The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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Marvin

00:27

I am almost positive this short story appeared in either Galaxy, IF, or Worlds of Tomorrow in the 1960s. The MC is an alien with three(?) legs and a bell-like head with a circle of eyes around a mouth in the top of its head. The creature is disgusting - it lives in its own filth and eats its own...

2 hours later…

DavidW

02:08

@AncientSwordRage Heh. :)

Those of us who have IDd a question from a single clue have more of an appreciation for how a minimal set of clues can sometimes be sufficient.

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW its irritatingly predicated on hidden information

DavidW

I don't know, several of us recognized "Book about Israelis in space" from that title.

But then a lot of story-ids come down to what particular aspects of a story you remember.

For example, I almost never remember names, so if an ID question gives most of its detail in character names, I'm probably hopeless.

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW that's what I mean, the close voters don't know what potential answerers know (hidden information)

DavidW

Ah, right. Though it's not always that I know the answer, just that I feel there's likely enough detail there for there to be at worst a small set of answers.

AncientSwordRage

02:34

@DavidW if we go by that, then nothing should ever be closed, because somebody could have that feeling that there's likely enough details

Instead we have a whole meta faq that has been curated to help make detailed questions for identification

To just go, "I've got a feeling this is answerable" and go against that and how unclear questions are handled normally feels bizarre

It's not as if there aren't avenues to reopen a question after some discussion

DavidW

Heh. So now we're on opposite sides of the "should be closed"/"should be left open" debate? :)

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW yup (•‿•)

DavidW

Well, it's good that neither of us appears to be afflicted of hobgoblins...

AncientSwordRage

....?

DavidW

As in "A foolish consistency..."

Though it's not necessarily "I've got a feeling this is answerable;" a lot of the time it's "if I think about this properly I can figure it out."

AncientSwordRage

02:50

@DavidW I'm happy when those get answered, but if enough people see it and consider it closeable, more info should be provided by the OP, or an argument be made in the comments/meta to refute it

"there are so few sci-fi novels about Jewish people in space, somebody should know the title"

Etc.

Marvin

Q: Harry Potter Fanfic Where Harry Gets Adopted By Snape and Befriends Draco and Pansy

So before I had an AO3 account I was reading this fanfic where Dumbledor had told Harry (I think it was 3rd or 4th year) that if he left the Dursleys house that summer, it would endanger everyone he loved. So harry lets himself get abused abd malnourished and doesn't leave. Nobody comes to check ...

harry-potter fan-fiction severus-snape draco-malfoy

DavidW

Well that's why closing is a vote, right? Even if I get carried away, it gets closed by the rest of the community. :)

AncientSwordRage

Reopening after closing with no change of information feels like the start of an open/close war. I'd rather it stayed closed and people talked, y'know?

I've reclosed this in line with the original close votes as no significant details have been added before reopening (this is not policy, it just seemed unhelpful that a question that lacked detail was reopened without adding any) — AncientSwordRage ♦ 1 hour ago

DavidW

03:10

@AncientSwordRage Definitely reasonable. I wasn't really firmly one way or the other one that, so I went along with the herd.

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW I can't completely fault you there, but sometimes just following the herd isn't quite enough

(I do this more than you probably, so uh... Do as I say etc 😜)

DavidW

Moo!

AncientSwordRage

gets cattle prod ready... Bzzzt....

 __________________________
< Do as I say, not as I do >
 --------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

6 hours later…

Marvin

09:38

Q: Horror movie with blood coming out of a faucet and a bathtub full of blood

I'm trying to identify a horror movie/episode I saw in the late 90s, of which I remember only the following scene: A woman enters a bathroom, scared and likely chased by a monster. I don't remember the monster at all, but there was definitely something she was running away from. The bathroom is ...

story-identification movie tv horror

6 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

15:40

@AncientSwordRage I disagree. If people think a question was incorrectly closed, then voting to reopen is exactly what they should do. Just like with downvoting, adding an explanatory comment is nice but not necessary.

It even says so in the Reopen Votes review queue: the description under the Reopen button says "close reasons were resolved or the question was incorrectly closed in the first place" (can't get the exact wording as there aren't active items in the Reopen queue in any of my high-rep sites).

If you think the question really should be closed and the reopen voters were wrong, that could be a reason to close. But the fact that reopen voters didn't comment shouldn't be, IMO.

(cc @Null who cast the final vote to reopen and may have some further thoughts)

Cereal Bot

16:14

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Vicarious

posted on November 13, 2021 by tech

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: I've tried this and I'm usually good for about 3 hours. Today's News:

AncientSwordRage

16:37

> If you think the question really should be closed and the reopen voters were wrong, that could be a reason to close.

I think that's it, but the fact there's unanswered comments from people asking for details, and none from people saying it should be open means I'm left guessing what logic they're using to say it should be open

Marvin

Q: How was a scattered version of Jarvis able to help?

As we can know from the scripts below, Ultron was trying to breach world cybersecuirity system to get nuclear codes, but he failed thanks to the prevention by a party unknown. Stark went to Oslo and found out that it was Jarvis who's behind the scene. But I have difficulty understanding what Sta...

marvel marvel-cinematic-universe avengers-age-of-ultron

Marvin

17:09

Q: Where does the original Droids animated series fit into the pre-Disney canon\Chronology?

Before Disney took over the Starwars franchise, where was the Droids animated series placed in the chronology, is there a canonical date for it, and which events\media (Book\film\games, etc) came immediately before and after it?

star-wars star-wars-legends chronology

Marvin

17:34

Q: How are Thanos' and Iron Man's gauntlets supposed to contain the powers of stones and transmit them to the body of the wielder?

In Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame Thanos and Iron Man used their own gauntlets to use the powers of stones. Each of them suffered powerful colorful beams coming out of the stones. What are the mechanisms the gauntlets use? Do the two gauntlets use the same mechanism? How does the me...

marvel-cinematic-universe avengers-endgame avengers-infinity-war infinity-stones the-infinity-gauntlet

6 hours later…

Marvin

23:26

Q: Looking for title to a Horror Movie

Moderator over at other site suggested I ask my questions here, since other site has those questions banned. I am sorry questions not related to science-fiction. I don't have much information about it. I saw a description of it a few years ago on another now dead movie review site. My PC had a cr...