The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

SmokeDetector

03:12

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly punctuation marks in answer (124): Why do zombies eat our brains? by brains on scifi.SE

Marvin

0

Q: Did This Just Confirm The X-Men Being Part of the Multiverse In the MCU (WARNING, WANDAVISION SPOILERS)?

So, last Friday, WandaVision, Episode 5: On A Very Special Episode, towards the end of the episode, Quicksilver appeared, only played by Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool 2, Once Upon A Deadpool, & Dark Phoenix, rather than Aaron Taylor...

1

Q: Old story about two cultures living in the same city, but they are psychologically blind to each other's existence

I'm trying to identify a story that I first read in an anthology in the mid-1980s. Checked it out from a library in Indiana. I have a very vague idea that this story might have been credited to Gordon R. Dickson -- but don't bet the farm on that. Approximately 35 years later, I could easily be wr...

story-identification short-stories

Marvin

04:11

0

Q: PBS scifi mini series with big aliens

In the late 80s early 90s, PBS aired a scifi mini series that i never got to finish. It, seemed to be, about a group of initiates being chosen for something. The only scene I distinctly remember is; the group of young men walk into a big dark room and there were 2 huge alien beings. They had no...

science-fiction-genre

Marvin

04:37

0

Q: Isekai Manga. He was called the devil of the village

i remember quite a bit of the manga. Just not the name. So at the start he dies and meets a goddess who give him a power like a skill tree. Then he wakes up in someone elses body in a pool of blood. He realises that this person must have died. He looks at the skill and starts upgraded a few skill...

manga isekai

Marvin

05:02

0

Q: Gilden-Fire hardcover by Stephen Donaldson

Does anyone know which is the true first edition. The US or the UK? Thank you.

stephen-r-donaldson

Marvin

07:34

0

Q: Dramione fanfic in 2nd year Whole school ship Dramione and how Draco help Hermione and visiting when she was petrified

I am looking for Dramione fanfic in 2nd year Whole school ship Dramione and how Draco help Hermione and visiting when she was petrified.

story-identification fan-fiction dramione

Jenayah

07:48

@Donald.McLean highly recommended book :)

In the same vein:

Feeds

09:14

Darths & Droids: Episode 1955: The Danger Must Be Growing

posted on February 09, 2021

Marvin

10:05

0

Q: Anime where a male main character recovers some powers when he recovers memories

The male main character recovers his power of magician and swordsman when he recovers his memories.

story-identification anime

Rand al'Thor

10:23

Daily floof 9/2/2021: penguins being weighed

4

b_jonas

11:07

@Marvin Yeah. Basically when people want to identify a Harry Potter fanfic they once read, they do a web search and find our site. Such is notoriety

Donald.McLean

11:51

@b_jonas My first Stack Exchange action was a story ID question here.

Babel fish

12:02

0

Q: Should Wizard Hit Mommy by John Updike

Is Jack's wife Claire a white woman? Are there any clues in the lesson that suggests that?

identification-request character-analysis

Rand al'Thor

12:30

16

Q: Where does Martian meaning inhabitant of Mars come from?

Martian as an adjective meaning "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the planet Mars" (originally in reference to astrological influence) is from the 14th century according to Etymonline; but, according to the same source, the noun meaning "an inhabitant of the planet Mars" has a much later o...

word-usage etymology latin literature

I think we'd take this if ELU closes it?

Inhabitants of Mars are a sci-fi concept, and history of sci-fi terminology is on-topic.

(It's not closed there now, but it has 2 close-votes and counting.)

AncientSwordRage

@Randal'Thor I don't think we need to take it

It can still be a good question even if they close it, and it looks like it's already got a good answer

DavidW

12:57

@Randal'Thor An almost more interesting ELU question would be why English and French are special and refer to the population collectively, as opposed to American, Russian, German and any other nation I can think of offhand.

Napoleon Wilson

@DavidW What would these other languages do instead?

DavidW

@NapoleonWilson *looks askance* *quizzical look* *tilts head* *raises eyebrow*

Napoleon Wilson

I mean, what would be the opposite of "refer to the population collectively"?

What do you mean with that?

Are you trying to imply these other languages don't have a word for "Martian"? Because that would be wrong for at least one of them.

Oh, wait. Are you actually talking about the words "English" and "French" and your question doesn't have anything to do with Martians?

If that's the case, isn't that just because appending an "s" to "ch" or "sh" isn't all too easy for most people?

Though, meshes works, too.

DavidW

14:06

@NapoleonWilson Yes, this. How we refer, individually and collectively, to people from different countries.

AncientSwordRage

Demonyms?

DavidW

That would be the word, yes.

AncientSwordRage

I don't see anythign special about the words english or french vs the others...?

DavidW

I know that word too, it just wasn't available to me at that coffee level. :)

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW INCREASE COFFEE LEVELS!

DavidW

14:10

@AncientSwordRage You don't refer to "an English" the way you would "a Russian" or "an American." So why are "English" and "French" collective nouns, but the others pluralize ("Americans," "Russians").

But I suspect Napoleon has answered that with his comment about relative difficulty in forming plurals.

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW An English person, a Russian Person, an American person....

oh plurals

I missed that part

I mean why sheep and fish, and not sheeps and fishes ::shrug::

DavidW

"Feets don't fail me now!"

Rand al'Thor

@DavidW Some other nationalities have noun forms which were used but are now probably considered "dated and offensive". Like "a Chinese, a Japanese".

And other countries have nouns which are shortened forms of the adjective. A Swede, a Scot, a Brit.

Maybe an English person should be an Engl?

Matt E. Эллен

14:28

an Angle!

or perhaps a Sax

Napoleon Wilson

A sax-playing Sax?

Rand al'Thor

And when you wake a northern one from his sleep, he could be an Englwook.

(For the Neverending Story fans among us.)

Matt E. Эллен

14:43

We have the binary Englishman and Englishwoman

but nothing for all of us at once

Marvin

0

Q: What's the purpose of inverted bombing on this building?

Ives and the Protaginist shelter as Red team exchanges fire with the Enemy further up the street. The Protagonist checks his watch: "5:15, 5:14............" Protagonist: We're runnin' out of time, let's go! Ives: If they see us, it's all for nothing. Protagonist: We need a distraction. What's ...

tenet

Matt E. Эллен

also, you can't say "are you a Spanish?" or "are you a Welsh?"

nationalities ending in -sh don't lend themselves to being count nouns

Rand al'Thor

I've heard "a Britisher", but I think that's Indian English.

DavidW

@Randal'Thor Or someone from Germany perhaps.

Matt E. Эллен

@Randal'Thor oh dear no! I've said it in jest, but never for real

Rand al'Thor

14:52

You ingested a Britisher?

Matt E. Эллен

it gave me indijestion

DavidW

@MattE.Эллен Which is pretty much what NapoleonWilson said too.

Matt E. Эллен

yeah

DavidW

And, just to beat that horse to death, from the 2 regions of <cough> we have Walloons (sing. Walloon) and Flemish (sing. Flemish person).

Napoleon Wilson

@DavidW Not really, but it touches a similar issue indeed.

DavidW

14:58

@Randal'Thor I've used "Briton," but that seemed potentially confusing with "Breton."

Napoleon Wilson

I wouldn't be surprised if they have the same etymological origin, though.

Cereal Bot

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Gates

posted on February 09, 2021 by tech

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: Honestly, you wonder where he finds the time to put so many microchips into so many people. Today's News:

DavidW

@NapoleonWilson "Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology)."

If you trust the other major community-managed site on the Internet.

(Which is to say that you are almost definitely correct.)

Rand al'Thor

15:13

@DavidW Not to be confused with Little Britain.

DavidW

Were Little Britain not set in Little Britain, it would seem to be at least somewhat confusing. :)

Marvin

15:37

4

Q: Story about an astronaut in cryogenic sleep to serve as “living memory” who eventually returns to an abandoned Earth

I have been trying for years to track down the details of a short film or television series episode I saw many years ago. I would have seen it aired on Canadian television around 1988, possibly 1990 at the very latest. It is possible that this was a French-language dub of something that wasn’t or...

story-identification

Jenayah

16:17

@MattE.Эллен that's what you get for trying out British food

Matt E. Эллен

Boiled Britisher Breakfast Brings Belligerent Bowels

Donald.McLean

Greetings, Earthlings.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah At least we don't eat snails :-P

Matt E. Эллен

yeah! we just eat jellied eels

Rand al'Thor

And spotted dick. Never forget spotted dick.

Matt E. Эллен

16:26

And I don't get this argument people have "British cuisine is afraid of flavour" or "add some spice to you food". like having a delicate palate is a bad thing. I like the taste of my food. The fact that people can't stand or can't taste the flavour of potatoes or chicken seems to be a them problem

2

not that I'm defensive of my culture...

Marvin

0

Q: 90's US animated show, underwater lab is caving in, robot survives and is looking for "Joan"

I have a memory of a show I used to watch obsessively as a kid, I might have had it on tape. I've been trying to identify it for years. It might have been Johnny Quest or something similar/ripoff. All I remember is the group is in some underwater lab, and it starts caving in. The robot member of ...

animation

Napoleon Wilson

> Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

DavidW

@MattE.Эллен I'm not sure I agree. Boiling everything so that all the meat and vegetables are a uniform shade of grey is not a cuisine, IMO. (I loved my grandma, but I hated eating her meals.)

And applying horseradish or hot mustard to everything (like my poor granddad did) is a hack, not "regional cuisine."

Matt E. Эллен

If the shade isn't uniform, then how can you tell it's done! :Þ But I agree that overcooking things leaves them tasting awful. On the other hand, roasts are great, gravy is good, battered food is very moreish, and chips (fries)!

Rand al'Thor

16:40

@Jenayah You still around?

Wanted to get your opinion on an ID dupe chain.

TheLethalCarrot

Close them all in a circle, see if it breaks the system for an anon user

2

DavidW

Even better, create multiple loops, so there are branchpoints. Maybe we can crash a server!

Donald.McLean

@MattE.Эллен I cook all kinds of food, some of it heavily spiced, but some things don't need any fancy stuff or spices. Mashed potatoes are just potatoes, butter, and milk. Chicken noodle soup needs nothing more than a little salt. One of my favorite cereals has only a single ingredient (shredded whole wheat).

@Randal'Thor How do you get a chain of duplicate ID questions?

Rand al'Thor

@Donald.McLean Well, I just meant a set of ID questions which are dupes of each other; wanted to take Jenayah's opinion on which way to close them in this special case.

But sometimes we do have chains: A closed as a dupe of B closed as a dupe of C.

The newish ability of mods and gold badgers to edit dupe targets on a closed question makes it a little easier to resolve that issue, though.

Matt E. Эллен

16:56

@Donald.McLean same. I love spicy food. I also like "bland" food. I just sometimes hear people complain that British food is somehow inedible due to its lack of taste, but I think British food does have flavour, and a good one. Not that I could definitively tell you that something is "British cuisine" :D

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor yeah?

Donald.McLean

@MattE.Эллен I went on a business trip to England and had no problem with the food during the three weeks I was there. And, as an extra special bonus, I discovered cider.

Matt E. Эллен

mmmmm cider. cheers!

Donald.McLean

I've tried about 80 different variety of beers and never found one I liked. Cider, though - yum.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah I was searching for Darren Shan on the site (want to propose it as a topic challenge), and found three ID questions which are all dupes of each other: 2017, Apr 2019, Jul 2019.

Matt E. Эллен

17:05

@Donald.McLean There was a pub in Oxford that had a massive cider selection, but sadly it had to close a few years ago. (I assume due to low patronage.)

Rand al'Thor

Without tooting my own horn, I think it's clear that my question is the most detailed of the three, as well as being the oldest, and for answer quality it's between yours (newest) and @JohnRennie's (oldest). Ordinarily it'd be an easy decision to close the 2019 ones as dupes of mine from 2017, however ...

I'd feel a bit bad about my question becoming the hub for dupe closures. The reason it's so detailed is because I totally knew the answer when I asked it. Although it's a valid ID question in itself, I asked it as an April Fool's to catch people seeing the title and assuming it must be Asimov's Last Question.

I know, I know, should set a good example and all that ... my bad. Anyway, it's a valid Q&A, but should it really become the dupe target? Or should we instead close to your answer as the dupe target?

DavidW

@Randal'Thor I'd second that; yours is probably the best combined Q&A.

Donald.McLean

@MattE.Эллен That's a shame. I've only ever been in one place that had more than two ciders on tap. Though I seriously wonder about drives people to make some of the odder varieties. I had to try the peanut butter cider, just because it was there.

John Rennie

@Randal'Thor I'm not fussed.

Matt E. Эллен

@Donald.McLean (•_•) can't say I've seen that before! Was it good?

Jenayah

17:11

@Randal'Thor oh so you're the random upvote on that old answer of mine :-)

Donald.McLean

@MattE.Эллен It was not bad at all, though not something I would get regularly. I have a few favorites. Though, sadly, it's hard to find cider on tap in the US.

And there actually is a "beer" that I like. It's technically an ale: "Not Your Father's Root Beer" but because of the seasonings added to make it taste like root beer, no proper beer person would consider it to be a beer.

John Rennie

@Randal'Thor I must admit I didn't realise it was an April Fool's question. I took it at face value.

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah Yep :-) Great series btw (I guess you answered using Jenoogle-fu rather than having read it yourself).

Jenayah

@Randal'Thor yeah I'd say yours is the best Q&A altogether. I get how it might sound "fake" to choose it as the hub, but the kind of people it would piss off would be pissed off by something else anyway.

Matt E. Эллен

@Donald.McLean interesting. I'm not a beer drinker, either. But if it doesn't taste like beer then that might make the difference

John Rennie

17:14

@Donald.McLean you should try growing up in Somerset in the UK. That will cure you of ever wanting to drink cider again :-)

Jenayah

Go ahead, or I can close them if you don't want it to look like conflict of interest

Rand al'Thor

@JohnRennie I 'fessed up in a comment on your answer when you posted it.

Jenayah

> Found with the Google query scifi book create "portals * shapes" which returned the series' Wikipedia page, which has the above cover as an illustration; the werewolf seemed promising, given the details you had provided.

Donald.McLean

@JohnRennie Bring it on.

Jenayah

Haven't read them. The closest I read was the Darren Shan manga, about a decade ago. Does that even count?

John Rennie

17:16

@Donald.McLean when I was a teenager back in the 1970s all the local farmers used to brew their own cider. It was cheap and ... erm ... that was about the only good thing that could be said about it :-)

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah All right, I'll go ahead and close 'em. Thanks to you and others for the sanity check :-)

John Rennie

@Randal'Thor delete the comment and no-one will know :-)

Jenayah

You're welcome

Oh, while we're on the "which way to dupe-close" topic. Did we ever settle on these? scifi.stackexchange.com/…

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah I didn't know there's a manga. I read the Saga of Darren Shan book series about 15-20 years ago and the Demonata book series about 10-15 years ago as it was coming out. Both good YA series, but I felt Demonata was more powerful and original, and outstanding for its endings, nearly every book in the series (especially book 5) packing a massive punch on the very last page.

Donald.McLean

@JohnRennie Taste in cider, like all food tastes, can be vary widely. I like my cider a bit less dry and more sweet than most cider aficionados (a group I don't belong in - I just like cider). And it doesn't have to be clean filtered like some of the more commercial ciders, either.

TheLethalCarrot

17:20

@Jenayah They seem pretty similar, so I don't suppose it really matters

Rand al'Thor

@Jenayah Both self-answers, funnily enough.

If there's no discernable difference in Q&A quality, I'd err on the side of new-dupe-to-old as a tie-breaker.

Jenayah

I don't really have a preference either

FWIW it's an amazing book

TheLethalCarrot

I'd probably prefer the older one just because it has the cover in the answer, the description is the same in both so meh really

Jenayah

Also I learned here on SFF that there was a sequel, but the thing never got translated from German into a language I can understand :(

DavidW

@Randal'Thor Do we still need those comments? You may have posted it as a joke, but it's a reasonable question with a real answer and those comments don't seem useful anymore.

Rand al'Thor

17:26

@DavidW I'd prefer to be open about what I was doing, especially now so long after it was asked.

DavidW

Sure, if you feel it's important.

DavidW

17:41

Argh! I hate online shopping. It's hard enough ordering brand new monitors (I've had 2 die recently, and a 3rd is going) trusting that they'll be shipped safely. Now I just had 1 of 2 delivered, even though the confirmation e-mail had them shipping together.

Apparently, for whatever too-subtle-for-mere-mortals reason, they are both being delivered today, but even though they shipped out from the same distribution centre at the same time, they are nonetheless on separate trucks. :-P

Jenayah

@DavidW perfect anecdote to remind one that no matter what we do, we're screwed. :(

AncientSwordRage

18:51

@MattE.Эллен that's a rarified emoticon if I ever saw one

Babel fish

19:47

0

Q: Was Liz Toombs drawing at the beginning of Spider-Man: Homecoming showing us something important?

I have downloaded a high-quality picture of that drawing from Pinterest. It's not the original one, but it's completely the same. Liz Toomes had sketched the battle of New York on a paper. The drawing important features: Captain America's black star; which was on his suit in Avengers: Infinity W...

marvel-cinematic-universe spider-man-homecoming

Marvin

1

Q: A story about a computer virus and blinking network card lights

So, I'm trying to find this story about some two engineers in a lab or server room which are detecting some unusual network anomalies but can't pinpoint them. Eventually they see that an old network card which has blinking LED-s is indicating some traffic is happening, and they manage to find a v...

story-identification

Marvin

20:19

3

Q: Story About a Scarecrow Who Is Entitled to Some Land

I vaguely remember reading a book years ago that went something like this: A scarecrow somehow comes to life. He somehow makes friends with a boy. They go on a journey for some reason. He finds out his late owner left him some land. Due to many accidents and events, every part of him is replaced...

story-identification

Marvin

20:45

0

Q: Why was Geralt of Rivia condemned for saving Breviken in "The Lesser Evil" story?

I've just finished reading "The Lesser Evil" story, but I didn't understand the ending. At the end, when the thugs are preparing to perform the massacre, when Geralt talks to them, it's they who attack him first by shooting him with a crossbow, and the fight ensues. When all thugs are defeated, R...

the-witcher

Marvin

23:44

1

Q: What does this boot-screen depict?

This boot screen is seen at the start of Metal Gear Solid: PS Vita edition. I can't make out what the picture is supposed to be.

video-games

0

Q: Manga with a lying reincarnated child main character

I remember the gist of the story; it was about a reincarnated main character who lives in a child's body. The main character then discovers a Elf girl who he lies to and makes her believe his chunibyu fantasy, but the truth was that these lies were true and he didn't know. He managed to save some...

story-identification manga

Spencer

Has "boot screen" taken on a new meaning as what I would call a"splash screen"? Am I really that old?

Transcript for

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…