The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

4:23 AM

0

Q: Who buried Zarabeth?

In the Star Trek: TOS episode "All Our Yesterdays", guest actress Mariette Hartley plays Zarabeth, a woman who is exiled by being sent back in time alone to her planet's ice age. When Spock and Dr. McCoy arrive via a time machine, she is grateful to finally have companionship. At the end of the ...

star-trek star-trek-tos

SmokeDetector

5:19 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in body, repeating characters in body, repeating characters in title (228): Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx story ✏️ by Martin on scifi.SE

Jenayah

@FuzzyBoots oh, congrats on the baby!

Q: Title of YA novel by Gordon R. Dickson

5:36 AM

0

Sometime in or before 1968, I read a young adult science fiction novel by Gordon R. Dickson in which a few teenagers from Earth are invided by representtives of a (possibly galactic scale) alien government to take a trip to an alien planet. On the voyage, they meet alien named Panjarmeeklotutmurp...

story-identification childrens-novel scien

A. B.

6:06 AM

Should this scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/246166/… be a duplicate of this scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/236938/… ?

I'm confused by the comment that "It appears this question has neither an answer nor a confirmation from the OP", because the second question does have an accepted answer and already had when the comment was made.

@A.B. The second question does, but the first doesn't. Both questions need to have a confirmed answer for a Story-ID to be closed as a dupe.

Q: What was the nature of Cornelius Fudge's discussion with Lucius Malfoy in the Department of Mysteries?

6:25 AM

0

Lucius Malfoy appears to petition Cornelius Fudge only minutes before Harry Potter's trial over "underaged use of magic in front of a muggle". This occurs 20 minutes into The Order of the Phoenix. In the movie, we only get a glimpse into their conversation: Lucius: "..., and I'm confident, Minis...

harry-potter lucius-malfoy cornelius-fudge arthur-weasley

Q: Why would Orson face any kind of embarrassment?

7:14 AM

-1

Grand Moff Tarkin : The Emperor is awaiting my report. Orson: One would hope that he and Lord Vader might've been here for such an occasion. Grand Moff Tarkin : And I thought it prudent to save you from any potential embarrassment. Orson: Your concern's hardly warranted. Why would Orson face an...

star-wars rogue-one

Q: Novel about a spaceship in a distortion, a galaxy appears around a corpse

9:16 AM

1

Well, I'm asking for help from other SF fans because I'm trying to recover the title of a novel I read years ago... Obviously I don't remember the title or the author. I remember that the plot was about a spaceship that, for some reason, finds itself in a distortion due to which it begins to incr...

story-identification novel

9:26 AM

@FuzzyBoots congratulations, I see!

Humble Bundle has a Heavy Metal bundle (ebooks) that ends in 8 days.

People might be interested.

Q: who is heir to bear island if maege died?

12:54 PM

0

As we know according to the book, Maege is the Lady of Bear Island, with five daughters; Dacey, Alysane, Lyra, Jorelle, and Lyanna. Dacey dies at the Red Wedding, Alysane leaves with Ironborn, the whereabouts of Maege, Lyra, and Jorelle are unknown, even though they were together, while Lyanna wa...

game-of-thrones a-song-of-ice-and-fire

SmokeDetector

2:40 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, blacklisted website in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (178): Book or Short story: Contact with God through digital means and a micro black hole by Cheryl on scifi.SE

@SmokeDetector Melissa's changed her name to Cheryl now

2:55 PM

Is that a phishing attempt?

Donald.McLean

Spammers gotta spam, I guess.

I think we should purge that one altogether, not even hide it in revisions.

It's been posted quite a lot, there's two on that page

What do you think, @Mithical? @JNat?

@SQB I was told the link is malicious, so maybe a kind of phish.

2:57 PM

I didn't click, I just assumed maliciousness. But I saw at least one user has clicked.

@TheLethalCarrot Interesting that question collected a second spam answer. Maybe it's not completely random...

JNat

@SQB I redacted the link, just to be safe

Thanks.

JNat

will kill the profile too, though it's an unregistered one

This one on the same question is the same spammer (most likely) if you're doing it anyway: scifi.stackexchange.com/posts/246359/revisions

Q: Duplicates: “Yesterday Was Monday” versus “A Matter of Minutes”

2:59 PM

There's another answer with the same problem on that question.

And perhaps a mod could superping jwodder to warn them.

As they commented that they had indeed clicked the link.

Slartibartfast

0

We seem to have a bit of a tangled situation with [story-identification] questions involving the Theodore Sturgeon short story “Yesterday was Monday” and the 1986 Twilight Zone episode “A Matter of Minutes” that was based on the story. At the moment, SF Short Story about resetting the world every...

discussion specific-question

Q: Temporarily block (disable) links in spam-flagged posts

FWIW jwodder clicking it was what prompted DavidW's main meta proposal (I think, or it came from a discussion about another time from the same spammer?)

28

Today there was a spam post (copy for <10k users) to Science Fiction & Fantasy whose purpose appeared to be to induce people to click a malicious link. At least one user did: First of all, the answer box is not the place for this sort of thing. Secondly, what images are you alleging are being i...

feature-request hyperlinks spam

Good one, @DavidW.

It was that post; up 'til jwodder's comment it hadn't occurred to me to try to protect people who were being conscientious but maybe not paying enough attention.

@SQB Thanks. I'm still hoping it might get accepted.

b_jonas

So I just found a funny connection. In the epilogue of Douglas Adams's Life, the Universe and Everything, it is told that a certain Prak was given a truth drug and asked to tell the truth, only the truth and the whole truth in front of a court. He says “most of the good bits were about frogs, I remember that”. And then there's the later quote from Terry Pratchett that xkcd's obituary to Terry xkcd.com/1498 quotes about frogs.

“‘You would not believe some of the things about frogs,’ he [Prak] gasped. ‘Come on let's go out and find ourselves a frog. Boy, will I ever see them in a new light!’”

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Dear Satan

3:34 PM

@b_jonas that is fun

@JNat thanks for redacting, I was in a training course so I didn't see this

@DavidW good meta post

Cereal Bot

3:58 PM

posted on May 12, 2021 by tech

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: If you think THIS is weird, you should meet the dude who created the whole system. Today's News: Enjoy SMBC's all-theodicy compendium, coming May 2027.

Matt E. Эллен

4:09 PM

in English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room, 14 mins ago, by Matt E. Эллен

is it still called a flotilla if it's in space? Or would it be more correct to call it a "space flotilla"?

It wouldn't surprise me if @Donald.McLean had an answer or at the very least an opinion on that.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Donald.McLean

4:27 PM

@SQB I always have an opinion. Sometimes it's "I don't care" and sometimes it's "I'm not really good with colors" and sometimes it's "I hate Python as a programming language more than I hate pythons (the snake)".

2

That still leaves a lot of uncovered territory though.

Q: Does anybody remember a facebook game about a floating island and goblins?

0

I used to play this game when I was a kid on facebook but I neither remember the name nor its main goal. What I do remember is that you appeared in a floating island where a big goblin is standing doing absolutely nothing lol idk if you could trade with him but he couldn't move, it was a crappy g...

story-identification video-games

@MattE.Эллен If you're objecting to flotilla, then why not "fleet"?

Since flotilla is literally "little fleet" and "fleet" comes from the same root as "float."

Among my friends we've always preferred terms like "task force" or "formation" anyway.

Q: In Shrek, which evil magic-user is based on the witch from the Shrek! book?

4:57 PM

0

In Shrek 1, Fiona says “When I was a little girl, a witch cast a spell on me.” In Shrek 2, we have the Fairy Godmother, who I have read is loosely based on the fortune teller/witch from the Shrek! book. However, Villains Wiki only lists the witch who cursed Fiona as being based on said character....

shrek

Q: How long did the "beacon call" from Minas Tirith to Edoras take?

5:21 PM

0

AFAIK, Edoras is about 300 - 350 miles away from Minas Tirith and it takes a 3 day ride from one location to the other. So, how long did the beacon chain need from the moment it was lit to reach Edoras? As I wasn't able to find an answer, I've tried to calculate an upper and lower bound: Apparent...

tolkiens-legendarium the-lord-of-the-rings

5:41 PM

Besides, we still talk about things floating in space.

Donald.McLean

6:30 PM

@DavidW Everyone sees things differently. When I was in the Army I went to a navy base host joint-service training school, and we would have classes with people from everyone except the coast guard, and occasionally even allied military (UK, Canada, NZ, Australia). So it could be quite an adventure even to do something as simple as marching, since every service had a slightly different take, even on basic stuff.

Q: Looking for Robert Silverberg short story on enemies

6:58 PM

0

The gist of the story is about us vs. them in every imaginable context. It ends with those who take their own lives as their own enemy. The story would have been written no later than the mid 70s as that was when I read it.

short-stories robert-silverberg enemy

FuzzyBoots

7:45 PM

Not only did I not know that James Tiptree, Jr was actually Alice Sheldon, but I also didn't know that she ended her career with a murder-suicide...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/05/20/bullets-end-2-fragile-lives/74c52032-0abb-4df1-af85-0eaa65689fe1/

Eid Mubarak everybody!

8:30 PM

@AncientSwordRage Eid Mubarak!

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user (71): SF Short Story about resetting the world every day ✏️ by Nowonmai on scifi.SE

@DavidW thanks!

How is everyone?

@AncientSwordRage happy Eid

@Mithical thanks! How's things?

...hoping that war isn't about to break out but aside from that fine

Huh, just noticed that the word "Mubarak" (which means "blessed") is very similar to the same word in Hebrew ("Mevurach"). I wonder what the root is.

*disappears into a religion / linguistics rabbit hole*

...looks like a lot of the internet sources on the "B-R-K" Semitic root word just quote each other...

names the-new-legends-of-monkey

9:00 PM

0

Q: Why is Monkey a monkey?

The titular character in The New Legends of Monkey is named "Monkey", which is short for his apparently being the "monkey king". The series is a fantasy/comedy adaptation of the historical Chinese book Journey to the West, where the character identified as the "monkey king", Sun Wukong, is ... we...

@Mithical triconsonantal root cognates for the win!

Also cf. Hallelujah Vs alhamdulillah, Salam Vs Shalom, Darusalam Vs Jerusalem...

@Mithical if you want to discuss, ping me in Here Be Dragons

Yeah, they're very similar, but different enough that I can't quite understand Arabic with my knowledge of Hebrew

@AncientSwordRage thanks for the offer but it's after midnight here so I think I'll head to sleep and see what things look like in the morning :)

9:16 PM

@Mithical I'm sure the same would got for me if I understood Arabic properly

@Mithical hopefully more positive in the/your morning

10:03 PM

@AncientSwordRage I can't complain.

@Mithical Especially after that, I really have nothing to complain about... Here's hoping things get better.

@DavidW are you under duress?

I'm hostage to a sense of guilt?

How are you doing?

@DavidW great? Yeah great. Finally figured out how to take the last of my leave for our work year. Have some days off and planning on enjoying myself.

10:19 PM

Very nice.

I need to use up some holiday time this year or I'll start losing it. It may come down to just taking days off to do house maintenance and stuff, 'cause I have no idea when we'll actually be able to do stuff.

(Meaning stuff that's worth taking a day or more off for, as opposed to, say, walking the dog.)

But that's the complaining I feel guilty about, because I'm not in any realistic danger of being shot at in the next few days.

10:46 PM

@DavidW you complaining doesn't make the world worse for anyone else, you have a right to complain at the appropriate time and place (like here and now)

Maybe what I need to start doing is taking 2 hours off mid-day to go for a bike ride every day. Might even start losing a bit of weight.