The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Marvin

00:33

0

This was a great book I read in middle school in the early 1970's. What I remember is that a boy is lost in a cave and is rescued by or somehow meets up with another boy that he cannot see and they become friends. The surprise ending reveals that the friend is black, which the other boy had not r...

story-identification

Stormblessed

00:53

Hi there. Was there any science-fiction or fantasy elements in that? If so, please edit them in. If not, I'm afraid this will be off-topic for this site but you may try asking it on Literature. Cheers! — Jenayah 30 mins ago

@Jenayah it'd be "Were there any", not "Was there any" (sorry, I'm part of the pedants club)

Marvin

02:33

0

Q: Early 80s puppet sci fi

I can't recall alot but Im pretty sure it was early 80s. All I remember is puppets. A princess having been captured by an evil sorceress. small round fluffy guard dog type creature was the princesses pet. There was an army? prince? sent to rescue her...super dramatic ending. It was def intergalac...

science-fiction-genre

Jenayah

05:27

@Stormblessed duck I saw that and thought I had corrected it

Marvin

08:33

0

Q: Fringe – What is the real name of the Ending Theme?

In the American science fiction TV series Fringe (2008–2013), at the end of each episode when the final credits are shown, a beautiful 30-second-long piece is played which I found on YouTube where it is called Fringe Ending Theme. Is Fringe Ending Theme the correct real name of that piece? If no...

tv fringe music-identification

Marvin

08:53

0

Q: Why did Saruman lie?

I was looking at this interactive map of Middle Earth, and noticed that when you click on the node at Isengard, one of the dates says: The Black Riders visit Saruman who lies that Gandalf has "confessed", and gives them directions to the Shire. (emphasis mine) Why did he lie? My best guess...

tolkiens-legendarium the-lord-of-the-rings the-fellowship-of-the-ring

Marvin

09:52

0

Q: George Lucas ever explained why Obi-Wan doesn't remember R2?

Probably at the time he didn't even have the backstory in his head, but did Lucas ever explain why Obi-Wan Kenobi didn't recognize R2-D2 in "A new hope"?

star-wars obi-wan-kenobi r2-d2

Jenayah

10:35

49

Q: Make it possible to retract comment flags

I misread the content of a comment, and flagged it. Then I realized that the comment wasn't what I had initially thought. Would it be possible to have the ability to retract comment flags, just like we have the ability to retract flags on questions and answers? I'm aware of this support question...

feature-request status-completed comments comment-flags retracted-flags

^ completed! 😀

Marvin

10:52

0

Q: Are the senior Kree wearing make-up?

In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season five, there are many Kree individuals. Most minor and background characters are "regular" all-blue Kree. However, the major Kree characters all have distinctive unique facial pigmentation - symmetrical light patches and black areas around the eyes. In particular K...

marvel marvel-cinematic-universe agents-of-shield

Marvin

12:31

0

Q: How did Carlos get beaten up in The Preacher TV series?

In the TV series 'The Preacher' Carlos gets terribly beaten near the end of the first season. He's given a crowbar and a gun and then the next thing you see is Carlos hardly able to walk. Did Jesse use his Genesis voice power to force Carlos to beat himself up? Or did he fight Jesse and Tulip? I ...

preacher preacher-2016

Donald.McLean

13:37

Greetings, Earthlings.

Jenayah

@Donald.McLean greetings, Hubble guy!

Jenayah

14:12

@DavidW FYI "muttation" is spelled that way in the books

DavidW

14:23

@Jenayah It wasn't a quote in the answer (I don't normally fix odd spelling in quotes) and it looked like an obvious typo. Sorry.

Jenayah

no worries :)

7

Q: Old nuclear war film

This Film was during the gung ho period of war movies 50-60's and I think black and white. What I remember part of it was on a SAC airbase in the Midwest. They knew that there was going to be an attack so they converted some old powder bunkers to emergency shelters for all of the staff. When th...

story-identification movie

^ doesn't seem really on-topic?

I mean nuclear war sure and people in a bunker but... That's all

DavidW

14:52

More to the point, it barely even seems SFnal for the time it was produced...

("Would have been produced," I suppose, since that's still hypothetical.)

<400 views in >5 years, hasn't even been edited in all that time, so probably essentially abandoned.

Jenayah

yup

Well, it's in review: scifi.stackexchange.com/review/close/151708

b_jonas

21

A: "He's dead, Jim": Which Star Trek characters have returned from the dead?

The Original Series Lt. Commander Benjamin Finney Supposedly killed during an ion storm the the Star Trek TOS episode Courtmartial. In fact, survived and hid on Enterprise during whole trial. Kodos Presumed dead 2246, actually masquerading as Anton Karidian. Discovered in 2266. See Star Trek ...

^ This list needs some <s>TLC</s> hard work from someone who's familiar with Star Trek.

Jenayah

Define "TLC"? In this room it's commonly used to refer to @TheLethalCarrot :P

Voldemort's Wrath

@Jenayah I accidentally pressed leave open... :( I went back and VTCed later

Jenayah

@b_jonas strikethrough code in chat is ---that's striked out---

~~like this~~

DavidW

15:03

@b_jonas There are a lot of "was pretending to be dead" entries in that list. Do they actually count?

TheLethalCarrot

@Jenayah We all need some carroty goodness every now and then

2

DavidW

@Voldemort'sWrath I was wondering about that. You actually went to the bother to write a custom close message, and then voted "Leave Open." It seemed odd. :)

b_jonas

@DavidW Questions says "Which characters have either died, been pronounced dead, or were otherwise believed dead" so I think they count.

But the answer should probably be clear about what happened.

DavidW

Ah, okay. Thanks.

You're right. That does seem like work. :)

Stormblessed

@Jenayah closed it!

Jenayah

15:16

@Stormblessed and edited it afterwards, which will send it to the reopen queue ahah

Stormblessed

DavidW

Huh. "a SAC airbase" vs. "an SAC airbase" I would write "a SAC airbase" because it's "a Strategic Air Command airbase" not "an Ess-Ay-Cee airbase."

It's entirely possible that's a personal preference thingy though.

Stormblessed

@Jenayah Do people know The Simpsons in France, really?

DavidW

@Stormblessed ? How not?

Stormblessed

@DavidW well I was thinking it might be something not so well-known in other countries

Like there are no French animated comedy shows I can think of

And comedy is something that is really variable between places, I’d think

DavidW

15:30

@Stormblessed Granted, not as well known. But I'm pretty sure there's at least some awareness of it. From the ubiquity of US-generated content, to the longevity of the show, its spin-off merchandise and references to it in other pop-culture, I believe it would be pretty hard to avoid at least having heard of it.

Marvin

2

Q: Black bird wreaks havoc

I once read a truly scary short story: a bird sits in a cage. From heaven comes a huge, dark bird. It enters the cage and after a few days(weeks?) the bird in the cage hatches a kind of monster bird, and dies. Now awful things happen in the formerly peaceful little town. People start lying about ...

story-identification short-stories

Jenayah

@Stormblessed yes

Stormblessed

Great show

Null

@DavidW Yeah, but you're going to pronounce "SAC" as "Ess-Ay-Cee" -- especially if you don't know what it stands for -- so I'd use "an".

APA seems to agree with me.

Pretty much every website seems to say the same thing.

Stormblessed

@DavidW agreeing with Null, always go with letter name pronunciation

DavidW

15:40

I wasn't trying to say it was wrong, just that it was unexpected.

Overloading of initialisms does lead to odd cases, though. "SAC" - to me - also expands to "Student Administrative Council" which is pronounced "sack." So my brain automatically expands (depending on context) "SAC" to "Strategic Air Command" as I read it, so "an strategic" really doesn't sound great.

Voldemort's Wrath

@DavidW Sure, but even a(n) SAC would look kinda weird, right?

Marvin

0

Q: How many times has an AI gone bad in Star Trek?

The plot of season 2 of Star Trek Discovery involves an AI that turns bad and decides to kill everyone. The Original Series had several episodes where AIs got out of hand, usually ending with Kirk talking them to death. Maybe this explains why there are so few AIs in the future. By the time of T...

star-trek

DavidW

@Voldemort'sWrath Yeah, like there's more than one. That'd be really weird... :)

Interesting. The ISFDb entry for "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" uses different punctuation than the publisher does.

Jenayah

Just write the whole thing and be done with it :p

Stormblessed

16:00

I like Nintendo but their weird aversion to analog triggers is dumb

They’re so great when used right

DavidW

@Jenayah I don't think you're wrong. Except in informal contexts like chat (YMMV :D) I tend to - at least the first time - write things out the long way. You never know when next year's hot movie/game/political topic will re-use an initialism and create confusion.

TheLethalCarrot

9

A: Abbreviations in question-titles, okay?

In such cases, please edit the question to have no abbreviation in the title, and all acronyms expanded the first time they're used. (As you did. Thank you.)

DavidW

How many people in the tech field these days would see "ADA" and think "American Dental Association?"

Voldemort's Wrath

16:28

@DavidW [raises hand guiltily]

DavidW

@Voldemort'sWrath I'm not sure if that supports my point or not... :)

Voldemort's Wrath

no, it really doesn't

DavidW

16:42

Well, it kind of does. 'Cause of you work in tech, and one of your co-workers mutters something about "ADA" and you think "dentists?" then an unexpanded initialism has caused a communication problem.

(At this point I kind of expect everyone in the English-ish-speaking software world to have a singular understanding of "ADA" because everything, even if it's not explicitly for use in the US, and even if it's not customer-facing, seems to need to be ADA-compliant. :-P Because dog-forbid some blind truck driver can't use his screen reader to use his company's fleet-management software! :-P </rant>)

Marvin

1

Q: How big are the Choedan Kal?

The Choedan Kal are two large statues that are the focus of the One Power in the Wheel of Time series, both of which were either buried. Is there any specifications on their heights? Every wiki I've found says "massive" but did they ever give anything more specific, or relate it's height to any...

the-wheel-of-time

Stormblessed

16:59

-1 you have no sources for any of these bold claims. — Stormblessed 2 days ago

Dang I got 52 comment upvotes :-O

xkcd.com/1138, re: "crime is mostly located in cities" -- anything that scales with population density is mostly located in cities. :) — Charles Duffy yesterday

Null

Fishing for more?

Loong

@Stormblessed Looks like a one-flag-auto-delete comment. ;-)

Marvin

1

Q: Highlander: How does the Quickening affect Mortals?

The Quickening in the Highlander series and movies is characterize as magical lightning which transfers the knowledge, skill and "power" of a defeated Immortal to the victor. Generally speaking, this is someone nebulous; while many Immortals have been slain by Duncan MaCleod, we've rarely seen hi...

magical-theory immortality highlander-franchise highlander power-transfer

Stormblessed

17:44

Himarm

56.1k 27 249 331

harry-potter star-trek the-wheel-of-time voldemort star-trek-tng star-wars tolkiens-legendarium

What's with the dash to the right of this user's name?

It's also on the right of their name on other sites

Null

Looks like it's the badge that indicates "top X% overall" or similar.

It probably needs to be recalculated.

Stormblessed

18:15

Ah that’s weird. New users don’t have anything there at all.

I wonder if it’ll count gain during the suspension

DavidW

@Stormblessed <span class="js-rank-badge grid--cell s-badge s-badge__votes fs-fine bc-blue-3 fc-blue-700"></span>

Slartibartfast

19:16

0

Q: Does a question have to come after another question of which it is a duplicate to be closed as a dupe?

FuzzyBoot's question here was written 6 days ago. Yet, this question, which was written 1 year and 7 months ago is closed as a duplicate of FuzzyBoot's question. This shouldn't make sense, right? Shouldn't the dupe be the other way around?

discussion closed-questions duplicate-questions

Marvin

19:50

0

Q: What Is The Fastest We Have Seen The Flash Travel?

What is the fastest that we have seen each of the main Flashes (Jay, Barry, Wally, Bart) travel in any continuity? I'm not interested in characters talking about potentially how fast they could travel. I'm only interested in them actually traveling at their top speed. I'd like to know the issue...

dc comics the-flash

Marvin

20:50

0

Q: In Harry Potter deathly hallows part 2 Harry Potter dies and goes to “heaven”

I don’t understand what the skeleton under the white bench was when harry died to Voldemort.

harry-potter

DavidW

21:00

@Marvin Well, I don't understand how to turn the title into a question, so we're even. :-/

Marvin

0

Q: Would a Zoan Devil Fruit that would turn someone into a fish person be affected by Sea Water?

In the One Piece universe, Zoan Devil fruits tend to give people animal-like abilities. Now granted, there are already amphibious mere-folk in this manga, but that's not to say there_isn't_ [or at least, I have not yet seen] any Devil fruit that can give someone fish-like abilities. If that's th...

manga transformation one-piece

Jenayah

@DavidW uh, tech and Ada makes me think of the language. But then again, being French I rarely encountered the ADA I think you're speaking of :)

DavidW

21:29

"ADA" these days, in all the contexts I encounter it, refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Here's a recent example of it cropping up again.

In a previous job I had to deal with the fallout. How, precisely, would you go about making an interactive multi-mode chart accessible to blind readers? If it were a single graph line, you could read off the values. But if you have 2 discretely-sampled data sets, each plotting average and envelope but against different y-axes, plus an overlay of event-based annotations, how do you read that out? And if you're overlaying 2 sets of data from different base times, then what?

How do you meaningfully describe a scatter-plot?

Marvin

21:49

0

Q: How does Captain Jack Harkness become the Face of Boe?

Based off the question "Is there anything beyond subtle hints that Jack becomes the Face of Boe?" How does Captain Jack Harkness become the Face of Boe?

doctor-who jack-harkness

Stormblessed

scifi.stackexchange.com/review/reopen/151730

I voted to leave closed after effectively voting to re-open :P

Transcript for

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…