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1:40 AM
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Q: Star Trek II: Why Did Kahn Feel "Tasked" to Chase Kirk?

MissouriSpartanIn Star Trek II, However, Why?? His intellect is supposed to be superb, so surely his intellect would have told him that the alternative was actually the more prudent move, and could deliver more vengeful damage in the long-run than a simple spat with one man. The Miranda class starship was use...

0
Q: Animated TV show with futuristic vehicles used to fight monsters

LuanI'm asking about an animated TV show which most likely aired on Cartoon Network, but it could have been on Super RTL too. There was a team of 4-5 people who had their personalised vehicles like near-futuristic ones, where the tires would split in two and a saw blade would come out to help the veh...

 
2:30 AM
0
Q: Does pain really make dark side Force-users more powerful?

user132588One thing I see people say about dark side Force-users a lot is that physical pain, the kind of which is received from anything that pretty much harms you, makes them more powerful, and it is often used as a response to the excuses that "Kylo Ren was injured in the fight in The Force Awakens and ...

 
2:56 AM
0
Q: Looking for a Movie with Killer Glowing Green Floaties

Gregory W LevitskyI can't remember much about this movie (it might have been a TV episode) where some sort of glowing green "floaties" (think like purpose-driven gnats) devour people as if by burning them to death. There is even a scene where they get into a car through the ventilation. Any thoughts?

1
Q: Name of young adult book about girl with metal hair, maybe silver, that young boy uses to make a radio. She may be from outer space

John YoudenThis is a book I read sometime between 1960 and 1970. A young boy meets a girl and become friends. I think he learns that she is from another planet or outer space. They are working on some kind of radio and he needs wire. Her hair is wire and she cuts off some of it for him to use. Maybe si...

 
 
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4:12 AM
0
Q: What is Queen Mab trying to say to Harry?

YasskierIn the latest Dresden Files novel, the Accorded Nations have to face an ancient weapon - the Eye of Balor. Harry has this slightly confusing conversation with the Queen of Air and Darkness “The Eye,” I said. “It was made of pure hate. I felt that. [...] “It destroyed everything it touched, excep...

 
4:37 AM
0
Q: What are the metallic rods near the Pilot's head in a TIE fighter

MickaEarly depictions of the cockpit of TIE fighters and Darth Vader's TIE Advanced have an assembly of metallic rods with rounded ends pointed at the temples of the pilot's head. These objects are usually just out of shot and so, i think, has been left out of a lot of Fan art. i wonder if they are so...

 
 
2 hours later…
SQB
6:44 AM
@Marvin so 2 girls 1 egg?
 
 
3 hours later…
9:54 AM
@DavidW I’m sorry is this related?
 
10:39 AM
3
Q: Why do makers of Alice films insist on combining the two stories

Schroedingers CatThe number of variations of Alice in Wonderland that seem to incorporate aspects from Through the Looking Glass makes me wonder, why do producers not understand the differences between the two stories? They actually have completely different setups and concepts, but the fact that they are both fa...

^ I don't understand why you'd expect that a film would follow any of the Alice books. They're not really books that work on film.
 
@VogonPoet Not at all; I was simply addressing the room.
 
 
2 hours later…
SQB
12:18 PM
room topic changed to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: General discussion for scifi.stackexchange.com, both on-topic and off-topic. Engage at the risk of your own sanity, but please be nice and don't panic. [fantasy] [floofs] [off-topic] [reviews] [sci-fi]
 
 
1 hour later…
1:31 PM
2
Q: Did Anakin have an earlier lightsaber?

Ben MurphyIn Attack of the Clones, when Anakin’s lightsaber(the first he is seen on-screen with) is destroyed, he exclaims: Anakin: Not again! Obi-Wan's gonna kill me. What is Anakin referring to? Did he already break a lightsaber between the films?

 
1:56 PM
2
Q: Movie with killer androids (glowing eyes, screaming)

Oliver RuebenackerMany years ago I saw this movie. The main protagonist is out with his woman partner (girlfriend or wife, forgot). At some point, after they went to some remote place by car, she is revealed to be an android, her eyes start shining, she starts to scream and tries to kill him, but he manages to run...

 
2:47 PM
-3
Q: are there any werewolfs in america

Skylar Bindrimif i were looking to become one do i wait for the blood moon or wear wolf moon then do the thing with a mirror and do the ritual to become one because i think if you sleep under the blood moon or werewolf moon you will wake up a were wolf and then while you sleep under the moon of ether one you w...

 
3:31 PM
posted on October 02, 2020 by tech

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: Like look at these leaves. 14 oakitudes, minimum. Today's News:

 
 
2 hours later…
5:46 PM
0
Q: Why can't heroes be resurrected in Warcraft but players can?

SkullomaniaI have played the game since vanilla (I started in 2005), but the writers never explained why you as a player regardless of the race can be resurrected, but heroes like Cairne Bloodhoof, Varian Wryn, or Voljin are unable. Is there a reason for this that I have missed?

 
Unrelated, but the comment will get rommbaed along with the question and I for one was wondering how the thing would roll out:
Thank you so much all who have taken the time to help me. I'll follow up your advice. — Gillian yesterday
 
6:07 PM
 
 
1 hour later…
7:21 PM
@Jenayah You're queen of searching so perhaps you can help me out.
Whenever I try to search goodreads/books, I get 90% crap that's been published in the past 5-10 years. Is there a way to say "only return books published before 2000?"
This whole internet thingy is just the worst for quality fiction; it's so easy to create an e-book that there's no practical gatekeeping anymore.
 
7:35 PM
@DavidW *blush*
@DavidW never tried, but perhaps you could brute-force it with a -"first published * 20*" pattern?
Not sure whether Google would correctly search that, let me try
Grmbl, no it doesn't
The range operator filters some of the erotica crap on the following query
scifi book alien kidnap mate site:goodreads.com/book 1960..1970
(judging from story-ID searching experience, keywords like "alien mate" are definitely going to yield such crap, hence this set of keywords)
 
7:53 PM
0
Q: When and how did Sirius get a new wand?

J. MiniChapter 22 of Order of the Phoenix contains this alarming line (emphasis mine): "That’s right," said Sirius encouragingly, "come on, let’s all ... let’s all have a drink while we’re waiting. Accio Butterbeer!" He raised his wand as he spoke and half a dozen bottles came flying toward them out of...

 
I did not know the range operator! Thank you, that looks very useful.
 
You're welcome. It's not 100% foolproof, mind you
 
No, I see that; one of the results I just got was a hit on "1,981 books" But at least it helps!
How's it going BTW? Are you at least getting paid for reasonable working hours?
 
8:24 PM
It's not going fabulous at the moment. Like a great deal of folks, the Covid situation has stirred stuff, and I'm headed back into a situation I spent years studying like crazy to get out of. So... Not great. Health, money and essentials are not immediately at risk, but they might be once this shifts from "situation evolves day-to-day with no way of making plans" to "situation is much more stable, but it's utter crap"
So to answer your question about work hours, well, I'm getting paid the same amount while putting in way more work than usual, but that's me chosing to do the extra hours, because work is the only thing that completely takes my mind off stuff.
(it was the same when I was in high school and later in studies: I'd put more work because it'd make me focus on something else)
I can't take up back boxing these days, Covid etc. Biking with the current weather is a hard no. And the usual other leisure (books, comics, personal coding projects...) doesn't get me off bad thoughts. Only work does, I get it's a combination of work mindset + work is interesting + I'm learning stuff + the harder some work issues get, the more I f***ing love my job.
 
Oh man, that's just crappy. I'm really sorry.
Weather no good? I had a good month in August, nice weather, I actually got a bit of riding in.
But then it got cold and wet...
I did ride the week before last; it was sunny and warm enough that I used a vacation day to get outside midweek.
There are certainly worse things that being engaged with a challenging job.
 
I'm mindful of not putting work in the weekend so that it doesn't affect the actual workflow such as flawing the story points the team can burn down in a 3-week Sprint, etc. But quite frankly, when things go like that, I wish I could sign a letter stating "look, MyCompany, I'm doing that in my own time because I want to and enjoy to. I'm not expecting more money, glory or whatever, I'm just enjoying doing it and seeing it progress. No, I don't really have a life other than that right now. [...]
[...] No questions asked, no expecting the same from other team members, I'm just giving some of my time to MyCompany for free, enjoy it for fuck's sake"
 
8:39 PM
I shouldn't complain, 'cause I have a decent job, but every other week I get sidetracked from actual work to debug something essentially irreproducible, that some important customer saw once, so word comes down from on high that it must be fixed, even if we have no idea what the actual problem is.
I understand, but then you have your co-workers who get nervous that you're trying to make them look bad... Completely not what's going on, but you can't really control what other people think.
 
I'm lucky to be part of a project that's just beginning, so we don't have customer silliness yet. Only the modules and components to write from scratch (modulo the usual COTS and whatnot), nurture like crazy, integrate with each other for the first time, eat croissants when we get something showing up on the user interface for the first time, etc. :)
 
Besides, even if it's not your intention, putting in all that extra time will make you the expert, so it can't hurt you in the long term. :)
 
@DavidW yeah, that sucks. My team isn't in this mindset, fortunately, but I don't want some HR zealot or out-of-universe manager to see it from something else than "she's just doin more work because she likes it, wants to, and has nothing else to do at the moment"
 
So-called "green field" programming is always the most fun. You haven't yet hit any unplanned constraints, there aren't any irrevocable decisions yet that you're going to have to code around for the next 4 years...
 
@DavidW yeah I was developing an internal plugin a couple months ago and now that the team can(and does, and has to) use it, I'm the "plugin expert". Concretely though, the plugin has gained little to no features since then, I've just become way quicker at figuring out what's wonky in the input data xD
 
8:47 PM
:)
 
@DavidW yup, I've read enough horror stories on the web and browsed enough top-voted SoftwareEngineering.SE questions to know and enjoy how lucky I am :)
 
I don't know how much external 3rd-party stuff you're relying on, but once or twice when I've had insufficient work or an excess of attention is dig into a support library and think about how we're using it, and if the application could be improved by pulling the required logic up into the application and dropping the dependency.
It's a fun thought experiment that doesn't have any real risk, and it can lead to some interesting learning.
(There's a bad sentence up there ^, and it's too late to edit. Ask if the sense is unclear.)
 
The main "3rd party" tools we use are technically company-developed tools, that we have to use because 1/ they exist 2/ they've been proven to work... Sort of 3/ we can ask for support from the dev team... Supposedly 4/ features we ask for provide work for another team in the company
 
@Jenayah You should try to make it flexible schedule, you're spending more time on work now, less time later when you need the break.
 
So we can't really port their logic​ into our stuff, but we're also pretty sure it's not going to deprecate suddenly. Then again, some of the technologies used aren't exactly up-to-date... But we can't easily fix that in our corner
@b_jonas I think I've enough PTO to use for when I need that. I haven't taken muh this summer, and while I did have mandatory PTO taken off during lockdown, I've picked up some since then.
 
8:56 PM
@Jenayah ah, to be young
 
I love the editorial "...sort of" and "...supposedly" :D
It rings so true.
 
So no problem with taking time off when I'll need to. Plus my boss and team are great and understanding, so there should be no problems with when I take them
@b_jonas :)
 
@Jenayah It's like they actually want you to perform well rather than to sit in the office and do nothing useful.
 
They've started nagging us at work about taking some of our vacation/personal time entitlement.
Warning us that they're going to phase in limits to how much unused PTO we can accumulate.
 
@DavidW yeah, one of them especially is... Limited... For instance, I wanted to test how the module was working under pressure (receiving maximum amount of input), and the tool spit out an error code not even catalogued in the user manual. 'kay then, no biggie, it's only to be used on my machine; once we get the real hardware, with another, better tool, it'll be different.
 
9:02 PM
You keep telling yourself that. It'll help you sleep better. :)
 
In the meantime though, I do have to explain that I can only currently test about... 10% if the user's actual need 🙇
@DavidW that sucks
@b_jonas yep :)
 
Well, from their point of view they're giving us PTO so we can go and do stuff to say sane, not get sick, etc. So they want to make sure that we do stay sane, healthy...
 
@DavidW oh no, the blob of code handling the pressure response will most likely definitely crash, since optimizing in a language I'd never used​ one month prior, with an underdocumented company-added layer on it, with no steady testing tool, is a recipe for disaster :) but the actual machine will at least say where the code blob dies, rather than "can't send this much data. Socket died. Fuck off" xD
 
Unfortunately for them, 90% of what I (and many of my co-workers) would use their time off for is to get out of the freaking city and that's pretty much the one thing we can't do.
 
Hello, can any here think of sci-fi novels which largely follow the evolution of a protagonist’s life, such as David Cooperfield, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or The Notebook? if anyone placed Anakin Skywalker into a single novel, that would also be an example.
 
9:09 PM
0
Q: How many comic book continuities are there in the Power Rangers universe, or is it one "Shared" continuity for all?

RusshiroThe Mighty Morphin Power Rangers have had a few comic adaptations, those most notably from Boom Studios. The story essentially takes the original premise nd even characters from the 1993 show, and pits them in current times (2010s-2020), following most of the story beats and details. However, th...

 
@Jenayah I'm still going to privately consider you an optimist. :D
 
@DavidW I get that... :/
 
@VogonPoet The protagonist's entire life, from birth to death? (As opposed to, say, picking them up in their adolescence, or fading out in their retirement?)
I haven't read any Sparks (and I won't) so I don't know if that one starts at birth.
 
@DavidW possibly :)
 
not necessarily but something more than an event crisis story. the main plot is how such things came to be.
...with the protagonist, that is
 
9:14 PM
@Jenayah After a very pleasant week of cycling last year in Liguria, I was looking forward to a week in Austria this year and/or Catalonia. :(
 
Yeah, that's going to be hard :/
 
Although, given how September weather was this year (compared to previous years) that may have ended up as a bit of a bullet dodged.
 
@VogonPoet nothing popping up to mind, but I'm making a mental note to get back to you if I think of one :)
 
The group of cyclists I've traveled with were making plans for Provence next year, but I'm still pushing for Girona. I've cycled in Provence a couple of times, it's really nice and I'll happily go back, but I've heard great things about Girona and I've never been.
 
@DavidW yeah, September has had its share of surprises here as well. "Enjoyed the last two weeks of warm, sunny weather? Here, still just as sunny, but with a fifteen Celsius degrees drop"
 
9:20 PM
Not to mention Spain getting hit with a tropical storm and "medicane Ianos" in Greece...
 
"Y'know what you're right, the weather doesn't add up. Here's a storm to match the degrees. And five less degrees as well, because y'know why not"
 
:D
@VogonPoet Sure, the birth of a hero. But most heroes are forged by the crises they face... And then a long retirement makes for a long denouement. :)
 
Every time I'm impressed by how much more impressive storms can be when you work in a prefab. And with half the team working remote, it's worse, since audios just can't be done
 
IIRC Feist's Magician: Apprentice starts with Pug as an foundling infant, but I think it only gets as far as him growing to adulthood and his full power.
 
"Well Mikael, I'll call you back on Monday, since we can't hear a word each other is saying because of the prefab amplifying the raindrops sounds like crazy. Right, you didn't hear that. I'll hang up and write it in a mail/instant message instead"
 
9:28 PM
@Jenayah I'll have to take your word for that; I've never had to work in one. It's occasionally been bad enough at work, I'll just have to boggle at the implications.
 
"MyCompany general mail: the weather says winds will go above 135 km/h tonight. Remember not to leave anything that could be caught by the wind." _ Me: WTF are we supposed to do, order a hundred meters of belts to strap our prefab to the ground??
 
LOL
I'm trying to imagine what you would strap it to that would be stronger than it is. :)
 
@DavidW the main cement and concrete building... The one the folks who write these emails work in :)
 
...the desk of the person writing that e-mail. :)
 
@DavidW many are forged on the spot, but many others are the consequence of a long series of events. Harry Potter was shaped this way but merely two chapters follow his miserable formative years with the Dirsley’s, which came to bear in later novels.
 
9:35 PM
@DavidW prefab sucks for a great deal of things. Poor thermal insulation, rain leakage, hearing the meeting in the audio box next to your open space, shitty electric network, the list goes on. But there are perks as well... The "bungalow ambiance" brings the team closer, especially since everyone working in the prefab works on the same project.
Metal walls are GREAT for improvising white boards with magnets and A3 sheets.
Or even writing on the wall, with a wood/grease pencil that can be erased with some wet cloth
The prefab isn't near management and other zealots, so no one will bother us if we eat there at lunch, rather than the official company choices which are eating out (no: pricey, far, meh) or eating at the mess (no: plexiglass, price rose like crazy with Covid, portion sizes went down, etc)
 
@VogonPoet Would HPatPS count then? Or not (a) because it doesn't sufficiently flesh out his past or (b) because it doesn't encompass enough of his life.
@Jenayah Three cheers for hiding from the suits!
All you need to do now is encourage a puddle or muddy spot in front of the door, that they won't dare risk their expensive shoes in, and they'll never bother you. :)
(And since real programmers wear hiking boots, it won't be a problem for the rest of you. :)
 
Everybody knows of the prefab coffee machine and kettle, but no one will snitch, since folks occasionally come by "to see Mikael, oh he's not here today? Aw, too bad. I'll take a coffee before I go". Including our boss' boss, who comes for his coffee every Friday afternoon, so we're not too​ worried about our unofficial appliances getting confiscated any time soon :)
 
:)
 
Coffee machines elsewhere on the site were shut down because of Covid, since you can't guarantee folks will wash the screen every time they use it. Our is a "domestic" smaller one
 
well firstly it’s not exactly SciFi but also you need to combine several stories to have the background. his evolution is not really the plot, it’s an event - the quest for the philosopher’s stone. many characters evolved into that event
on second thought tPS is fairly a food example has she spent a little more time dealing with his abusive childhood which he had to overcome. But again that is not SciFi
...good example.. Autospell 🙄
 
9:53 PM
@Jenayah I dropped by the office a couple of weeks back to pick up a webcam (sigh no more hiding during meetings because "I don't have a camera" :() and thought I'd have a coffee. Imagine my horror that the good machine was turned off!
Apparently it requires too many touches to make coffee, and people weren't wiping it down after using it.
@VogonPoet Ah, right. Same problem with Magician then; it's fantasy.
C.J. Cherryh Cuckoo's Egg
 
@DavidW :(
 
Cuckoo's Egg is a science fiction novel by American writer C. J. Cherryh. The book was published by DAW Books in 1985, and there was also a limited hardcover printing by Phantasia Press in the same year. The book was nominated for the Hugo Award and longlisted the Locus Award for Best Novel. It was later reprinted along with Cherryh's novel Serpent's Reach in the 2005 omnibus volume The Deep Beyond. The book introduces the alien Shonunin race, and the plot of the novel concerns a male Shonun raising a human boy. The book's title is therefore a reference the practice of brood parasitism among...
 
Double :( even. Because video meetings, I'm sure, are pretty much irrelevant most of the time?
In our line of work, at least...
 
Oh yeah.
The only thing that's useful is screen sharing and you don't need a camera for that.
It's worse for me, because sometimes if I'm having trouble hearing I'll close my eyes so I'm not mentally processing text I see before me in order to concentrate on what's being said. (This isn't a problem in a face-to-face meeting, since I'm not staring at a screen.)
Hmm... Part of the problem of a book about a hero growing up from childhood is that it pretty much has to be told from someone else's point of view until the child is grows up at least a bit.
Oh, and Cyteen might work too. (Also by Cherryh)
 
10:22 PM
@DavidW good find, CE is exactly the format I was after.
Well i think it can be done creatively in first person, á la David Copperfield. Dickens relies on “witness accounts” as well as general observations of infants to fill in the youngest years.
 
If you like it you can read everything else by Cherryh. I won't say she's always that good, sometimes she's better. :) (She is one of my top 3 favourite authors.)
 
1
Q: Woman traveling on foot with a falcon companion in a feudal culture

ciciI believe it is stand alone, though I am not entirely confident. all I remember is the cover and one specific scene: The cover consisted of green, brown, and gold colors depicting a forest with a women standing in the center emerging from foliage and looking up into the sky. her hair is bound wit...

 
10:50 PM
0
Q: Is there a tactical purpose for the hole in Power Girl's costume?

Donatello SwansinoThe DC superhero Power Girl wears a white costume with a red cape. Her costume has a cleavage-displaying cutout. Is there an in-universe, tactical explanation for this? Out of universe, it just seems like basic comic book sexism, but has any comic book writer given an in-universe explanation for ...

 

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