The Reading Room

Rand al'Thor

00:02

@Bookworm Well, that was fun.

closes a dozen tabs

Are you aware that The Philosophy of Composition is sometimes considered to be unreliable, more of a post-facto rationalisation than an accurate description of the author's thought processes in writing? I think this answer should at least acknowledge that, if you're going to use it as a source. — Rand al'Thor 3 mins ago

@BESW And so the wheel of learning goes around :-)

BESW

01:03

@Randal'Thor Wait, you close tabs?

Bookworm

01:43

0

Q: Who was the old man in Platonia?

In The Shadow Dragons, the party that sets off from The Flying Dragon via trump gets stuck in an "endless expanse of whiteness": It was an endless expanse of whiteness. There was no distance, no perspective. Just infinite space. Except for the old man. The old man is dismissive of the group...

Bookworm

01:55

0

Q: What of the knight of the Empty Helmet, and how does he comport himself at Castle Rhack?

The epilogue of Suldrun's Garden, the first book of Jack Vance's Lyonesse series, is a sort of literary equivalent of a "next time" teaser in a TV series. More than summarising the events so far and describing the current state of affairs, it asks rhetorical questions about what will happen next....

jack-vance lyonesse-trilogy

Mithrandir

07:18

@Randal'Thor Heh. Thanks ;)

BESW

07:37

> "I merely make you read it because you will have to meet people who do that kind of thing, and you must on no account be all dewy and awed when you do meet them. You can, if you like, secretly despise them."
- Stella Gibbons, "Cold Comfort Farm"

Himarm

12:11

yawn

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor I guess I'll go and post that announcement in Russian SO chat

BESW

...someday I'm going to post a question somewhere about what happened to the allegory in Story of Your Life on its way to the big screen.

But first I think I need to figure out how to express what I think Story of Your Life is about more clearly to people who don't share my experience or training in cultural contact zones and multicultural immersion.

There's a certain irony in Heisserer misinterpreting Chiang's story by indulging in exactly the thought patterns Chiang's story is meant to expose.

Himarm

12:28

tor.com/2017/03/24/… < how many times does braid tugging happen in wheel of time

BESW

@Himarm They missed sniffing.

...ah, they call it out at the bottom. Yes.

I believe there's also braid-chewing, which is totally different. Yes.

Rand al'Thor

17:19

@Gallifreyan Congrats on 2k rep!

That's the big privilege level on beta sites.

For a moment there, I thought @BESW was talking about sniffing bottoms ...

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Cheers! I looked for something to delete and otherwise abuse my new powers, but there is nothing wrong with this site :'(

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Look on the bright side - you can now see deleted posts, and detailed review history.

Being able to delete questions isn't the funnest part of 10k/2k powers, except on sites that get loads of terrible questions.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor True that. Still no chat flags though - I ~~hoped~~ suspected there'd be some flags from the Russian SO due to recent demonstrations in Russia

Beastly Gerbil

congrats @Gallifreyan!

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan There have been plenty of flags from Russian SO chat in the last few weeks.

I even asked you about one or two of them to work out if they were really offensive.

Gallifreyan

17:33

@Randal'Thor those are not out of normal; the protests happened yesterday, so I guess the wave is yet to crest flag-wise

@BeastlyGerbil Thanks!

Beastly Gerbil

19:48

@Randal'Thor I updated the facts on Wolf Hall, I added things such as 'he and he, which were discounted at first to the numbers

Makes the facts even more staggering

heh @Gallifreyan you just need 1 more rep.... :P

Gallifreyan

@BeastlyGerbil haha :D I guess I could un-downvote something, but I couldn't be bothered

Beastly Gerbil

20:05

lol, biology SE is having an election, but there are only 3 nominees

Gallifreyan

I've went over the protected questions page - is it time to unprotect those? If memory serves protection is only supposed to be temporary.

Beastly Gerbil

It is?

I've never removed my protection or anyone elses

And I've seen questions years old having been protected for years

Gallifreyan

"Do unprotect questions that aren’t currently attracting a lot of attention and don’t have a long history of unproductive answers.", linked to a blog post

Well, that second condition might render two of our protected questions ineligible, but the other two may be fine

Beastly Gerbil

I'm not sure if anyone actually bothers unprotecting :P

Shokhet

20:21

@Randal'Thor Oops. I see that the comment is gone. Did it self-destruct, or did someone flag it? Just curious.

0

Q: What does Dream's ruby represent?

In Volume One of The Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes), Dream is held captive for 70 years. After escaping and taking vengeance on his (only surviving) captor, he returns home, to the Dreamworld. Finding it in disarray, he realizes that he needs to recover his "tools," his totems of power, so that...

symbolism comics neil-gaiman the-sandman

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet right when I was about to go to bed :(

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Time zone issues :/

Go to bed. I doubt anyone will beat you to FGITW by morning

...I put some effort into Googling, and couldn't find anything

That article that I found about "'Being'" Decentered in Sandman" did not mention "ruby" or "gem" once

And that was pretty much the best thing I found

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet Just to be clear, which issue/volume are you on?

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Finished volume 1, going to pick up volumes 2 and 3 from the library today

...I'm not concerned about spoilers in the answer, because the ruby is destroyed in Volume 1. (...or was it?)

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet Hmm. I'l keep spoilers away then, since I'm probably going to need to reference volume 10

Shokhet

20:32

@Gallifreyan Volume 10 is a long way away. ...if it seriously cramps your ability to answer, then I don't mind spoilers that much.

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet not really, no. I think I can isolate the panels I need

Shokhet

You could protect information with spoiler tags (or I could skip reading the answer until after reading Vol 10)

Mithrandir

@BeastlyGerbil stays quiet there are sekritz there ;) (or I could be messing with you)

Beastly Gerbil

Hmm?

Gallifreyan

I'm not very good at symbolism though (let alone mythology), so don't expect miracles

And I'm gone

Shokhet

20:38

Also, @Gallifreyan, I would really appreciate it if you could replace my panels as you've done previously; my question here has some smudged words in it :/

@Gallifreyan Okay, thanks :)

@Gallifreyan Gnite :)

Gallifreyan

Will type it up tomorrow ^_^ And bring some panels too

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan afios

*d

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Thank you! Hope your answer can boost your score enough :)

Gallifreyan

Buenos noches, amigos!

(Is this how you say it?) </Hans Landa>

Bookworm

1

Q: What does Dream's ruby represent?

In Volume One of The Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes), Dream is held captive for 70 years. After escaping and taking vengeance on his (only surviving) captor, he returns home, to the Dreamworld. Finding it in disarray, he realizes that he needs to recover his "tools," his totems of power, so that...

symbolism comics neil-gaiman the-sandman

Shokhet

20:40

@Bookworm Hello. You're late to the party.

Mithrandir

@Shokhet party? Ooh!

Shokhet

@Shokhet Oh, I see my question is late. You made it already :p

Mithrandir

Also, if I say something weird, blame it on the fact that's it a quarter to midnight.

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Yep! Feel free to upvote that post*

* (assuming, of course, that you feel that it satisfies your criteria for a good question. We don't need rep)

:)

Mithrandir

Lots of text, lots of images, well written, not easily Googled =+1.

Also, @BeastlyGerbil, ping me for a bounty in a couple days for Hedwig.

Shokhet

20:46

@Mithrandir Thank you :)

(Lots of alt-text as well ;-) )

Mithrandir

Oigle, another HNQ Harry Potter question.

I hit 10k today though, so. The problem :recapped for another 3 hours.

Shokhet

@Mithrandir You mean on SFF, right? ...I saw your answer. Well done :)

Mithrandir

Thanks. I know you saw it, you edited it ;)

Shokhet

Yep. I wasn't sure if you had seen that yet :)

Mithrandir

I got a notification. And improved the edit.

Shokhet

20:52

@Mithrandir Right. You were in chat, though, and I don't always see main notifications right away when I'm in chat.

Right, I saw you improved the edit. I wasn't sure if you wanted to link the answer you'd gotten the reference from in your answer, so I left it out. If you want to, you probably still have time to edit without bumping again

Mithrandir

Eh, it's in a comment. I've left it in a comment before, like... Hang in

5

A: What is the incantation of the apparition spell?

There isn't a spell. We see the complete instructions, and it doesn't have a spell: He waved his wand. Old-fashioned wooden hoops instantly appeared on the floor in from of every student. “The important things to remember when Apparating are the three D’s!” said Twycross. “Destination, D...

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Leaving things in comments doesn't work well on SE...I've already flagged that comment as obsolete (because the main point, that it was on page 82, had been incorporated into the answer)

Mithrandir

There's also that it's actually from the book, so I only need to quote from the book...

Shokhet

Then again, that isn't a thing that your answer really needs. You know the book and the page number; where @Mithrandir saw the quote first isn't really important IMO

@Mithrandir I disagree: literature.meta.stackexchange.com/q/641/481

What if someone wants to see the quote in situ, either because they don't trust your reference, or because they want to see further discussion of how wands work?

Mithrandir

...what? You just said the exact same thing.

2 mins ago, by Shokhet

Then again, that isn't a thing that your answer really needs. You know the book and the page number; where @Mithrandir saw the quote first isn't really important IMO

That's what I meant o_o

Shokhet

20:58

@Mithrandir Did I misunderstand? ...I thought you meant that you had the book and didn't need the pagenumber; did you mean you had the page number and didn't need @Mithrandir?

@Mithrandir Okay. My fault ^^^

Mithrandir

I meant I don't need to say that I took the quote from another answer o_o

I actually don't have the book, u unfortunately...

Shokhet

Ah, I see. Then perhaps you should cite the other answer; if your quote is wrong in some way, you can always place the blame with the other answerer ;-)

Mithrandir

I have an unopened copy of the original Fantastic Beasts that I'm trying to keep in collector's item condition.

I can blame them anyway ;)

Shokhet

I have the original at home, certainly not in mint condition

Mithrandir

The only problem is that now I can't actually read it :/

I think I'll head to sleep. The problem is that I will probably be back :P

Shokhet

21:07

@Mithrandir לילה טוב and TZT :)

Mithrandir

הזמן זה חצות בלילה. אני הולך. שלום כולם! לילה טוב!

Shokhet

@Mithrandir שלום, לילה טוב. תפסיק לדבר ותלך לישון!!

Mithrandir

Zzzz... הלכתי

Beastly Gerbil

@Mithrandir really? Yay me :P

Well on that happy note, night all!

Rand al'Thor

22:28

@BeastlyGerbil Nice!

It's good to see the facts laid out clearly - helps to make the point even more clearly than I've made it in the question.

@BeastlyGerbil Why "lol"? Lots of 1-seat elections have three or even two nominees - there's nothing so odd about that.

@Gallifreyan 1) Wow, I never knew that page existed! Nice find!! 2) Most protected questions shouldn't be unprotected for exactly the same reason they were protected originally: they attracted low-quality answers before and would be likely to attract them again (e.g. this question with 10 deleted answers over the course of three years). [cont]

[cont] There are rare cases of questions protected because they're the target of concentrated troll attack (like this question with 11 near-identical answers in one day), and those can be unprotected once the attack is over. But in most cases, it's protected because it's the kind of question that attracts bad answers, and more time passing won't change that.

@Shokhet I flagged it. Was hoping it'd be edited rather than deleted, since there was some useful feedback in there as well as the LMGTFY link, but oh well.

@Gallifreyan I unprotected the one with no deleted answers (since it doesn't even have any bad answers, I suspect that was just @Mithrandir testing stuff [smacks Mithrandir :-P ]), and left the others protected.

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