the Messiest Mess in Messyland

If we now compare this to TV episodes, then the smallest unit is a single episode.

However, unlike short stories, most episodes of TV series do not exist on their own — a notable exception being Black Mirror.

TheLethalCarrot

I don't really see the point you're making about short stories, you wouldn't really tag one with the collection it was in unless the stories were all related in the collection for some reason...

(Side note: should we tag individual Black Mirror episodes?)

@TheLethalCarrot especially since short stories often appear in different collections

TheLethalCarrot

Aye

10:48 AM

@TheLethalCarrot yeah. An example of that would be This Is How You Die. All short stories around one theme — the existence of an accurate prediction of your death.

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB I don't think it's really needed from a quick look

@SQB That's not really what I meant, one theme is different to interconnected

@TheLethalCarrot Oh, okay. What I mean is that these are stories that are likely not to be collected elsewhere, at least not any time soon, all sharing the same theme, but not interconnected.

TheLethalCarrot

In which case I don't think you need to tag the collection, the short story would be just fine

If the collection acts as like a universe for all the stories in it, it is likely needed

@TheLethalCarrot it does. The universe would be machine-of-death, which is also the name of the first collection, this-is-how-you-die being the second.

@SQB That's a good ones, yes.

That started as a challenge for story writers to write such stories.

TheLethalCarrot

10:54 AM

@SQB All stories in the same universe but not related beyond that?

There's a lot of ones likes those. Some start with a shared sci-fi universe, with different stories in that.

@TheLethalCarrot No, not the same universe, just that one plot element shared.

The machine that accurately predicts how you will die (but not when).

TheLethalCarrot

Again then I don't think they need to have a universe/collection tag

Or take pixel-juice by jeff-noon. All short stories, most but not all interconnected, some too short and too connected to another story to be collected elsewhere, some of enough substance to allow them to be collected.

And there are various stories, some about people who refuse to read the paper, some about ones whose death comes in an unexpected way that nevertheless fulfills the prediction, and one where the protagonists sacrifices everything to try avoiding to fulfill that prediction, and in the end we learn the what the preiction was (spoiler scrubbed).

Also, recently I linked to an even looser collection of short stories:

Dude, spoilers! I still want to read that.

You have made it move up on my to-read list, though.

10:57 AM

@SQB Sorry

in The Reading Room, Aug 4 at 18:44, by b_jonas

http://thechairparade.com/OneSentenceStories/ This collection of short stories (ed. Matthew Bennardo, 16 single sentence stories) is an entertaining read. There's not much overall theme, each story evokes very different emotions. Many end in a twist, but that's probably typical for short short stories.

@b_jonas No problem.

(a few more chat lines after that)

I think these two collections (or series of collections) are worth a tag each: specifically they're not anthologies of previously written stories, but stories originally written for the collection, on a challenge to write stories with a particular restriction.

0

Q: Transfiguration or apparition?

As Harry Potter makes the glass disappear, what did actually happen to it, how to explain. Was it an apparition or transfiguration? Or jus spontaneous magic?

You don't need a tag for anthologies like collections of entirely random sci-fi stories collected with Asimov's name on the cover so they sell.

Unless perhaps you're asking about how making the collection itself works, not just some story in it.

So how do we translate this (since that is what started this) to TV series?

11:06 AM

@SQB I dunno, still looks dupey - do we refer to laws of Magic as in legal laws (ministry and stuff) or equivalent to laws of physics?

@Jenayah the latter.

On the one hand, we have series like Black Mirror, where a case could be made for individual episode tags (although we don't need nor want those yet).

@SQB eeeeh... What exactly are the laws of magic?! (save for Gaunt transfiguration stuff)

@Jenayah exactly that.

TheLethalCarrot

I think it could mean both, it is ambiguous at the moment

Nah it's been edited

Got the answer then

11:08 AM

On the other hand, I'm sure we can come up with series where the overall arc is almost none-existent.

Or it's a dupe to the Gamp transfiguration questions :D

TheLethalCarrot

Aye, saw as I said it

@SQB retracted my vote, you can delete your comment

Will do.

TheLethalCarrot

Your dupe comment can probably go too.

11:12 AM

FWIW, retracted my vote but left the comment above so that the questions are linked, since I think it's relevant. — Jenayah 22 secs ago

TheLethalCarrot

Lol

I think they stay linked though

@TheLethalCarrot oh?

TheLethalCarrot

Think... I can't remember for sure

Well it's clearer that way then, or if you feel like it have a free flag, kek

TheLethalCarrot

I did flag it then thought meh but you can't retract comment flags... or I can't remember how to so we'll just see what happens

11:15 AM

I'm not sure how to phrase it into a proper answer, but one could argue it's OK with Gamp's laws scifi.stackexchange.com/q/24803/98028

bwarf and now it's got yet another close vote

(not mine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

@TheLethalCarrot no I don't think you can retract comment flags

TheLethalCarrot

Me neither

Hey folks, I have I quick question re: tags

32

Q: Make it possible to retract comment flags

I misread the content of a comment, and flagged it. Then I realized that the comment wasn't what I had initially thought. Would it be possible to have the ability to retract comment flags, just like we have the ability to retract flags on questions and answers? I'm aware of this support question...

feature-request status-deferred comments comment-flags retracted-flags

I know I apparently have sufficient rights to create a tag, but I've never done so before. How do I do so?

TheLethalCarrot

Just edit it onto a question

11:20 AM

@Broklynite just type it in the tags bar in your next question, or edit it in one

Tried that, it just gives me a suggested tag

TheLethalCarrot

What tag are you trying?

Yup. When writing or editing a post, mash some words together with dashes in between, then save.

Oh I see, I just click out of the suggested tages and hit saved edit

You might want to add a space at the end, to see it use proper tag formatting.

11:21 AM

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the help

TheLethalCarrot

No worries

It's not exactly intuitive

np

@Broklynite Add the tag onto a question, either a new one or editing an existing post. If you have the privilage, the interface will let you. Then make sure that either at least two questions have the tag or there's a tag description for it (you can submit an edit for those and it will be reviewed) so it's not auto-deleted.

@b_jonas ah, okay, will do, thanks

I usually access the site from my phone and the app doesn't allow you to do things like that

At least, I haven't figured out how to do so

@Broklynite protip: don't ever use the app

11:23 AM

@Broklynite For a new tag, it's worth to make sure that the text of the question itself explains what exact work or universe etc your tag means. Then anyone can create the tag description, and also people don't have to read it to understand your question.

In the thousandth Star Wars question, we don't have to tell what the Star Wars franchise is, but for a work that's less well known it's better to give a short one paragraph introduction and its exact author and title and other bibliographical details etc.

mobile web is smoother

Will do my best.

But even if you don't create the tag, if you ask about a new work of fiction so it clearly needs a tag, someone will create the tag for you.

TheLethalCarrot

@Broklynite Created a tag excerpt for it, think it's correct :)

Most of the time can use one of short-story or novel or tv-series or movie or comics as a temporary tag, people notice that a question shouldn't have that tag alone and will quickly edit to fix the tag.

Some works of fiction are harder to categorize, but it doesn't actually matter what temporary tag you use.

As long as the question text itself is explicit enough, that is.

11:28 AM

Cool, thanks folks, I appreciate the help. I know I'm not all that active, but I try to leave as small a footprint as possible, so to speak.

I just work hard to ask questions unrelated to Star Wars and Harry Potter.

TheLethalCarrot

Ask whatever you want... as long as it is on topic haha

1

Q: How did the Cap fix vision?

In The Tripods Trilogy, Beanpole wears ordinary glasses that he was forced to invent because as a technology they had been forgotten about. The reasoning was that the capping process would also fix your vision. But while there are brain injuries which can affect the vision which the cap might con...

@Marvin I was very confused for a few seconds until I realised this wasn't a Marvel Avengers question

@doppelgreener ahah

TheLethalCarrot

@doppelgreener Caught me out too for a second

11:38 AM

@doppelgreener Yeah. I should get the habit of mentioning the name of the work in my question titles at least when it's not obvious. Many of my current question titles fail that test.

@b_jonas no! Arqade-style no-context questions are the best :D

Today's one:

8

Q: How can I stop patients from dying?

So during the Yearly Awards there's an award for no patient deaths, and I'll occasionally get a staff challenge for going a certain period of time with no patient deaths as well. While I would certainly love to to have a 0% patient death rate, patients continue to die on me anyways. I know there'...

two-point-hospital

Oh. My. God.

@Jenayah Only if they're humorous. Sometimes I go for that, but it doesn't work for all questions.

96

A: The Memes of Arqade and its Chat

Meme: Questions that are absurd without context Originator: Various Cultural Height: As Often as Possible Background: How can I get my wife to stop nagging about a few murders? fable-3 Can I pass out from excessive drinking? bioshock How can I tell if a corpse is safe to eat? nethack How c...

Titles like "How much of the Death Star did the stolen plan cover?" are fine, and so are HP questions that explicitly name "Professor Dumbledore", and the question that explicitly says "In the Foundation universe," but eg. "What is the gold coin?" and "How did the Indian provide the thunder effect?" and "How many people live in Luna?" are bad question titles of mine.

TheLethalCarrot

11:43 AM

If you're adding the work in to the title just so it's there don't bother. Tags in titles are bad and the most popular tag is appended to the title for the page title anyway

My question titles that go for ambiguity for the potential humor or clickbait sensation value are scifi.stackexchange.com/q/157559/4918 "What's the worst thing anyone could do in a fast-food restaurant?", scifi.stackexchange.com/q/138369/4918 "I have a portrait in the classroom and a bust in the library. Who am I?", plus

@TheLethalCarrot I still don't buy that. In many context, the tag isn't shown, only the title is. The most notable examples are the question and answer list in profile pages, and the HNQ in the sidebar.

That tag is shown less often than it's not shown.

TheLethalCarrot

Well sure but HNQ is for clickbait across the network anyway and people don't really browse profile pages to get Q/A's. In any case there's nothing to buy... this is how the system works

In any case I'd wager a guess that 85% of Harry Potter questions make it to HNQ anyways

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/46386316 was a case when I tried to add a plausibly deniably funny title when retitling a question by a newbie to be more informative.

TheLethalCarrot

I'd say more than that nowadays haha

11:48 AM

@Jenayah Definitely no.

At least not the HNQ sidebar, which is a shorter list than the stackexchange.com top level page.

@b_jonas nowadays, I meant. For the non-dupe ones

@Jenayah Not even then.

Not 85% of the Harry Potter questions.

@b_jonas what can I tell you, I don't have all the statistics, so I made a guess. As you may know, 74% of statistics are made up on the spot.

@b_jonas was about literature.stackexchange.com/q/8253/139 by the way

@Jenayah Yes, but when there are mathematicians like Rand or me in here, and you make up statistics about topics we're somewhat familiar with, you can't just make up random totally unbelievable statistics.

If you want, make up statistics about topics you think we're not familiar with, although in a room of geeks it's not so easy to find such a topic.

Best to make up statistics about things nobody actually understands.

TheLethalCarrot

I don't think that's a fair comment, Jenayah was likely being slightly sarcastic based on what happens on site. There is no need to go over the top on it...

11:54 AM

Either that, or make up believable statistics in areas you are actually familiar with. I don't know what you Jenayah are familiar with, but you probably know.

@TheLethalCarrot Sorry, I'll stop then

Sadly the retitling pun failed, because the modified title doesn't show up on Sci Fi SE scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/193437/?noredirect=1 , and the "[migrated]" mark doesn't show up on Lit.

@b_jonas no but... That's the joke... "74% of statistics are made up on the spot" = "I made up this 74% too"... :(

@Jenayah Yes, I don't have a problem with that one. I only complained about the HNQ stuff.

@b_jonas I'm familiar with sarcasm :p

@b_jonas yeah that was in the joke too :p

Hmm. I just realized that we don't know much about the real world Jenayah. We know he's young and reads Harry Potter, which is typical on Sci Fi SE, and she revealed that she's in Europe, which we can mostly guess from his diurnial activity cycle anyway (Europe and Middle East are a bit hard to distinguish, but still), and she revealed that she's female. Of course, it's not unusual to see such people in chat. Some are even more secretive.

I am fine with the property not being stated in the title; the title is just a summary and won't always contain information like that. I was clear about that HNQ once my brain started paying attention to its actual content (and its tag).

12:01 PM

I know site admins who try to keep their continent and number of children secret.

@doppelgreener Yes, but I can put a higher standard to questions I ask.

I recall a question that shot to the top of the HNQ, which was something like "are the moon landings a hoax?" which was tagged interstellar, iirc.

I mean, site admins I've co-operated with to help improve a website for ten years, yet they keep their continent and number of children secret.

@SQB Yeah, we have those. But that's the minority. Like I said, "What's the worst thing anyone could do in a fast-food restaurant?" was a clickbait. Most random titles don't work like that.

"What is the gold coin?" is not a good clickbait title.

TheLethalCarrot

@doppelgreener It shouldn't be in the title especially if it is just "[tag-name] - Why did X happen to Y?" that's just a tag in title so should be removed cos well... that's what tags are for haha

@TheLethalCarrot 👍

But we can make it a natural part of the sentence which is ok, and I'm guessing that's what b_jonas would go for

Also, I realized that the method I used to iterate on character-id and object-id questions was flawed, so I must have skipped a few questions, so despite that I've scanned three quarters of the questions, I may have to restart with a better method. Darn.

12:06 PM

@b_jonas eh, if you have questions don't hesitate to ask, if I don't want to answer I'll just tell you :)

TheLethalCarrot

@doppelgreener Natural fine, again though if it's just there for the sake of being there... meh get rid of it

62

Q: Were the Moon landings faked in Interstellar?

In Interstellar, Murph's teachers explain to Cooper that the moon-landing was fabricated; a successful piece of propaganda that bankrupted the soviets. Is it ever mentioned if this statement was true or not for the universe of Interstellar? According to this movie and all the people in it, was t...

Ah yes. The click-bait version lacked the final two words.

@SQB oh yeah, the touchy one

0

Q: Should we have numbered tag synonyms for each Star Wars film?

As a suggestion, would it be good to have a corresponding number tag for each Star Wars film in the main series (not the anthologies). For example, a synonym for the-phantom-menace tag might be star-wars-episode-1, or possibly sw-episode-1 (for simplicity.) Thoughts on my suggestion for adding th...

discussion tags tag-synonyms

@Slartibartfast how's that different from the one three days ago?

12:09 PM

@Jenayah which one?

@doppelgreener Sometimes it's entirely automatic, because the character names are so unique or are even titular, eg. "Professor Dumbledore" or "Death Star plans" ones, or scifi.stackexchange.com/q/104077/4918 "Was Dr. Octavius Brine inspired by Octodad?", scifi.stackexchange.com/q/91372/4918 "Was Miss Trunchbull a murderer?", scifi.stackexchange.com/q/95311/4918 "What was Scarlet's original plan for the Minions?", ...

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah T'other one was about "eras" not synonyms for the film names

-2

Q: Tags for different eras in Star Wars?

While recently writing a Star Wars related question, I found it slightly difficult to define the time in which it occurred in the timeline. Should there be tags for each era in Star Wars that extend over a long period of time. For example Prequel Era material can fall under the [star-wars-prequel...

discussion tags

Ah, yes.

but what TLC said indeed

12:10 PM

scifi.stackexchange.com/q/167797/4918 "Why isn't Mojo Jojo using live bait?", scifi.stackexchange.com/q/185308/4918 "Does Doctor Doofenschmirtz ever get back at bellhops?", scifi.stackexchange.com/q/63670/4918 "Can Dr. Antekirtt give hypnotic commands to Carpena from afar?".

Star Wars is especially good in this, because the makers of the franchise make sure that almost every character and object and location has unique and characteristic and trademarkable name. "Luke" is about the only big exception.

@Slartibartfast that would be a mess with people who don't acknowledge the prequels and refer to the 4th as the 1st :p

Would be more useful for Star Trek, since that franchise actually has different types of media set in the same era. star-trek-tos and the ST:TOS-era films, star-trek-tng and the ST:TNG-era films, and so on.

Harry Potter, otoh, is easy because so many of our questions are about Harry Potter that if you see a question with generic names like "Harry" or "James", you can suspect it's Harry Potter.

@Jenayah then include "episode" in the tag name.

Slightly useful.

Then again, synonyms cost even less than tags. So why not?

@SQB well yeah but even then, some still refer to Ep 4 as Ep 1, it's a mess

Not that I care really much, though. It's Star Wars :p

12:13 PM

@Jenayah Nah, they're better when they come up naturally in a conversation, because you start or continue a conversation about something other than Sci Fi meta issues (how to tag stuff) or Harry Potter.

@Jenayah it was never Episode I. It was the first film, but never Episode I.

@b_jonas sure

@SQB perks of translations abroad :D

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB Only worth doing if there is any value in it, I can't really see any myself

@TheLethalCarrot well, it sets up a nice system for new films. Just tag them star-wars-x as long as the title is unknown, than synonymise that to the actual title as soon as it's known.

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB We're doing that now, not sure if the synonym is created though

12:16 PM

@Jenayah Numbering of the episodes in the tv series Phineas and Ferb and Steven Universe are even worse. Most of the episodes are half-episodes, but there are normal length, one-and-a-half, and double-length episodes in Phineas and Ferb, double-half episodes with a clear cliffhanger break in Steven Universe, and Steven Universe has episodes reordered when the TV company decides not to show the episodes in the originally intended order,

@SQB ... probably NOT star-wars-x though :p

Might even help foreign language users, although I doubt that they'll have a level of English sufficient to participate if they can't even find the proper name of a Star Wars film.

so some episodes were created to belong to one season but were shown in the next season, plus all but the first season are half-length seasons so now the first season is sometimes broken to season 1a and 1b at its middle and the episode numbering may be restarted in the middle, which is silly because there's no natural break in the story there.

@TheLethalCarrot Hmm... let's try: star-wars-7 star-wars-8.

And tv series never have numbers on their title or credits screens, and they often have spectacularly bad episode titles.

12:19 PM

@b_jonas which is why the creators of Friends chose to name the episodes "The One With ...", since as they figured, that was what the fans would be calling them anyway.

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB I'm not against the idea totally (I mean I created the got synonym for Game of Thrones cos I was too lazy to keep typing it out). I'd just want some reason for it and I can't really see one at the moment

@TheLethalCarrot I agree. Not much reason except we can. But my ~~orderly mind~~ mind craving order likes it.

1

Q: Book about a man that can slow down time to almost a stand-still

It's about a man that can slow down time to "almost" static but not quite (maybe a million times slower). He does unusual things like freezing time while driving a car at 50 mph, and then opens the car door and walks around on the spongy, blurry road. He then gets back into the car and restarts. ...

story-identification books

2

Q: 70s UK science fiction TV show with time travel and telepathic cat

I'm trying to identify a science fiction series on UK TV during the 70s, but I can only recall the following: A party of adults and children. One of the party was a woman with a telepathic bond to her cat: she could look into its eyes to see what it had seen. Time travel was involved. I think i...

story-identification time-travel tv telepathy

@TheLethalCarrot Oh! Can we have [story-id] as a synonym? I'm too lazy to type it out. Mind you, it's not too important, because [story-id*] works in search.

TheLethalCarrot

@b_jonas Well I gathered support from the active GoT users before suggesting it by talking to them in TQAT. I didn't just do it on a whim. At the time we also had [asoiaf] as a synonym for the books too so made it easier

12:27 PM

And the numbering is even better with films, "specials", "shorts" and all other sort of bonus content, although in the case of Steven Universe there aren't any significant ones (yet), it's more for other tv series.

@TheLethalCarrot TQAT is the chatroom "The Quill and Tankard" for Game of Thrones, right? It's not in scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1531/4918

TheLethalCarrot

Correct

Perhaps you shuold add it to one of the answers in that meta question.

TheLethalCarrot

Fair enough edited it in

Thanks. Hmm, I haven't heard "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" abbreviated to anything shorter than "the Restaurant" yet. Should we start an unpronouncable abbreviation?

TheLethalCarrot

TREU

12:37 PM

Or we can just call it "the main chat room"

TheLethalCarrot

That's what it is usually called

Most people I've spoken to pronounce it true

@TheLethalCarrot Wait... you've spoken to people about Sci Fi SE? In voice chat or real life?

"EU" is actually a sound in Dutch, so I've been hearing that in my mind.

TheLethalCarrot

@b_jonas Not heard just asked them how they'd pronounce it haha

Sounds a bit like an elongated "e" in mercy.

TheLethalCarrot

12:41 PM

@SQB true is just what I first started saying (I think I originally read it as that) it makes sense and just stuck haha

Checking the profile page for which US metropolis TheLethalCarrot lives in ... wait " it just so happens that there is a character in A Song of Ice and Fire called Carrot too." what? Carrot is a character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. What's he doing in ASoIaF? ASoIaF has Asimovian misspelled names.

Lethal.

TheLethalCarrot

His name doesn't even mae sense, carrot top should surely be green :P

@SQB "eu" are also different sounds in English and French and ancient Greek words, and so they all pronounce "Europe" the continent and "Euro" the currency in different strange ways.

(Hungarian pronounces it more or less like the ancient Greek, thank god.)

@b_jonas usually not consistently, either.

TheLethalCarrot

12:44 PM

@b_jonas I'm not American by the way

(And it gets worse with the "ch" and "th" and "x" sounds.)

@TheLethalCarrot Yeah, I saw that in your profile page.

2

Q: Is there a superhero who has notably super-strong teeth?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 5 episode 18 “Crusaders of the Lost Mark” has a colt with “super teeth”, who can lift a heavy see-saw by grabbing one end with his teeth. (This pony reappears in S5 E24 and S6 E19, and gets dental braces in the latter. He is unnamed in the show, ha...

super-hero my-little-pony my-little-pony-fim supernatural-abilities

@b_jonas Matter-Eater Lad, out of necessity?

user image

^ This pony has the fan nickname "Carrot Crunch". Every significant character in MLP gets a semi-official fan nickname if the show creators don't name them in the episodes or in credits, because MLP isn't like Star Wars with a back story novel for every incidental character.

@SQB Yes, he's in one of the answers.

1:04 PM

1

Q: What is this community consensus on comments cleaning?

Due to the volume of comments generated on the main site, StackOverflow, some comments can be "nuked" by a single user with a "no longer needed" flag. This is a built-in functionality available on all SE sites. The only requirement to use it is to have 15 reputation points. There is a user that ...

discussion featured comments

Can a single user delete a comment? I thought a flag still needed to be validated.

TheLethalCarrot

If the comment is just "@name thanks" they delete immediately I think

Some other comments go immediately too as well

I think 3 same flags delete the comment

TheLethalCarrot

I also think if a comment gets N flags it gets deleted but not sure on that one

Yeah I've been flagging some "please mark as accepted" lately and they delete immediately

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah Hopefully only once something has already been accepted :P

1:08 PM

@TheLethalCarrot of course

@SQB You can delete your own comments immediately, but if you delete many of your own comments in a short time, then diamond mods get notified automatically.

@b_jonas I had that happen to me once while cleaning up.

TheLethalCarrot

@b_jonas The context is about normal users deleting other users comments

1:24 PM

0

Q: Why is Umbridge so evil?

We all know Umbridge is the worst... In his review of the book, Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly that “the gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter”...

@Marvin smells like POB, but let's read it first.

« first day (478 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2054 days later) »

Transcript for

Sep '183

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…

General discussion for scifi.stackexchange.com, both on-topic ...

fantasy floofs off-topic reviews sci-fi

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile