The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

steelershark

02:57

@SQB Hehehe! I am morphing back into a squirrel in 4 more hours!!

@Edlothiad Well, it was either that or ill-tempered sea bass ;)

Edlothiad

@steelershark Yes the episode was great thanks for asking :)

steelershark

@Edlothiad Huh? What episode?

Edlothiad

@steelershark GoT you numpty

5am, adios *waves*

steelershark

@Edlothiad Oh, sorry. I thought we were talking about Doctor Evil ;)

Edlothiad

I'm being whatever you called me, dopey or something ;P

steelershark

03:04

Hehehehe! I just call you a silly bean ;)

M&TV Feeds

03:44

4

Q: Was the smoke in this scene accidental or a practical effect serving to depict something?

In the Star Trek: The Original Series(TOS) episode "Journey to Babel", There were several shots of an "operating room" scene, in which McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is operating on Sarek. In at least a couple of the shots, wisps of smoke can be seen rising from behind the contraption placed over Sarek...

doppelgreener

09:11

@Gallifreyan You need to create a film night question! :O

(I'd forgotten about that! It's nearly August!)

Zaphod

13

Q: Help me identify a story about humanity trading itself to giant squids for food

I'm trying to remember a few stories that I read back in High School (in the USA, English-language), so this is pre-1993, likely older than that. The first story was a short story, most likely from a short story collection that I got at a library. maaaaaaaaaybe I read it in a magazine like Ama...

story-identification short-stories soft-sci-fi

Ankit Sharma

10:03

Panda Fluff of the day ;)

@SQB she is not a shark anymore

Derpy

10:40

@AnkitSharma just remember to never say "no" if the panda suddenly prompts you to buy some cheese

Ankit Sharma

11:02

@Derpy I don't prefer to see YouTube in office, will check later

Zaphod

11:13

3

Q: Did anyone else have access to an Emergency Temporal Shift?

In Evolution of the Daleks we see Dalek Caan escaping the Doctor using an Emergency Temporal Shift. This ended up taking him all the way back to the Time War. My question is: does anyone else have this technology/ability, apart from the Cult of Skaro? This can include both other species and othe...

doctor-who time-travel dalek

Donald.McLean

11:31

Greetings, Earthlings.

Ankit Sharma

Greetings, from the other side of the universe

Mithrandir

ALIENS! AGGHHHH! HELP!

Ankit Sharma

steelersquirrel

11:54

@AnkitSharma Ankit! What are you doing up in here? ;)

@Randal'Thor I ASKED A TARDIS QUESTION HERE!!!

I'm just shouting so that you can hear me!!! ;)

Ankit Sharma

12:34

@steelersquirrel I am regular here, to be frank I am loving it more then mos ;)

5

Q: Out of Universe, how many TARDIS props have been used?

Out of Universe: I was having a chat conversation recently regarding the TARDIS from the Doctor Who television series. I became curious as to how many TARDIS props were created for the television show beginning with the first episode that aired in 1963. I know that Doctor Who has a huge fan ba...

doctor-who tardis

steelersquirrel

@AnkitSharma Frank? I thought your name was Ankit! :P

Muahahahaha!

Ankit Sharma

> What it means to be frank?

> honest and straightforward in speech or attitude: a frank person. 2. outspoken or blunt.

steelersquirrel

I know what it means, silly bean!

Ankit Sharma

I just noticed that people even take proverb word to word literally (....cough cough.....@DrRDizzle) so it's better to always clear the doubts

steelersquirrel

Any time anyone starts off something with "to be frank", I always say that, because...I'm silly ;)

Ankit Sharma

12:45

okay

steelersquirrel

Don't you know that Frank is an American first name?

Ankit Sharma

I just sued Indian proverb today and dizzle took it too literally and lost context

@steelersquirrel ofcourse I know

steelersquirrel

or are you ~~Napoleon~~ inadvertently ruining a joke? ;)

Ankit Sharma

I was always the official pun-killer but napoleon over did it and took my place

steelersquirrel

Hehehehe!

@AnkitSharma You need to change your username to "Frank" now ;)

"Frank Sharma"

"Frank Snow"

Whichever you like ;)

Ankit Sharma

13:08

lol, never

tobiasvl

13:21

does nobody watch Twin Peaks: The Return? no questions about it on the site yet…

wait, I forgot to check TV&M

just a few

Ankit Sharma

movies.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/twin-peaks

few

@tobiasvl My theory: If there are not enough question on the subject then why not ask few ;)

Gallifreyan

@doppelgreener I thought about creating a poll asking for film night themes, like M&TV does. Picking themes unilaterally just isn't cool.

doppelgreener

@Gallifreyan Ok, sure.

I'd be game for that.

Less burden on the film night person as well. :)

tobiasvl

@AnkitSharma Oh, for sure. I've been asking lots of questions about The Book of the New Sun recently because I think it's underrepresented on the site :) But then I need something to ask about

Gallifreyan

To be fair, I'm not really interested in doing film nights. Dailymotion seems to have sped up their detection routines, and most of the stuff I'd like to watch isn't available on Netflix (or on any streaming) in my region.

Thus using freely available videos isn't reliable, as previous night has shown, and asking someone to pay to stream it doesn't seem right to me.

Ankit Sharma

13:34

If I am not wrong then Twin Peaks off topic here ?

tobiasvl

@AnkitSharma No, what would make it off topic?

doppelgreener

@Gallifreyan aw. D': Yeah we have been running into complications.

Ankit Sharma

@tobiasvl IMDb call it Crime, Drama, Mystery, no fantasy or science fiction element mentioned there, not see it myself so can't say

As expected, there is a meta about it

3

Q: Should questions about Twin Peaks be migrated to the Movies and TV beta?

There is currently one question about Twin Peaks here on Science Fiction and Fantasy, but no tag for the series. Then when I posted a question here about the series it was suggested I should have asked it on the Movies and TV beta, since whilst the series contains sci-fi and fantasy elements, it...

discussion migration

Which say it have sci-fi element, fair enough

tobiasvl

yeah, lots of supernatural stuff there at least

Edlothiad

13:50

@Gallifreyan could you (one) not put it up on youtube unlisted?

Ankit Sharma

@tobiasvl ok

I always get confused with genre division and really don't care about them either

Gallifreyan

@Edlothiad Tried that with Nausicaa, it got blocked before it was even uploaded.

Nausicaa survived for a week on Dailymotion while hidden, but Iron Giant got blocked a few minutes after made public.

Ankit Sharma

@Randal'Thor Better to update the answer with current status. — Jon Snow Jun 14 '16 at 11:22

@Randal'Thor ^^

Edlothiad

@AnkitSharma I thought mentioning the chatroom that's not to be mentioned gets deleted. Or is that just for non-blues?

Ankit Sharma

@Randal'Thor and how many upvote are counted as common conscious, I was talking about my meta psot which got 8 and 10 upvoet on answers

Edlothiad

14:00

@Gallifreyan That's rough. I don't see what else can be done

Gallifreyan

14:19

Daily floof 2017-07-31

Spectacled flying fox, from here. Enjoy.

Mithrandir

Edlothiad

14:55

Those are some floofy flying critters

Mithrandir

That last one is a fish.

Gallifreyan

Ed implies it isn't pretty, which implies you don't have taste.

Though I like it.

But you still have no taste.

Edlothiad

@Gallifreyan I just hadn't gotten round to the Mesut Ozil Fish

Gallifreyan

Cosplayer: Jamie Rainey Photographer: https://www.facebook.com/thelaurencalaway https://t.co/42PtadeHBR

Tweeted by witchergame on July 31, 2017 at 2:28 PM

Will you look at that awesome female witcher cosplay?

Edlothiad

no

Gallifreyan

15:03

@Edlothiad You have no soul.

@Edlothiad Wow, mate, you might want to check this out.

Though she seems to be more of a model than a cosplayer.

Riker

damnit gallifreyan I wasn't even 1h too late :p

floof for tomorrow so I dont lose the link

Edlothiad

15:24

@Gallifreyan That looks like a model :D

Remember what happened the last time we commented on attractive women?

DaaaahWhoosh

don't blame the women, blame the comments.

3

unless the women are the ones writing the comments.

then it's totally their fault.

Gallifreyan

@Edlothiad I wasn't here :D

Edlothiad

@DaaaahWhoosh Who said anything about blaming women?

DaaaahWhoosh

probably no one. I just wanted to say something poetic.

Gallifreyan

15:45

By Rui Li

Diana by Serge Birault

Edlothiad

16:01

this needs re-open votes.

Zaphod

16:14

27

Q: What plans were there for Star Trek: DS9 or Voyager movies?

Obviously there were never any such movies made, and never will be. But I'm interested in how far any planning ever went. What were the firmest any plans to produce a movie featuring DS9 or Voyager got?

star-trek movie star-trek-ds9 star-trek-voyager

amflare

@Edlothiad I'm not convinced. It seems fairly rambly and operating from a speculative position at best. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt though.

depperm

Would a question about if the force is the same as controlling air be appropriate?

Gallifreyan

@depperm The answer is no, telekinesis operates on a different premise.

Don't know if it'd be appropriate though.

Catija

Is there a "how does the force work" question?

Gallifreyan

@Catija "Very well, thank you for asking."

depperm

16:25

@Catija not that I found

Mithrandir

Midichlorians!

Or whatever they are.

I wouldn't know.

DaaaahWhoosh

holy bantha fodder, there are 283 questions specifically about the Force!

depperm

@Gallifreyan could I ask if telekinesis is the same as air control?

Catija

My point is that, rather than making some sort of guess that The Force is air control, ask what you really want to know... if you want to understand what telekinesis is, that's a question. asking "is A, B" is not a good question. You want to ask open questions - 5Ws/H - NOT yes/no questions.

And if you want to generally know what telekinesis is, I suggest you start with google.

Gallifreyan

@depperm You probably could, as long as you limited it to one franchise, but the answer is a firm no.

Catija

16:30

Psychokinesis

Psychokinesis (from Greek ψυχή "mind" and κίνησις "movement"), or telekinesis (from τῆλε "far off" and κίνησις "movement"), is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical interaction. Psychokinesis experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no convincing evidence that psychokinesis is a real phenomenon, and the topic is generally regarded as pseudoscience. == Etymology == The word 'psychokinesis' was coined in 1914 by American author Henry Holt in his book On the Cosmic Relations. The term...

Gallifreyan

Or rather, controlling air is a sub-skill of telekinesis.

xkcd

17:00

There's this idea that emoji are bad for communication because they replace ambiguity and nuance with a limited set of preselected emotions, but it doesn't really survive a collision with real-world usage of the thinking face or upside-down smiley.

DaaaahWhoosh

...do a lot of people use the eggplant emoji?

whoa, never mind. Research indicates they do, but not because they're talking about vegetables

4

Skooba

many of those plant/flower emojis probably get used a lot more than you would think too... for the same reason

Adamant

I have an alternate opinion on whether President Snow lied to Katniss.

He didn’t lie.

He said what was literally true: That District 13 was buried underground as though it had never existed.

Not that it had been destroyed.

Classic “evil character must tell the truth, but isn’t obligated to provide all the facts.”

amflare

17:19

@DaaaahWhoosh I sense that joke is referring to something else... Not the literal usage of the emoji.

Edlothiad

17:33

@DaaaahWhoosh The taco is a pretty good one, and not what it referred to in mos either

floof of the day?

We should stop setting impossible standards for floofs and show what we're really doing to animals

4

DCOPTimDowd

19:01

What's a good resource that goes over why people don't like the Matrix sequels?

DaaaahWhoosh

there's probably a Youtube documentary series about it

ooh, and a quora question with some pretty good answers

I personally enjoyed the sequels. But I realize they're like Aliens, in that they're a significant departure from the feeling of the original

plus, the Neo/Trinity thing never made sense to me. They just never seemed like a believable couple.

but I guess that's a big flaw in the whole series

DCOPTimDowd

19:55

I liked them too. Which is why I'm curious as to the other point of view.

DaaaahWhoosh

I think the main issue is that they are worse than the original, and that the original didn't need a sequel. Reminds me of how I felt about Halo 4: Halo 3 didn't need a sequel, it told the story it wanted to tell, and the sequel just ended up restarting all the old wars that were supposed to be resolved

when a self-contained story ends, it usually ends with some sort of cathartic "and they all lived happily ever after", it feels cheap to say "not really, actually nothing that happened in that story changed anything, the world is the exact same and now there's more conflict"

ooh, yeah, that's how I felt about The Force Awakens. It sucked to see how Han and Leia broke up, how the New Jedi Order failed, and how the Empire just reformed into the First Order. It makes the original trilogy feel useless.

Mithrandir

...I'm going to request that people avoid the snarky and jokey comments on my Hogwarts question; I'd like to avoid being overrun with them :/

Skooba

@Mithrandir its a castle... all castle had dungeons

amflare

@Mithrandir It looks like those comments are in good fun. I wouldn't be too worried about it.

DaaaahWhoosh

maybe they weren't always considered dungeons. Maybe they were just subterranean rooms, and people called them "the dungeons" because they were creepy

Mithrandir

20:09

@Skooba it didn't need to be a castle, though. It was built to be a school.

@DaaaahWhoosh I doubt that...

Skooba

@Mithrandir well thats a different question tho

Mithrandir

@Skooba no, it's not. I'm asking why they included the dungeons when building a building to house a school.

DaaaahWhoosh

@Mithrandir do you? I feel like in pretty much every school I've been to, there are basements referred to as 'the dungeon'. Plus, I don't think there's ever any actual reference to actual prison cells

Skooba

@Mithrandir filch did say punishments used to a lot tougher

amflare

I feel like the answer here is "worldbuilding". "dungeon" is easier to say then "dark, dank, dirty, damp, subterranean, room". It evokes the necessary mental image without getting wrapped up in the details.

Mithrandir

20:13

@Skooba yeah, and he's got the chains in his office, not the dungeons ;)

amflare

Plus, what kind of ancient castle would it be without dungeons?

DaaaahWhoosh

hmm, it seems like the origins of the word 'dungeon' come more from just the inner parts of a castle than they do from prisons. I guess people just used them to keep prisoners, but that wasn't necessarily their intended purpose in all cases.

Mithrandir

@amflare a school...?

DaaaahWhoosh

Dungeon

A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette or bottle dungeon is a form of dungeon which is accessible only from a hatch or hole (an angstloch) in a high ceiling. == Etymology == The word dungeon comes from French donjon (also spelled dongeon), which means "keep", the main tower of a castle. The first recorded instance of the word in English was near the beginning of the 14th century when it held the same...

Mithrandir

@amflare Why would you need such rooms in a school, though?

Skooba

20:18

yeah it seems dungeon were not even necessarily underground....

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir Cellars, no?

amflare

@Mithrandir my point is that castle + dark, dank, dirty, damp, subterranean, room = just call it a dungeon

Mithrandir

@amflare but that doesn't address the question of why they needed these rooms in a school

Skooba

@Mithrandir cause they were probably just store rooms not torture chambers

Mithrandir

So why are they having classes in a storage room?

amflare

20:20

@Mithrandir Technically they don't need many locations that were mentioned, that doesn't mean Rowling shoudn't have used them as settings.

Gallifreyan

Why does Hogwarts have dungeons? https://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/166155?atw=1 #harrypotter

Tweeted by StackSciFi on July 31, 2017 at 8:20 PM

Mithrandir

@amflare Meh.

Gallifreyan

My associations with the word "dungeon" are forever spoiled by Sunstone.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan heh, it's not like that Twitter account really does anything :P

Gallifreyan

And also this:

Skooba

20:28

@Mithrandir same reasons they have classes in a tower

Mithrandir

@Skooba they have Astronomy in the tower. That makes sense.

You can get a better view of the sky from higher up.

Skooba

@Mithrandir no they divination in the astronomy tower

Mithrandir

@Skooba probably because once the tower already exists, you don't want to waste the space

Skooba

yes that is involves stars and stuff but i dont think we ever see a telescope

DaaaahWhoosh

@Mithrandir it seems like Slytherin built a lot of extra space, maybe he built the dungeons

Skooba

20:32

@Mithrandir well same for the dungeon then... it was there... might as well make a class room out of it

Mithrandir

@Skooba I distinctly remember Harry buying a telescope.

@Skooba but why was it there?

DaaaahWhoosh

dungeons are cool, it's not like the only reason to have them is to lock people up

Zaphod

18

Q: What are the relations between Hogwarts Houses, outside of Gryfindor/Slytherin enmity?

What are the the relations, as written in the books, between the houses outside of the very clear enmity between Gryffindor and Slytherin? For example: As a whole what do the students of Gryffindor think about those in Hufflepuff? Does Ravenclaw have the same very low opinion of Slytherin as G...

harry-potter hogwarts

Skooba

@Mithrandir cause thats where salazar wanted it.... "It was agreed that each would construct their own houses, for example, choosing the location of common rooms and dormitories."

and its admitted slytherin was "bad guys" to a trope

DaaaahWhoosh

I mean, I wouldn't mind that much if I lived in a dungeon. The CS lounge at the university I went to was in the basement, I spent a lot of time there and didn't mind

Mithrandir

20:35

@Skooba I still fail to see how this answers why they existed in the first place. Unless you're saying that he built the dungeons to put his House in the dark, damp, and cold?

@Bellatrix has provided a nice answer though, good job

Skooba

@Mithrandir exactly what i am saying

he chose to build the dungeons

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir At one point you'll have to accept that Rowling didn't care about an in-universe explanation.

Forral

It gave Slytherin an excuse to do a lot of digging while he dug out the Chamber of Secrets also? (No canon info, just putting it out there)

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan of course she didn't. That doesn't mean that we can't wiggle one up ;)

Gallifreyan

You can wiggle anything up, sure. On Worldbuilding, that is.

DaaaahWhoosh

20:39

hey, not anything

Gallifreyan

I say they were just laying the foundation for a tube station beneath Hogwarts. Go disprove me.

DaaaahWhoosh

I still don't understand why, if you were building a castle, you wouldn't just make dungeons because they're cool

in Minecraft pretty much all my castles had dungeons.

Gallifreyan

All my houses in Sims had a ~~dungeon~~ basement.

Skooba

i mean historians are still debating if real dungeons were actually "dungeons" or just store rooms

Edlothiad

@Gallifreyan I had a tube station under my first year halls, apparently

Bellerophon

20:43

My school has a tunnel complex leading to the train station under it.

amflare

@DaaaahWhoosh Weeeeeeeellll.... like 99% of anything.

DaaaahWhoosh

@amflare yeah, it seems like I lost the scope war. I warned them that it would drive away good users. Now I hang out here.

Bellerophon

@amflare Don't criticise Worldbuilding. They are the people I know most capable of working out how to track down and enact some kind of torture that I know.

DaaaahWhoosh

there was a pretty terrifying conversation in The Factory Floor this morning about the worst way to execute people

amflare

@Bellerophon Oh don't worry. I'm not. I love reading the posts and posting when I have the time.

Edlothiad

20:55

@DaaaahWhoosh That kind of chat can get rooms frozen!

DaaaahWhoosh

@Edlothiad don't blame the torturers, blame the women

Edlothiad

@DaaaahWhoosh Classic

Skooba

@DaaaahWhoosh the bull always seemed particularly terrifying to me

DaaaahWhoosh

there are a lot of old-fashioned execution methods I'd rather never experience

Edlothiad

Prague torture museum is cool

amflare

21:06

@DaaaahWhoosh I think I could comfortably say I'd rather never experience any of them.

DaaaahWhoosh

oh yeah. Good point.

amflare

It shows how active the Dr Who chat room is when my rant from 2 weeks ago is still starred in the sidebar :/

Transcript for

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…