The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Jenayah

16:01

@Null kidding

@TheLethalCarrot caching from user removal maybe

oh hey, you too

same user I guess... although they loved me more ;p (-70 rep)

TheLethalCarrot

Aye, I know what causes it, didn't know if it was known or not to bother reporting it

@Jenayah Or hated you more? ;P

Jenayah

well no

I lost more rep

so they gave me more upvotes

Null

Like I said, what a morning.

TheLethalCarrot

Exactly, so you lost more when they went poof meaning you were affected more :P

Jenayah

mmmh

twisted logic of yours

@Null oh, makes sense ;)

Rand al'Thor

16:04

@TheLethalCarrot That might be recalced at some point - I'm not sure.

Null

@Jenayah Maybe you can use your sleuthing skills to figure out the answer to your earlier question.

Jenayah

@Null eh, maybe.

checks her posts

TheLethalCarrot

@Randal'Thor I'm not bothered about the 30 rep, though it does affect my Legendary progress :P, just wondering if it has been reported before or not before I bother posting a bug report on it. Though if it gets recalced suppose it isn't a bug

Napoleon Wilson

What would be the bug? That there's no number written in front?

TheLethalCarrot

That I didn't get the rep despite not hitting the cap yet

Rand al'Thor

16:09

@TheLethalCarrot Probably has. There's a lot of people on the network (and even this site) who are or have been very interested in the repcap ;-)

TheLethalCarrot

Aye didn't find it on SFF but just found it on main

Napoleon Wilson

Oh, I see. So that's how it shows up when you reached the rep-cap then?

TheLethalCarrot

Aye

I didn't enjoy this day ;P

@TheLethalCarrot Oh no that's different

Null

It's been a good day for me -- I got my first Reversal badge.

Napoleon Wilson

Oh, so you did answer the HP ID?

Rand al'Thor

16:12

@Null Nice!

Jenayah

@Null funny, I was thinking of that question earlier. 'cause silly/trollish question and all

Rand al'Thor

"I volunteer as tribute" --Null, 2016 — CBredlow Jun 17 '16 at 17:03

That could be the mod election too :-P

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah meta.stackexchange.com/a/129703/345161

If you're interested

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah They might have genuinely not seen the prequel films, though.

TheLethalCarrot

@NapoleonWilson What prequels?

Napoleon Wilson

16:14

(Of course even then you could say it's a little rubbish.)

Null

@Randal'Thor So true!

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson true. But Google exists too.

As does the downvote button.

Napoleon Wilson

@Jenayah Well, Google exists for many questions.

@Jenayah Indeed, and I used it.

...that answer from Null was just too terrible.

TheLethalCarrot

@TheLethalCarrot Although I'm not entirely sure if this is the same situation.

Jenayah

scifi.stackexchange.com/posts/152526/timeline this literally gets into Close queue every two months...

Rand al'Thor

16:16

@NapoleonWilson I guess on a site full of sci-fi nerds, as opposed to people who just watched Star Wars once, people are less likely to sympathise with such a possibility.

I'm here to provide the not-everyone's-seen-Star-Wars reminder service :-P

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Uh... I was the one who acknowledged that possibility.

Adamant

@Null In Stack Exchange, the Reversal Badge gets you.

Marvin

0

Q: Comic where a robot "takes apart" a man's body while he's alive

I remember seeing a comic book in the early 90's (was it based on a movie like Creepshow or Tales From the Crypt?) where a man (possibly a scientist) finds a cute little robot and, out of curiosity, takes him apart to see what makes him tick. Then a larger robot (an alien robot?) appears and is m...

Napoleon Wilson

lego cinematic universe. o_O

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I know; I meant in general, not in this particular conversation.

Donald.McLean

16:24

@Marvin In one of the Heinlein juvies, the aliens wanted to help a sick human, but didn't have human medical knowledge. Their thought was to dissect a human criminal. The humans talked them out of doing that.

Jenayah

scifi.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/141839 Ed approving Darth Ed's edit :^)

Marvin

0

Q: What plant are the vines in the fire swamp?

In the movie Princess Bride, Westley and Buttercup flee in to the Fireswamp where Westley uses his sword to cut through vines or vine like plants that are obstructing their path. What are those vine plants? Are they (meant to resemble) any true to life plant that actually exists (and if so, w...

movie object-identification the-princess-bride

Rand al'Thor

16:41

@Marvin Pretty sure there's not going to be any genus-and-species classification of those plants. They're just stereotypical Jungle Vine Plants.

Good to see a the-princess-bride question though, I guess.

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor requesting migration to Biology

Rand al'Thor

heh

Alex

17:01

"America" is not a "mistaken shortcut" for "USA". The USA is the only place or country that people call "America", lots of people call it that, and no one refers to the continents together as "America" (they're the Americas, or North America and South America). America does indeed mean the USA, and that's correct. Language is defined by usage not technicalities. — only_pro Sep 14 '18 at 15:48

Rand al'Thor

@Alex wishes for a downvote button on comments

xkcd

Help, I set my white balance wrong and suddenly everyone is screaming at each other about whether they've been to Colorado.

Napoleon Wilson

Unfortunately, though, that is how it works. Even the Canadians do that.

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I believe the South Americans don't, and there's more of them.

Napoleon Wilson

I tried to avoid it, too, though.

Jenayah

17:05

@Alex yeah I didn't check but from memory that thing got upvoted a lot

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I noticed :-)

It does tend to lead to somewhat unnatural-sounding constructions like "USicans", though.

Alex

@Jenayah There was a subsequent comment disagreeing though.

Napoleon Wilson

As a Frank LLoyd Wright appreciator, I prefer "Usonian" as an adjective.

Alex

@only_pro You are absolutely completely wrong. Where I went to school, there is ONE continent named America, consisting of North America, Middle America, and South America. With several vey large countries, like Canada, Brasil, and the USA, and a few quite large ones, like Mexico and Argentina, and then a few others. — gnasher729 Sep 15 '18 at 21:52

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor truth be told I used to use "America = US" a lot, then I met a Colombian classmate who made me realize that... Well... I was being stupid.

Rand al'Thor

17:07

THERE!

Alex

@Randal'Thor You, and ~330 others:

292

Q: Allow downvoting comments

Answers and questions allow both upvoting and downvoting - comments, however, only allow upvoting. I think it would be useful to allow downvoting of comments for two reasons: First, if you accidentally upvoted a comment you didn't intend to Second, if you strongly believe that a comment is dis...

feature-request status-declined comments down-votes comment-voting

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Oh, I know.

There is a delete button ... #ModAbuse

2

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor that replying to what?

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah You.

Jenayah

Oh n_n"

Napoleon Wilson

17:09

Even that is controversial, though. I grew up with North and South America, with Mexico being a part of North America and Middle America belonging to South America.

Rand al'Thor

See, it's all well and good using "America" to mean the US if the only Americans you've met are USicans (and Canadians who are basically northern USicans).

doppelgreener

"America means North America or the USA" is an opinion pretty much mainly held by those in North America or the USA. :P

Rand al'Thor

jinx :-)

Loong

> But if you disagree, you really should post a follow-up comment...

OMG, no!

Rand al'Thor

And I'm sure I've just insulted a lot of Canadians ...

@Loong Yeah, no. Just let people be wrong on the internet.

Jenayah

17:10

@Randal'Thor dang, I can't remember which sketch was making fun of that. "Canada? Yeah, America light".

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I've never heard Middle America, only Central America. Not sure if that's a translation issue or different terminology.

Jenayah

Gut says either George Carlin or The Art of the Steal

Rand al'Thor

Sounds like Middle Earth but with guns and big cars.

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor Maybe that's a translation problem then.

Alex

Napoleon Wilson

17:12

There's also Latin America, which is basically America without the USA and Canada. ;-)

Rand al'Thor

@Alex Isn't that a Risk board?

@NapoleonWilson ~~You forgot an "out" :-)~~ That was quite the typo.

Alex

@Randal'Thor Yes.

doppelgreener

Here's a fun map tool: The True Size Of ...

Napoleon Wilson

@Randal'Thor NO I DIDN'T!

Alex

Where else does one learn geography from?

Rand al'Thor

17:13

@NapoleonWilson screenshots message history before you redact it

Also, I'm not sure if I've ever seen you excited enough to use all caps before.

Napoleon Wilson

Excited? Angry!

Jenayah

Ah, it was The Art of the Steal :)

The Art Of The Steal (2013) -Full Film-

►

> - not exactly America, Canada.

> - uh, America light.

Cool movie by the way ;D

Napoleon Wilson

17:32

Which reminds me, does this site also identify non-fictional essays about on-topic works?

Rand al'Thor

@NapoleonWilson I'd say so - we've taken questions about things about on-topic things, so IDing them should be OK too. I'm not 100% sure all reviewers would agree, but if you ask here and it gets closed, there's always Literature.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson I think there's a Tolkien- related ID somewhere.

18

Q: Identify this spoof Tolkien book review

Ten or fifteen years ago I read a hilarious parody review of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The piece was written with the conceit that the reviewer was completely unfamiliar with Tolkien and unaware of the book's publication date, assuming that it was a new release. The reviewer den...

story-identification the-lord-of-the-rings tolkiens-legendarium humor

Rand al'Thor

Ah yes, that was fun.

And apparently I bountied it ...?

Jenayah

12

Q: Looking for an Alternative, Satirical Lord of the Rings Essay

Years ago I stumbled upon a satirical essay online all about Middle-earth and the War of the Ring. I can't remember the details but the overall idea of it was that the Orcs and Sauron had been oppressed by the forces of Gondor, Gandalf and the Hobbits. It was a long essay but general ideas. H...

story-identification the-lord-of-the-rings

Rand al'Thor

Oh, that was probably the question I bountied to reward Firebat (or S.Fruggiero as he was then) for his help in finding the portal to the magical kingdom of Landover.

Fun times.

Napoleon Wilson

18:14

> Tea, Earl Grey, hot!

Marvin

18:41

1

Q: Book about an 'eternal war' esque scenario between 2 fictional countries that turns out to be a fake war

I read this story sometime late during elementary school (perhaps around 2008-2010) and wanted to check it out again. The book begins by introducing a female lead attending a ceremony or watching one on TV for a war hero who, supposedly, helped attack an enemy city with unmanned drone who they'...

story-identification

0

Q: Is HubSystem the source of Murderbot's suspicious upgrade packet?

In All Systems Red, Murderbot says that HubSystem downloaded an upgrade packet for me from the satellite before we left for DeltFall. implying that the an upgrade was transmitted to the satellite in response to detecting the plan to depart for DeltFall. But given the remoteness of the pla...

murderbot

Jenayah

19:54

0

A: Who is the first minority superhero in mainstream US superhero comics?

Superman. He was an alien, so definitely biologically qualified to be a minority in any location on Earth.

I think that's the 0-score answer with the most donvotes/upvotes I've seen on this site. +13/-13

Alex

+14/-14

Jenayah

woah, that went fast.

Marvin

0

Q: Short story: tunnel being dug, fossil hunter asked to look inside and finds small worm like thing

In this short story, a tunnel is being dug, and a fossil hunter is asked to look inside, where he finds small worm like thing. The man is sitting on a pile of slag looking for fossils, and the workers digging a tunnel ask him to come look at something for them. There's a breach in the tunnel wal...

story-identification short-stories horror

Adamant

20:23

@Jenayah It can have another downvotes from me.

It's almost NAA.

Oh, I see DVK wrote it.

Mmmm.

Although, the question is, is Superman a Jewish alien?

Marvin

20:47

0

Q: Looking for title and author of short story published in a magazine years ago

100 humans, including a winner of a beauty pageant, are brought up to aliens who want to learn more about humanity, and ultimately why humans didn’t save planet earth when they knew century earlier it was being destroyed and beyond the point of no return.

story-identification magazine

Jenayah

+15/-15, woah, somehow the "balance" increases

@Adamant Jewish author, unsure if he was meant to be Jewish, although from what I know of comics of this era I wouldn't be so sure

No, while in canon Superman is strictly considering a minority, he does not represent a minority, but instead the very opposite: what is hegemonically considered the majority-in-power of the culture he was introduced in. Superman is a caucasian, strong-built, masculine, heterosexual man, no matter if he's technically alien or not. — Ilari Kajaste Feb 25 '12 at 18:44

^ that comment is super on point though

Alex

@Jenayah Isn't it the responsibility of the question to be specific?

Jenayah

@Alex well, I guess so, but then again "minority" has a certain "common" meaning that Superman doesn't really match

Adamant

@Jenayah the Force must be in balance, what can I say?

Does anyone know what color Superman's eyes were in his earliest color appearances?

These days they're usually blue.

Stormblessed

@Adamant black

I think

Adamant

20:58

@Stormblessed But that might have been a limitation of the medium, right?

Stormblessed

@Adamant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It was in color

Adamant

Color, yes, but....

Stormblessed

Small panels?

Jenayah

Yeah but that doesn't mean they could get every color detail the way they'd have wanted it to be

There's the story about Hulk being printed in grey blablabla

Adamant

His eyes are just lines

Black by default, but no idea what their actual color is.

Stormblessed

21:01

@Adamant undefined

Adamant

Although his hair is definitely blue!

Stormblessed

Valorum could probably find a canon answer if you asked that question

Adamant

With black highlights.

Stormblessed

@Adamant always found that weird

Adamant

He's a Kryptonian

Their hair is naturally blue.

It's canon.

From now on.

Stormblessed

21:04

3

Q: The First Duelist by Rutledge Etheridge

A child is sent to a prison mining colony on the belt. There is a general at the prison and promotes the child to admiral. The child and general escape and travel the Sol system as a traveling performance. As time goes on more people join the kid, now a man. The Earth government is under the UN ...

story-identification books soft-sci-fi

Rollback?

Adamant

People claim Superman has black hair and blue eyes. Lies! This proves he has blue hair and black eyes.

Also, stop trying to tell me the Earth is a blue planet, when the picture clearly shows it's yellow.

Jenayah

@Mithrandir magazine (although less sure about that one...)

@Stormblessed go ahead

1

Q: Title search - Fiction time travel to 1960s - Not Asimov

I'm looking for a novel from roughly mid 80s to early 90s. The main character meets a man in San Francisco who turns out to be a time traveling alien. The cover was very psychedelic. He takes her to the future and they fall in love. Any ideas? I want to say his name was Michael?

story-identification

Voted to reopen, see comment above. Terse, yes, but not enough to warrant a "too broad" closure, IMO. If you're going to vote "Leave Closed", please provide, say, 2-3 examples of a book 1/ written in 80s-90s 2/ with MC named Michael 3/ psychedelic cover 4/ in San Francisco 5/with time-travel, etc, etc. — Jenayah 31 secs ago

Marvin

-1

Q: Term for immortality that only applies to old age

Is there a term for immortality that only applies to old age? For example, the elves from LOTR are "immortal", but only to the effects of dying from age. They can still be killed from wounds. So they are technically not immortal. Is there a more fitting term for this kind of longevity?

the-lord-of-the-rings terminology immortality

Marvin

21:35

1

Q: 70s(?) science fiction novel: teenage boy builds his own spacecraft which pulls/pushes gravity, is stranded on Mars when a vacuum tube burns out

Probably in the 1970s I read a book the general plotline of which was: a teenage boy builds his own spacecraft that operates by pulling and/or pushing gravity. He takes the home-built craft to Mars where he is stranded when one of the vacuum tubes in the device burns out.

story-identification novel

Napoleon Wilson

21:51

Are we still on the Superman immigrant thing? Maybe now would be the best time to ask my ID question.

Jenayah

@NapoleonWilson ID question?

Donald.McLean

22:40

@Marvin That actually sounds vaguely familiar.

Jenayah

23:38

@Donald.McLean it's been edited with new info

Jenayah

23:57

Please edit in the end as well. This may be something that stuck with other people as well, enabling someone to recognize it at a glance (no guarantees, though). If you want, you can partially hide the spoiler by preceding the text by >!, for instance >! Darth Vader is Luke's father :) — Jenayah 17 mins ago

Question now reads: OK. suggested i include ending so >>> SPOILER ALERT !!! <<<

Between that and yesterday's guy who got lost on meta who answered the story-ID guidelines with the following:

Feb 11 at 21:56, by Rand al'Thor

0

A: How to ask a good story-ID question?

Sorry, no idea what the anthology cover looks like. It's been 30 years since I read it!

Feb 11 at 21:56, by Rand al'Thor

This guy is very lost.

Feb 11 at 21:56, by Rand al'Thor

I blame @Jenayah :-P

I think I officially suck at providing clear guidance... :D

Transcript for

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…