The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Marvin

00:17

-1

Q: Searching for a no-dialogue short film from the 90s where a man takes the top of his skull off

Set in a city, extremely dark and gritty, involving a guy going through some kind of deep psychological torment, possibly drug-addiction related. At one point he gets out of bed and takes the top of his skull off, revealing his brain. I saw it sometime in the 90s and it was probably made around...

story-identification

Marvin

00:49

1

Q: How did Black widow hold her own in Infinity War?

In Infinity War, Black Widow fights against Thanos' female henchman (or henchwoman, I guess). They have a stand off in which they lock staves and are pushing against each other, and neither seems to have a real advantage. Presumably, tThanos' agent has strength above that of a normal human (see t...

avengers avengers-infinity-war

Marvin

02:27

0

Q: What is the technical name of the conical totem lanterns scattered in the Tuanul village field?

I am building a Tuanul raid diorama based on the opening scene of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). . I have built some conical totem lanterns like the one marked in the picture. I need to know (if possible) to get the name of those devices. Can someone help me by telling me the technical name...

star-wars the-force-awakens kylo-ren jakku

Marvin

02:43

0

Q: Name of an animated series bases on human-operated robots fighting bad robots

I want to know the name of the very old series of cartoon, maybe Chinese Japanese or Korean IDK. I used to watch it when I was a kid. It consists of human-operated robots who fight evil when needed, the pilots used to go inside the robots to operate them. And I remember the one robot name "shash...

story-identification animated-series

Alex

05:17

@Jenayah How closely do these lyrics parallel the English lyrics? This inspired me to watch a bunch of Disney songs in the Hebrew versions,and I found that they all used very liberal translations. Sometimes they threw in entire lines that weren't in the original.

Jenayah

06:04

@Gallifreyan yeah "anniversaire" means birthday so this site made a compilation

@Alex pretty much all the translation matches. The lines that kinda differ were due to the impossibly of translating the pun, the rhyme or stuff

Some are actually pretty clever

Exit "my words are a matter of pride", which wouldn't make much sense in French and wouldn't rhyme

Alex

I guess French translators get paid better.

Jenayah

Enter "rebelle et lion font rébellion" (rebel+lion equals rebellion)

@Alex back then maybe - nowadays eeeeh... That's murky

Alex

@Jenayah It's the same with newer stuff. All the songs I saw from Frozen had lots of changes in the Hebrew version.

Jenayah

@Alex oh yeah Frozen had some big changes in the French one

Lots of underlying implications were left out

Alex

@Jenayah By design, or because they were untranslatable?

Jenayah

06:17

@Alex well I'm not a translator but I think it would have been doable

Then again... I don't really care about Frozen :p

Alex

@Jenayah Eh, I just picked it because it's one of the few movies where I know some of the songs.

Jenayah

Les chansons Disney (critique)

►

Funny analysis

It has English subtitles which can be enabled

About the French translations of some Disney songs :)

Alex

@Jenayah Intersting...

Jenayah

@Alex enjoy the watch!

Alex

06:44

@Jenayah Wow. The segment on Let It Go is great.

Marvin

07:04

0

Q: Do Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen know that Kenobi was a Jedi?

This was inspired by a related question about whether Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru knew that Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. Did they know that Obi-Wan "Old Ben" Kenobi was a Jedi? Or did they think Kenobi was just an eccentric old hermit living out in the desert by himself? Please provide an...

star-wars jedi a-new-hope obi-wan-kenobi

Jenayah

08:15

@Alex indeed

SQB

09:30

Come on, Zap!

What's taking you so long?

Mithrandir

TheLethalCarrot

Zap is way too quick of a name for a feed bot

And on an unrelated note...

0

A: Do we want a custom background with the new theme?

Yes, we do The custom background is one of the main things that is unique to our site and gives us our own identity on the network. Without it we look just like everyone else. Consider this answer to the linked meta: My main gripe with the new theme is that once the site header has scrolled ...

SQB

Hmm... @Catija, do you know of any plans to release a dark theme once the roll-out is complete?

Because my preference would be 2 first, then 3. 1 is not an option.

TheLethalCarrot

@SQB Even with a dark theme there would still be a light theme, most likely, so a background for the light theme seems like a good thing in my mind

SQB

@TheLethalCarrot True.

Hmm... Dark side, Light side...

TheLethalCarrot

09:45

Red test, blue text

SQB

10:28

Hey Zaphod! Wake up! Two heads and not a single thought between them.

Babel fish

2

Q: Why didn't the last survivors of krypton go to the phantom zone to live?

Why the last survivors, the council, Kal-El's mother didn't go to the phantom zone to at least survive or in a scout ship to find other inhabitant planets. They had a chance to live like Zod did. We also see Zod need the codex so the unborned child may have the destiny in their life as they are p...

plot-explanation dc-extended-universe man-of-steel

Marvin

10:52

0

Q: Is there a way to determine if a person was Imperiused if they are dead?

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it is revealed that many Ministry officials were Imperiused by the Death Eaters, and committed otherwise punishable crimes. It is also stated in various canon sources (Pottermore) that if a person is under a mind control spell, such as Imperuis, he/she is ...

harry-potter

Marvin

11:41

0

Q: a tale of edited memories

The story is about a Native American who contemplates his father. Over the years, the father underwent treatments to delete old, bad memories leaving only good ones, leaving the man smiling all day but nothing else under the surface. IIRC, there's a twist where this entire story happens in the p...

story-identification short-stories

Catija

11:53

@SQB I was talking about it yesterday with the design team. From what I understand, creating dark themes would be a huge amount of work, more than the current project, and is unlikely any time soon. Also, the background behind the left navigation isn't separate from the gutters, so doing something where the gutters are different isn't likely.

Jenayah

@Catija so do they propose an alternate or do they want to roll with the current one?

Bottom line, is everyone among "the powers that be" thinking that the current SFF beta theme is good?

Catija

12:12

@Jenayah Not quite sure what you mean by that. There are limitations we're working with for the entire network. The base layout design needs to be as similar as possible moving forward. That may change in the future but since I can't say if or when that'd get implemented, I wouldn't count on it. Y'all have been one of only two sites with a "dark" theme, so you're getting a very short stick compared to a lot of sites, which sucks and it's something that we recognize.

That's sort of why I've mentioned the option for y'all to talk about something that might work on the sidebars that looks lighter colored - a pattern of some sort - and possibly returning the top and bottom banners to be the starfield.

Marvin

1

Q: Movie where a guy replaces his blood with water

Watched a movie where a guy replaces his blood with water. The protagonist of the movies tries to fight with him but fails because he has no blood in him but water. I don't remember it being water but it was some liquid stuff and there's a team doing the same thing. I watched it back in 2008 or 2...

story-identification movie

Donald.McLean

Greetings, Earthlings.

Mithrandir

Maybe we can focus on the "fantasy" side a bit more this time around, then...

Donald.McLean

@Catija Yeah, it way sucks.

Catija

When we move into the phase of starting to create new sites entirely - after everyone has left navigation, it's possible a new design could happen - one that's designed for the shorter banner height - but I'm really not going to promise that on DAG's behalf.

Donald.McLean

12:19

However, I do realize that web site design is the blackest of black arts, darker even than necromancy. That's why I stick to web app development - much more straightforward.

Catija

I'm stuck in a weird limbo, since I'm talking with people but don't know a huge amount about web design... you learn sort of quickly. :/

Donald.McLean

I suspect that CSS was created by Satan personally.

Jenayah

@Catija well that may sound straightforward, but even if I acknowledge web design is hell, I can't imagine someone, even less several persons, who had classes on design, visual rendering and stuff, looking at the beta theme and say out loud "yeah, it looks smooth and coherent. I validate this"

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah Are you complaining about the actual theme or left nav?

(Just to be sure)

Marvin

13:02

0

Q: What type of stormtrooper is this one wearing a cape?

In this image taken from the Databank page for Tuanul we can see a stormtrooper with a cape in the background. Do we know what type of stormtrooper this is? It would not appear to be a snowtrooper as their long coats are generally form fitting and quite tight. The Star Wars wikia also id...

star-wars the-force-awakens character-identification

Catija

13:30

Unrelated... don't you all have a meta discussion about whether the creator is always the "correct" source?

Meaning, is the creator always right or can interpretations of the work override the author's intent. I'm pretty sure that I've seen that before.

Donald.McLean

@Catija I've never seen it, that I recall. And I can't imagine any reason why interpretation would override the author's intent - that's just silly.

Mithrandir

We've got a few main-site questions about that on Literature.SE.

@Donald.McLean Why? Once something is out in the wild, it's open to interpretation.

TheLethalCarrot

There is this which is slightly different...

4

Q: What source do we use when a "Word of God" statement contradicts the books?

Recently a friend and I were discussing the Harry Potter books and noticed that on Pottermore J.K.Rowling has occasionally contradicted the books. I'm almost certain that other Sci-Fi and Fantasy authors have contradicted themselves or their books in later interviews. I know if I was trying to re...

discussion canon

Mithrandir

33

Q: The author of a literary work disagrees with critics about meaning—who's right?

I've just come up with a conjecture on what a piece of literature means, but the author has said that they didn't mean for their work to suggest that. For example, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is often considered an iconic book about censorship, but Bradbury says that he didn't write the book a...

meaning authorial-intent

Catija

@Donald.McLean latimes.com/books/…

Really great article, the last four paragraphs relate to this.

Mithrandir

13:34

9

Q: How much weight should we give authors' declarations of their intent after the fact?

Very closely related: How much weight is given to authors' intentions in literary analysis? Related (as an example of what I'm talking about): Is there any textual evidence to support that Dumbledore was gay? Loosely related: Should Go Set a Watchman change our view of Atticus defending Tom Rob...

theory authorial-intent

16

Q: How much weight is given to authors' intentions in literary analysis?

When people analyze literature, one of the first things people seem to do is look for interviews or quotes from the author where the author describes the meaning they intended their text to have. My question is: when academics and professors of literature analyze texts, how much weight do they ...

theory authorial-intent

Catija

Thanks @Mithrandir :D

Mithrandir

np

Donald.McLean

@Mithrandir I agree that art is open to interpretation, and if the author has not offered up any clarifying information, then who is to say which interpretations are right or wrong? However, I would be inclined to take anything the author says more seriously than anything anyone else says - they actually know what they intended after all.

With two special cases: Doctor Who, where continuity is fast and loose. Harry Potter, where JK Rowling seems to love to hear herself talk and I am dubious about whether or not she puts any time or effort into thinking through the ramifications of what she is adding after the fact.

Donald.McLean

13:59

@Catija John Scalzi is an author whose work I like very much.

Catija

I do, too :)

SQB

14:17

@Catija unavailable in Yurp :(

Catija

@SQB Awww, sorry. :(

If you had the misfortune to be on the Internet this week — and who among us was not, alas? – then you’ll know there was a bit of excitement around the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. In an interview with Queerty, former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman said that while he was a writer on the show, he imagined the two Muppet roommates as a gay couple, basing them a bit off himself and his late partner Arnold Glassman.

Twitter exploded over this, causing the Sesame Workshop to issue a tweet that Bert and Ernie did not have a sexual orientation. Twitter exploded over this too, and …

^^ Content of article written by John Scalzi, printed in LA Times 9/21/18, link: t.co/loIxPHj57Y

SQB

Ah, thanks.

I agree with it completely, by the way.

It may be too broad for Literature, but do we have examples of authors who later agreed with an interpretation of (one of) their works, that they disagreed with or simply hadn't thought of initially?

doppelgreener

@Catija this is a good read, thank you :D

Mithrandir

@SQB (yeah too broad / off topic)

Catija

@SQB One of those links Mith posted above talks about Bradbury not intending 451 to be about censorship, so it's not unheard of.

@doppelgreener Sure. :) I follow him on Twitter because he posts stuff like this pretty frequently... and also photos of his cats and sunsets.

SQB

14:27

The other side of that coin is people interpreting "One" by U2 or "Every Breath You Take" by The Police as love songs.

Which they aren't.

@Catija yeah, GDPR-stupidity.

I'm not blaming the GDPR, mind. I'm blaming sites that are put together so badly that they can't even comply to GDPR.

Catija

Oh, so it's not that it's not licensed in Europe, it's that the LA Times doesn't allow European visitors?

Usually when I hear that it's not accessible somewhere, I assume it's due to licensing. ... but then, most of that is related to YouTube links.

Marvin

0

Q: Who made the cartoon where the ping pong champion got beat by a kid, and can you share an image?

I saw this cartoon a couple decades ago and I believe it was from The Far Side but I am not certain. It showed a cowboy-style theme where the champion ping pong player (a king of the mountain) was finally beat by a skilled kid. The caption was something like this: Well kid, you beat me. Now...

cartoon far-side

SQB

14:42

@Catija nah, a lot of sites seem to have gotten a GDPR scare.

> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

Catija

Ah. I wonder if it's been picked up for syndication in the AP or somewhere else...

It's only in the San Diego Union-Tribune, which I'm guessing is also owned by the LA times, based on their website.

sandiegouniontribune.com/… Is the link for their site.

SQB

@Catija same message.

Alex

@SQB This might be something along those lines.

Catija

Figured.

I should go do some work ;)

Mithrandir

What, this doesn't count? ;P

Catija

14:48

I'm pretty sure there are a few sites that want some bugs squashed... ;)

preferably before we roll out their site designs live to the entire communities.

SQB

@Alex Darn, the mention of Conan reminds me that I still need to ask if there's a canon Conan cannon.

@Catija I still feel for Worldbuilding.

Catija

Yeah. Their design is going to be really complex. I'm hoping there's something that can be done. I think that what's hard from my end is that there's this feeling that we don't care about the designs or that we don't love them or want to keep them... most of the people I've talked to really are sad and upset to see the designs change. We share your frustrations...

xkcd

We were going to do a falling-apart Rubik's cube that was just 27 independent blocks stuck together with magnets, but then we realized it was actually really cool and even kind of worked, so we cut that one.

Catija

but we also share your frustrations that nothing new and big has come to the network recently and there are so many great features you all have suggested that we'd love to implement... and, as sad as it is, this will help us actually implement those.

TheLethalCarrot

@Catija Just a note for future, would it not be better to tell communities what elements are changing, what the limitations will be and ask them what they want before rolling out the changes and then having to change them anyway?

Catija

14:55

I've talked about it a bit in the comments on this RPG answer: rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/a/8406/44424

@TheLethalCarrot Most of the designs aren't actually changing that much and we don't get a ton of feedback, so it's easier for us to respond to the few communities that do have issues.

TheLethalCarrot

@Catija Fair enough, still feels like it's being done the wrong way around though and I suppose giving special treatment to sites that are changing i.e. SFF would feel wrong to the rest of the network

Catija

But... we sort of are doing that, anyway. That's why we created this testing phase. It lets us see what the sites look like live and y'all get to see it, too. We're focusing on adjusting the sites right now - we don't really have the time with 60+ of them needing to be done ASAP to actually redo them all.

TheLethalCarrot

Well it's being done as a cross between the two but it feels like a lot of the theme changes are already set in stone

Catija

So, it's sort of a "too many cooks" problem... if you get what I'm saying.

doppelgreener

@Catija i think it'd be a genuinely good thing to have an announcement on meta that is only and nothing but “here's the features we plan on rolling out from SO to the network after the themes are unified, plus near-future bugfix and feature development plans of cool things we think you'll like but haven't been able to do.” Plus an explanation that there's been a pivot to refocus on Q&A. :)

I like to think I keep across announcements but somehow that comment conversation was the first time I heard of any of those things.

Catija

15:00

We need to create guidelines for what elements we need to be consistent everywhere. - things like banner height, black text in the left navigation, etc... I mean, y'all don't like the shorter banner height but I've had at least two sites want us to get rid of the banner entirely... which I'm pretty sure you'd hate even more.

@doppelgreener We do sort of have that. The DAG team has a post they update monthly on MSE.

doppelgreener

that would be disappointing yes :P

Catija

120

Q: 2018 monthly product team updates

Mid-2017 TeamDAG started publishing monthly updates. This post will continue that effort into 2018. (See 2017's updates here.) Updates are posted at the beginning of the month. They cover what was done last month, what is still in progress and new work that will be started in the current month.

discussion announcements

TheLethalCarrot

@Catija I don't mind the shorter banner height but combined with lack of star field, black to light grey and missing other elements I can see why people don't like it

Mithrandir

Header: cdn-chat.sstatic.net/chat/img/scifi-bg-header.jpg | cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/scifi/Img/…

Footer: cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/scifi/img/bg-footer.png

Starfield: cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/scifi/img/bg-site.jpg

SQB

It just doesn't feel like Science Fiction & Fantasy any more, you know?

Mithrandir

15:05

Yep. That gray really changes the feel.

It'd feel more natural as a transition for it to be just straight black.

That's probably the most jarring change.

(And the one I dislike the most... ;))

Jenayah

@TheLethalCarrot the grey left nav just right under a black sky/theme isn't smooth at all

Catija

@TheLethalCarrot And I can, too. That's why we're having these discussions - to give y'all a chance to give us feedback about it so we can see what wiggle room we have. I really appreciate it when there's constructive discussion about it. There are some things I can't get changed and I know that's disappointing... that's why I really do want to see what solutions we can find that will help. SF (less so fantasy) is sort of signified with dark themes... the blackness of space, etc...

Jenayah

The left nav is already a bit much but if it only sticks out more due to a brute separation between two colors it's not good

Catija

We can put a narrow horizontal decorative separator between the banner and the body/left nav area... like the one on Travel.

Mithrandir

(I have warmed up to the responsive design, though - it's much easier to flag comments on mobile now. It's still annoying in some ways, but for other things it's good.)

TheLethalCarrot

15:10

@Catija I have started the discussion about the background and what not so hopefully something comes of that. Like others have said the main problem is a lack of identity now. We went from being instantly recognisable from anywhere on the site to being just another grayscale website

3

Ankit Sharma

@TheLethalCarrot I left you a comment under your answer

TheLethalCarrot

@AnkitSharma Seen, though my answer only details what they are not really if they exist in universe and what not... most don't even detail what they really are too

Catija

@TheLethalCarrot So, having a texture in the background will help with that. I'd also like to see if we can replace the generic "Home" text (everywhere) with the site's sprite icon and the site name. This will only indicate the site for people using left nav but it's something that's visible.

Ankit Sharma

@TheLethalCarrot agreed but people love images :

Upvoted, but IMO this answer needs a screenshot of the puking master sigil =) — Mathieu Guindon Aug 18 '17 at 14:34

TheLethalCarrot

@Catija Exactly so hopefully we can get somewhere with it

As for the left nav thing, I don't use it at the moment, too much space for too little use... I'll re-evaluate when saved searches comes out

Catija

15:15

My favorite thing about the left nav is not needing to scroll up to get to the "Home" button any more. :P

b_jonas

I was casting temporary downvotes and stars then retracting them immediately on Sci Fi and Sci Fi SE to test something about the website interface. If any admin notices that in the logs, I'm sorry.

Mithrandir

@Catija F6 > sc > enter

SQB

How dark can a background image still be?

b_jonas

I have few downvotes and stars (favorited questions) otherwise, so this was easier.

Catija

@Mithrandir I'm on a mac :P... and my work computer has that touch bar thing instead of F keys...

TheLethalCarrot

15:16

Do Macs have Home buttons?

Or page up etc.

Ankit Sharma

I wanted to downvote design post for pale header but end up upvoting for less stary theme but still confuse

Catija

Only if I'm using my external keyboard.

Ankit Sharma

@Catija what will happen to moviereel of movies.se in new design O.o

With this squeezed header how it will fit

SQB

(that didn't work)

Catija

@SQB The black text in the left nav has to be legible. On some sites, we fade the background out to a solid color, too. Um... I think Code Review does that.

Mithrandir

15:18

@SQB put a ! in front

SQB

Catija

@AnkitSharma Well, it's the same height as the banner, so I'm hoping at least some part of it will stick around... but I don't think they've started on it yet.

SQB

Cool!

Mithrandir

(also yay Ubuntu)

Ankit Sharma

@Catija moviereel is the best part of the sitedeisgn and I hope designer can do some customization to keep it

Catija

15:21

@AnkitSharma Maybe keep a piece of it in the header and have it fade out as it moves to the left but keep the full thing in the footer instead of the popcorn bucket? Dunno... it's not my decision.

Ankit Sharma

Nobody care for footer

TheLethalCarrot

The full thing fading towards the site name sounds like a good idea

Mithrandir

I wonder when chat is going to get re-designed.

Heck, chat still has the old topbar.

TheLethalCarrot

That's your userscript

Chat doesn't have a top bar

b_jonas

@TheLethalCarrot The main site of the chat and the room info pages (not chatrooms or transcripts) does so have the typical SE top bar.

That top bar isn't very old, mind you, it's just somewhat older than the latest one.

TheLethalCarrot

15:27

Ahhh, I know there's a userscript for top bar in chat and I don't really use those pages so fair enough

b_jonas

@TheLethalCarrot You don't use the room list?

Mithrandir

The script just takes the one that appears on straight chat.SE

TheLethalCarrot

@b_jonas No, I only use TREU and TQAT so no need

When I was active on PPCG I'd be in TNB too

@AnkitSharma Copy it into your answer if you want, I don't really go on MTV anymore so not too fussed

doppelgreener

15:43

@Catija Oh right, I remember this. But this is just like... an update channel people might tune in or out of. It isn't a “here's all the cool stuff we're planning” announcement which would be a different way of disseminating this information, especially positioning it in the context of the theme exchange and the pivot back to Q&A.

Marvin

0

Q: Cartoon with an evil scientist/doctor

So all I can remember is that he was a cartoon villain who was super old, in a wheelchair, has a huge forehead, with purple glasses, and had a white lab coat on. I'm pretty sure he was a doctor or evil scientist. It was an older cartoon shown on Cartoon Network I think.

story-identification cartoon

Catija

We don't really have a good way of making announcements right now and it's something we're looking into. We used to do some of this through the blog but it's now a big enough loudspeaker that stuff has to be planned out weeks in advance... that's why my CM announcement post was just on MSE instead of on the blog like all of the others have been in the past.
Even featuring stuff is wonky because we can't target it at specific sites, plus, a lot of people don't "see" the right nav bar, so it's easy to miss that content.

b_jonas

@Catija Aren't there still posts featured in meta (which are linked from the main site sidebar) and pinned posts in the chatroom? Or wait, who's the "we"?

Catija

A lot of it is also that we have so much stuff being worked on concurrently, getting it announced and featured could create some fatigue. People might see these posts frequently and start tuning them out because they're always there. There's also the question of deciding what's big enough to feature. Things like link underlining impact a lot of people and users have strong feelings about it but do we need to warn you it's coming before hand or can we respond to questions about it after the fact?

@b_jonas Sure, we can feature posts on a per-site basis, the way the SFF testing announcement is, or on a network-wide basis, the way the beta sites switching to left nav announcement is... Pinning in chat is per chat room, though.

So, the question is... did you notice either of those in the right sidebar before I mentioned them?

TheLethalCarrot

I personally did but then I spend a lot more time than most sitting on the site

Catija

15:54

I'm essentially blind to the right sidebar, I've been using the network for so long. I focus only on the center content or the left nav when I need it and nowhere else. The only time I even look at the right sidebar is if I want to get to SE.com to get to the full list of sites by clicking on the HNQ link.

b_jonas

@Catija I noticed the news about the new site design (I'm actually writing a post on Sci Fi Meta connected to it right now), and two of the news is about those. I check the SFF blog occasionally so I'll notice that anyway.

TheLethalCarrot

@b_jonas If it's feedback to the new theme, should be as answer to the announcement (in case you didn't know)

b_jonas

@TheLethalCarrot I don't have much feedback on it. I like many of the changes, although I don't like the left sidebar or the popdown menu version of it.

doppelgreener

@Catija Gotcha

SQB

17:59

@Catija yep, but I usually check the right side bar.

@Catija are you (pl) monitoring how people move around the site? Do the featured posts in the right side bar get used?

Catija

I'm sure there's analytics for all of that... somewhere. I can ask...

SQB

I was just wondering, because I know it's all too easy to make assumptions based on your own habits.

But meten is weten, as we say in The Netherlands -- measuring is knowing.

(Is there an English equivalent?)

Catija

Oh, definitely! :D Lots of people complaining about the HNQ containing spoilers implies that some chunk of people actually look at the right sidebar... but I tend to only look at them when I'm so bored I have nothing else to do or I actually want to see what's in the HNQ. :P

SQB

@Catija *whistles innocently*

1

A: Any way to hide questions in Hot Network Questions, based on tag

A good technical solution would be to allow mods to exclude questions from specific tags from appearing on the HNQ. Impact would be low, since filtering is not done per user, so it does not have to take each user's preferences into account. This would simply prevent questions within a tag from ...

Catija

@SQB I don't think it's tag based, but there are actually certain words that can appear in titles that are banned from the HNQ. Shog added one... I don't remember what it was... after something from IPS hit the HNQ.

SQB

18:12

@Catija that was my suggestion for a solution across the network.

Catija

That said, this is reserved for pretty contentious stuff... I don't think we're going to ban all Star Wars questions. :P

Alex

18:58

@SQB There are six suggestions here. (I don't think any of them quite capture it, though.)

Marvin

19:34

0

Q: Thanos halving the world population makes no sense

They changed Thanos' motivation for killing half the universe's population in the movies. In the comics, he did it to impress Mistress Death. In the movie, his reasoning was to reduce overpopulation in a universe of finite resources. While halving the population keeps the number in line with t...

avengers-infinity-war thanos

Alex

20:02

@Jenayah Finally took your advice:

0

Q: Top Network Posts showing incorrect score

There's a post in my list of Top Network Posts that is showing an incorrect score. The second post listed there shows a score of 14. But if you actually go to the post you see that the score is 15. This appears to be the only post on the list that has this problem. And on my Network Profile page...

bug network-profile score top-network-posts

SQB

20:15

@Alex none does, but it's tough to capture both the meaning, the pithy, and (preferably) the rhyme.

Jenayah

20:25

@Alex aye I saw

b_jonas

21:10

The Meta post about new site design I promised:

0

Q: Yes, you can enable traditional triangle-in-circle post vote button graphics on new site design on Sci Fi SE

When Stack Exchange announced the recent design updates (with the left sidebar) to the SE websites, users immediately complained about how SE is going to abolish per-site customized voting button. SE claimed that those per-site customizations that so many people enjoy take too much time to maint...

discussion design

Please help me proof-read ^ that meta-post. I'm tired and have probably made lots of mistakes.

While proofreading, you can skip the technical parts of the post, that part is not so important.

You may also help in other ways: test the customization itself, tell me what's broken, give feedback on how to improve the writeup.

Once it's reasonably proof-read, spread the line to everyone.

Slartibartfast

0

Q: Yes, you can enable traditional triangle-in-circle post vote button graphics on new site design on Sci Fi SE

When Stack Exchange announced the recent design updates (with the left sidebar) to the SE websites, users immediately complained about how SE is going to abolish per-site customized voting button. SE claimed that those per-site customizations that so many people enjoy take too much time to maint...

discussion design

b_jonas

@b_jonas crap

Jenayah

21:27

@b_jonas that's a very smooth explanation! I'm on mobile right now but I'll try it when I'm on a computer, and I'll be sure to give you feedback! :)

b_jonas

@Jenayah Jenavah: thank you. I appreciate any help, regardless of whether you actually want to use that customization or not.

(I already found a minor bug in the text.)

@Jenayah It might be smooth, but you'll find the worst bugs in it only when someone unfamiliar with the technical stuff tries the instructions and runs into a problem.

And sticks around and takes the time to tell me what the problem is.

Also, I recommend that you don't edit the meta post for now for about an hour (but feel free to comment), for I'm still making some edits to it, and might overwrite yours.

I'll still try to check the history tomorrow for any such lost edits, just in case, but they'll be seriously delayed.

Feel free to ping me in chat too.

b_jonas

21:49

Darn. Now I need to find an answer on Sci Fi SE and on a non-customized SE site (eg. Lit SE) each where I both upvoted the answer and upvoted a comment on it.

That's to make a screenshot for

0

A: Exactly which features of SFF.SE's magnificent theme will we be losing?

You will lose the custom graphics and custom size of the upvote, downvote, favorite question and accept buttons next to posts. The custom graphics is specific to Sci Fi SE, and there's a recolored version specific to Sci Fi Meta. I have a customization that you can enable to get the traditional...

which explains what we gained in the new site design.

Because I hate how everyone only mentions what we lose, when the site design is actually improved in a lots of ways, and the gains are in the same areas to replace the losses.

b_jonas

22:01

Also, halp :-) , I'm in "tech support manager" mode, where I not only write detailed tech support instructions, but also internal documentation for how and why it's written that way and why you should be careful with "simplifying" the tech support protocol.

Alex

@b_jonas I just made some minor spelling/grammar edits.

I can't really help with the technical aspects though.

b_jonas

@Alex Thank you for the help, I'll look at it later. That helps a lot, because I get spelling wrong when I write something like this while tired (I wanted to post it ASAP because it's a hot issue), and might get the English grammar wrong even when I'm in my best form and proofread it.

Alex

@b_jonas Eh, they weren't major issues, or anything.

But it will probably inspire me to post a question on meta.stackexchange.com

b_jonas

@Alex Um, a question related to website design, or a question about grammar edits and stuff like that?

Alex

@b_jonas A question about a problem I had with the editing system while editing your post.

b_jonas

22:12

Also, I need to find other posts on Sci Fi SE Meta and on SE Meta that are relevant, where I should post an answer or comment or edit mentioning either the features we gained or my vote button customization.

If anyone could point me to such posts (or just do the relevant replies yourself and tell me), I'd thank them.

b_jonas

22:35

46845198 I'm also in typogeek mode, where I post screenshots with hand-drawn red circles and arrows for the meme value, but at the same time make those images as high quality as I reasonably can, eg. I redraw the circles and especially the arrowheads until they look nice but still hand-drawn, and make sure I don't cover anything important with the markings.

I did make a mistake in one of the screenshots in the original meta posts that I might fix later: wrong numbering of steps

Ankit Sharma

@TheLethalCarrot OK, then I will attribute

but later

b_jonas

22:52

Ok, now I really have to go to bed soon, so feel free to do good edits on the posts.

Also, especially admins (eg. @AnkitSharma @Catija @Mithrandir @Donald.McLean @Kevin), do you think there's a policy problem about posting the user-style (the style code and embedded SVG specifically, not the instructions) to Sci Fi Meta scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/12101/4918 ? If you are a diamond admin anywhere on SE and have a good prediction on whether this is fine or shouldn't be posted, I'd appreciate, even if it's not a binding promise.

Sorry I'm pinging a lot ^^, but I expect that's a hard question and most diamonds won't be able to reply.

Catija

@b_jonas Meaning a script that will override the site style to revert it to the old version?

b_jonas

@Catija That's not the problematic part. I can post that. See the note about the legal stuff (first two under "Important warnings" heading) in the answer. Those are the problems.

Please ping me if you can answer, I'll be sleeping.

Good night, all.

Marvin

23:38

0

Q: Why do the Xenomorphs kill their hosts instead of using them?

I’m curious as to why the Xenomorphs from the Alien series tend to kill some of their hosts instead of infecting them with the face huggers? If they are to reproduce by using the hosts to carry out their life cycle then why kill them in some instances?

aliens-1986 xenomorph

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