The Reading Room - 2017-06-21

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1:00 AM

Greek Mythology in Portal 2 | Stuff You Like 154 (with Musical Hell)

2 hours later…

3:16 AM

I watch a lot of films & what I rarely see are characters acting in perplexing ways. Let me explain:

Tweeted by CybelDP on June 20, 2017 at 11:37 PM

Here's the updated version of my reasoning RE: the XKCD question

I think this question is off-topic and am perfectly happy to cast the fifth close vote. The image is a picture of a graph. The fact that the graph occurs in a xkdc cartoon is irrelevant. The question asks for the source of one of the data points of said graph. I fail to see any argument as to how such a question would be on-topic on a site about literature. It's not a literary analysis question, it's not a question that you can ask about a story, etc. I've been a proponent of a broad scope, but we have to draw the line somewhere. — Hamlet ♦ 1 min ago

3 hours later…

6:13 AM

0

Q: Who are all the Priestesses and Gods?

In Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series, there are the Aeslin mice, who believe the Price/Healy men are their gods, and the women are their Priestesses. They give them all names (like the Arboreal Priestess (which I think is Verity), the Precise Priestess (Antimony), and the God of Chosen Isolation ...

seanan-mcguire incryptid

6:48 AM

@Hamlet it may be time for a meta post.

3 hours later…

10:09 AM

0

Q: In which story does a child survive Hiroshima by diving in a pond?

I am trying to identify a story about a boy who survived the attack on Hiroshima. My clearest memory is the moment of impact: the boy is outside the city and dives into a pond just before the bomb hits, and so survives the effects of the immediate blast. After that my memory is hazy: I'm prett...

story-identification history

9

Q: Would being underwater help survive a nuclear bomb?

If I jump in my pool, on the river near my house knowing that a nuclear bomb, or atomic or H-Bomb exploded around 10 km from my house, would I survive? The way I see it is that water will protect me from the heat, so then I will be able to surface up after the explosion and escape.

thermodynamics nuclear-physics radiation radioactivity nuclear-engineering

10:26 AM

@Mithrandir Al'Thor Meta Bot engaged!

(I asked that question intending for a meta debate to start. ;P)

I also asked it for reasons involving the Comics proposal.

@Mithrandir Ahh, you mean if it ends up closed, that would be evidence that the Comics proposal actually has some mileage?

Yep.

15

Q: How is this different from Literature, SciFi, Anime?

Proposal: Comics This proposal is covered by the content of three different sites. What would creating this site add that the other three can't provide?

@Mithrandir Btw, I see the rash of closure-related tags has already begun on Lit meta, with close-reasons and closed-questions and close-votes and the just-burninated vote-to-close. I wonder if these should all be merged into one for the same reasons as on SFF?

1

Q: Should this XKCD question be closed, and why?

What were the original two results for 'died in a blogging accident'? This question about an XKCD comic currently has three votes to close, and Hamlet♦ has left a comment saying he'd be happy to be the fifth: I think this question is off-topic and am perfectly happy to cast the fifth close v...

discussion specific-question close-votes

10:40 AM

reasons is different

Technically, yes: close-reasons should be for questions about creating or curating custom close reasons. In practice, people are going to use it for questions of the form "why was this question closed?"

It's already been misused at least once.

OK, so you've fixed that one. My point still stands: the name of the tag means that people will misuse it more in the future.

We can fix them as they come in, if need be.

It's like the mystery tag on SFF: in theory, having a tag for mystery stories is no worse than a bunch of other tags we have over there; in practice, people were using it just for questions about something they considered a mystery, which could be pretty much any question.

Write up usage guidance, enlist @Gallifreyan, and no problem ;P

@Mithrandir Wouldn't it be better to have things so we don't need to do all that fixing?

10:51 AM

@Randal'Thor *tells you to active the al'Thor Meta Bot again*

@Mithrandir The bot takes a day to recharge :-P

Besides, if I post now, I'll only get told off for raising the issue before any of those tags have been used much.

....'PMYP'? ;)

Well, I still hold that in sufficiently clear cases, tags can be sorted out (removed/synonymised/etc.) even before they've been used on many questions.

2 hours later…

12:53 PM

The Confessions of Dorian Gray might be my favorite thing @BigFinish has ever done, and it's all 50% off today. https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/discover-the-worlds-of-big-finish---day-3---dorian-gray

Tweeted by NowWeAreAllTom on June 21, 2017 at 12:47 PM

1:30 PM

0

Q: Title of a World War 3 novel

For a good while I've been trying to recall a book I read about 15 years ago. What I remember: The Novel was based around a modern day (at the time) global war scenario, with the main battles taking place on the Asian continent between US and Chinese infantry forces, involving entrenched combat d...

story-identification

1 hour later…

2:44 PM

Is the Doctor Adams in #WatershipDown related to the author, Richard Adams? https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2752/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on June 21, 2017 at 1:50 PM

3:17 PM

1

Q: Did "Number Five" really act differently from his father?

In the story The Fifth Head of Cerberus, the protagonist - whose real name is never mentioned, so I'll just call him "Number Five" as his father and aunt do - is essentially an experiment of his father's. Towards the end of the story he learns that he is The visiting Dr Marsch describes the ex...

gene-wolfe the-fifth-head-of-cerberus

3:30 PM

Do we really need a specific-question tag on meta? What purpose does it serve?

3:43 PM

@Gallifreyan It's one of the automatically created tags on every meta. It distinguishes questions like "why was this question closed?" from more general policy discussions like "should questions about X be closed?"

Wow, I leave for 5 minutes and come back to 5 notifications o_o

@Hamlet Are you going to leave a complaining comment on every question that uses a spoilertag? :-/

3:59 PM

@Hamlet It's funny how you think individual-work tags should be abolished but also say "It's obvious that a question about a book will spoil the book." In your ideal world, with no book-title tags and no spoilertagging, how on earth would you expect people to know whether or not to expect spoilers? The question title doesn't always make clear what book it's about, and people couldn't even look at the preview to check because that might contain spoilers.

I guess everyone who didn't want spoilers about a particular book by Author would need to put the entire author tag on ignore, and all their expertise on Author's other works would go to waste.

And now a downvote. I seriously hope that was about the quality of the question itself and not a bloody spoilertag.

→ 4 messages moved to trash

Now 3 people want to see the world dim without an occasional joke or XKCD.

*sigh*

There's a world-sized DIMM? Damn, that's a lotta memory.

programmer joke whizzing over head

4:05 PM

That's not even a programmer joke :D

@Gallifreyan the XKCD question was an experiment related to the Comics proposal.

@ArtOfCode it takes one whole gigabyte. scientists abducted by aliens from the 1950s have been working on it for decades. so far they are very impressed.

*switches topic to XKCD*

@Mithrandir I'm wondering if I should retract my VTC now that I've answered it.

It seems a bit hypocritical to both answer and close.

Well, that did strike me as slightly odd...

4:12 PM

Especially when I'm not entirely sure why I feel it's off-topic, and cast my vote partly as an experiment to see what the review queue would make of it.

Nice sleuthing, BTW.

Thanks :-D I wasn't planning to answer, but once I found that, it seemed a shame not to post it.

Now it's at 4 VTCs, though, so...

... how does that sentence end?

(seriously, I'm not sure what conclusion you're drawing)

...if you are retracting, hurry :P

4:16 PM

I don't get this. From one side we make policies on meta. From other we "let" the review queue and "votes" decide. How does that work? If people want to have stuff on-topic or off-topic, they should care enough to go to meta and post/vote there, not from the review queue when there's no policy.

When there isn't an existing meta policy, the community can make their opinion known via votes.

But now there is a meta post about that question, so ...

Because when you make a meta decision, it's also good to know what the non meta silent majority thinks.

@Mithrandir They shouldn't be silent if they want to be heard. What kind of logic is this? Are we babysitters now?

Just because people downvote something doesn't make it off-topic. Whose genius idea was it to equate votes to on-topicness?

...that isn't what I meant.

I mean, while the people who ignore meta don't participate in deciding policy, it's not productive to have a policy that only a few people will follow. Which is the most important argument for having title tags, IMO.

@Gallifreyan "Votes" doesn't just mean up/down votes. I was thinking more of close/reopen votes here.

4:22 PM

@Mithrandir If people care, they read meta (it's even featured now, so there's no excuse).

That XKCD question is probably going to hit HNQ now. It's just reached a positive score.

@Mithrandir No, I agree with Gall on this one. If there's a meta decision one way, and people are voting another way, then we should be making them cognisant of the meta post, so that they can either change their voting patterns or express their views on meta (and then, if it's poorly received, change their voting patterns anyway).

@Randal'Thor well yes. But it's also no use holding back a river with traffic signs (while we're on the topic of XKCD).

1

A: Should this XKCD question be closed, and why?

I think this is off topic, and that it's Literature Stack Exchange's version of a problem Role-Playing Games Stack Exchange resolved in 2012: real-world research questions. Basically the issue was this: We deal with tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, the kind you play with pen a...

nice parable

4:45 PM

Thanks. :)

@BESW ☝️ I brought up the real-world research question issue RPG ran into here, since it seems like Lit.SE might be finally actually running into it.

@doppelgreener I'm torn on this one. I can definitely see your point, but I'm not sure how well it applies on this site (see my second comment) and especially not sure it applies to the XKCD question.

I don't think the XKCD thing counts as a question about "real life" in that way.

If it wasn't XKCD but something unquestionably "literary" - if someone was asking about a cited statistic which was the punchline of an entire scene of a Shakespeare play, say - then nobody would be querying the validity of that question.

@Randal'Thor I am also torn. I am not positive you are experiencing this, especially since I've only been moderately active on Literature.SE and I'm in no position to understand the phenomena and issues the site's grappling with. However, it also seems to be something like this.

Certainly the solution we borrowed from GD.SE and implemented on RPG.SE can't simply be ported from RPG.SE to Lit.SE with changing a few words.

I figure the best thing I can do there is just point out: hey, we had this thing on rpg.se, this thing you have looks sorta similar, here's what it was for us and what we did.

I'm beginning to convince myself that it's another literary snobbery issue - "oh, XKCD, that's just a webcomic, not proper literature". But webcomics are on-topic, and "trivia" questions (as opposed to literary analysis) are on-topic.

Retracted my close vote (@Mithrandir).

@doppelgreener I think this will definitely become an issue at some point, and that something similar to what RPG did will probably be a good solution.

I just can't see the XKCD question as coming under that issue.

@Randal'Thor Would this question be on topic here?: "In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck overhears a group of railroad workers talking about a boiler explosion in Minnesota Central Station that killed two of their interstate colleagues. Did such an accident really occur in Minnesota Central Station in the 1830s killing two railroad workers?"

@Randal'Thor RPG.SE probably also had 3-4 times as many questions by the time it was becoming a noticeable issue.

(I should clarify I made that situation up completely. I've never read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I don't even know if there is or was a Minnesota Central Station.)

5:00 PM

@doppelgreener Ah. I was about to ask if that conversation or incident was at all significant to the story.

Yeah, it's just a thought exercise, so if there's situations it would or wouldn't be topical, that's worth examining.

That's the only sensible criterion I can think of right now for whether such a question would count as "literary" or "historical".

But it smells a bit like a notability criterion, and we don't want to become Skeptics here.

You could come up with an actual question along those lines, post it, and see how it goes?

Like I said in this comment, the Russian historical-accuracy question definitely enables us to appreciate The Idiot better. If the question had been about some more minor character, or otherwise less important for our understanding of the novel, would it still have been a good question for Lit?

@Randal'Thor I think one of the differences between the russian historical accuracy question about the prince and my made-up huckleberry question is that the first is notably about understanding the meaning of the text itself (is "prince" a joke or sincere?), the second is trivia: it doesn't matter whether it really happened or not.

i have my doubts that's viable as a guideline all on its own, but i feel that is a difference.

Well, the text makes clear that it's sincere, a real title - the question is whether it means he's a member of the Royal Family or just a minor noble.

But yeah, you're right.

So a guideline, or part of a guideline, could be "would an answer to this circle back to having to do with improving or changing one's understanding the text itself?"

5:15 PM

I think this question is off-topic and am perfectly happy to cast the fifth close vote. The image is a picture of a graph. The fact that the graph occurs in a xkdc cartoon is irrelevant. The question asks for the source of one of the data points of said graph. I fail to see any argument as to how such a question would be on-topic on a site about literature. It's not a literary analysis question, it's not a question that you can ask about a story, etc. I've been a proponent of a broad scope, but we have to draw the line somewhere. — Hamlet ♦ 14 hours ago

...I don't actually have an opinion on the XKCD. I'm thinking about it, though.

@doppelgreener We'd have to be very careful about applying such a rule though. I've already seen people make noises about closing purely literary "trivia" questions, ones which couldn't possibly work on a history/science site, because they "don't increase our appreciation of the book". Well, who's to say? If someone found this question interesting enough to ask, and other people upvoted it, then clearly it does help someone's appreciation of the book!

2

See conversation starting here.

@doppelgreener That sounds like a historical-context question to me.

@Mithrandir Ah, that was the tag name! Do you think historical-accuracy should be merged into it?

@Randal'Thor That's a very good point, and likely worthy of a meta answer.

@Randal'Thor Yeah, that's exactly my doubt. It's a very subjective judgement. Who's to say what "improves or changes one's understanding of the text" or not? On RPG.SE, we can really objectively judge "yep, this is about RPGs" or "nope, this has nothing to do with RPGs", and there's a very thin grey area we can reason about to each other very calmly. Whatever guideline Lit.SE picks up ought to be something objectively judgeable.

5:19 PM

(Still catching up in chat)

@doppelgreener (I suspect being able to reason very calmly is more about the people involved than the topic of the question ;-) )

2

@Randal'Thor meh.

@Randal'Thor I agree with that as well. Subjective judgements can get us into deep rabbit-hole arguments about what so-and-so really means, which can turn any otherwise well-reasoned comment discussion into a heated religious war. Also, anyone can just say "well it changes it for me" in the question as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

@Mithrandir Do you have a link handy to a previous question about webcomics on Lit? I'm sure there's been at least one or two, but I haven't paid much attention since webcomics aren't really my cup of oosquai.

@Randal'Thor I skimmed comics, didn't see any. There may be deleted questions, however. (Can @Mith loan me his diamond?)

5:27 PM

Wow, nearly half the comics questions are about the-sandman.

checks to make sure I remembered to downvote the Sandman topic challenge suggestion

@Randal'Thor Fascinating. Has someone been reading that recently? :P

@Shokhet I don't see any either, even searching through deleted questions.

@Randal'Thor Traitor.

@Mithrandir k

Thanks :)

@Randal'Thor I think The Sandman may be the most popular title tag right now.

Oh, it shares the first place with 1984 and Sherlock Holmes.

And Neil Gaiman is 4 questions short of catching up with George Orwell.

5:28 PM

i'm gonna ask some more 1984 questions to get it back into #1 place to troll y'all

user15026

Hm, I like that i got a bunch of up votes for my Incryptid question but I am scared it won't get an actual answer anytime soon...

@Gallifreyan grumbles

(i'm not really, i promise!)

@Ash That was my thought too. Good question, but you'll be lucky to find someone else who's read the books :-/

Wow, +6/-6. This is controversial.

5:30 PM

@Gallifreyan Is Sherlock Holmes really a title tag? (Not that it matters)

Oh, the irony - Hard to be a God is on 15 questions, despite being read by ~6 people here.

Maybe there's a more specialised Incryptid site where you could link your question and try to draw new experts to Lit.SE?

@Shokhet Same as the-sandman, since we didn't introduce fables-and-reflections and the likes.

@Mithrandir And my meta post has got 7 upvotes in as many hours. Seems like people really care about this issue.

Oh btw, @Gallifreyan - isn't HtBaG part of some broader series/mythos?

The Noon Universe or something?

@Randal'Thor It is, but all of the questions seem to be about that book.

5:32 PM

@Gallifreyan Right, but shouldn't we then be tagging those questions noon-universe instead?

That said, I don't think it's really connected to the rest of the universe.

For the same reason as we don't have tags for the individual HP or WoT books. (There's a meta which I'm too lazy to find a link to.)

10

Q: How should we distinguish between series and individual books?

Questions, such as [redwall] could apply to both the book and the series. How should we distinguish between questions about the book, but not the series as a whole?

discussion tags

Hm, no, that's not the one I'm thinking of.

@Randal'Thor As I said, this book stands out too much to be truly considered a part of "a series".

5:36 PM

14

Q: Should we be tagging questions with the names of specific books?

I can't help but notice that already, we have a lot of tags. I've gone through them and seen quite a few tags with a specific name of a book, with maybe 1 or 2 posts on it. I'm thinking that okay, there are a few pieces of literature that a lot of questions have been asked about, but if we cont...

discussion tags

Right, found it. Both Gallifreyan's and my answers to this question advocate using only the series tag when there is one, not creating tags for individual books in a series.

I haven't read further in that universe, but my understanding is that the events in Arkanar are not really referenced but merely mentioned, and it's not chronologically necessary to read this book to understand the rest, partly because Strugatsky brothers did not intend to create a "universe" in the first place, they just reused the characters from their previous works and then it all became connected.

@Gallifreyan Would it be reasonable to expect someone to be an 'expert' in that book alone and not in the Noon Universe as a whole?

Well, I guess you are, so that settles it :-)

cc @DVK who may have read more Noon Universe stuff

E.g. Harry Potter can't be read randomly, but I guess the Noon Universe can (more or less).

That makes me wonder if we should have a robots tag instead of the-naked-sun.

Nah, who cares.

@Gallifreyan That tag failed because of this site's robots.txt.

:-P

5:46 PM

@Mithrandir if a question with 6 downvotes, three close votes reaches HNQ, that's as good an example as we'll ever get that the HNQ is broken.

@Gallifreyan meta is not a binding voting platform. Meta is a discussion platform. If we discussed the closing of a question in the comments we would clutter the question. If we discussed the closing of the question in chat the discussion wouldn't be archived. Hence why meta exists.

@Hamlet I may have accidentally posted a message to the wrong room that contained a link to the question, yes...

(that room being the TL)

user15026

@Randal'Thor unlikely, at best there might be a wiki but I doubt that. I'll check.

There's a wiki for everything these days.

@Gallifreyan Fair enough.

6:19 PM

@Shokhet I may repost the link in mythology chat at some point, but as you've noted, it is not very active, and I usually don't get responses. (I'm also trying to encourage ppl to ask mythological questions on Mythology, b/c Lit, which I also strongly support, already gets a ton of questions, but on Mythology we only get a trickle;)

@Hamlet I disagree. Chat is the discussion platform. Meta is, too, but its real use if exactly for "binding" decisions, because there's nowhere else a binding decision can't be made. Votes on the main site could count, if only not for drive-by users, targeted voting, upvoting a funny question, those damn Harry Potter questions, etc.

Up and down votes on the main site are not really indicative of anything except that the voter felt they needed to vote, which could be for any reason, which may or may not be because they consider the question off-topic. Close, voting, on the other hand, requires an explicit decision made on meta.

@DukeZhou Lit gets "a ton of questions"? ...I guess different standards for different sites. Lit's QPD "needs work."

@Gallifreyan On meta, we have discussions which often (not always) culminate in a policy decision.

@Shokhet well, a ton more that Mythology anyway.

@Randal'Thor My point being, meta is the ultimate decision platform for SE.

6:23 PM

@DukeZhou I see that. 0.6 QPD!?

Dammit people, ask some questions about this book! — Rand al'Thor 44 secs ago

Yeah, the topic challenge isn't going too well :-(

I still don't have the book, and may not before the month is out.

I suspect some people aren't giving much thought to the "easily available" criterion when proposing topic challenges.

For next time: we should announce earlier, and make sure people can get the book ahead of time. Maybe explicitly tell them to start trying earlier on.

For this time: should we give it an extension, or give it up and move on at the end of the month? The original topic challenge idea allowed to challenges of variable length, as needed.

@Shokhet That might be worth a meta question of its own.

6:27 PM

@Randal'Thor It's on Amazon and Book Depository in both print and digital formats, not to mention other methods of acquiring something in digital age.

though there is no excuse for me for not reading it.

I tried to see if I could borrow it, but that didn't work out, and we don't buy books too often :'(

6:43 PM

Which book are you guys talking about (for asking question?) Is there some kind of contest?

7

Q: Announcing the June 2017 topic challenge: The SEA is Ours

In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges, seeing that the votes have stabilised, May is nearing its end, and it's time to announce the next topic challenge! Throughout June 2017, our topic challenge, proposed by BESW, will be Topic challenge: The SEA is Ours The SEA...

discussion topic-challenge

Jun 10 at 19:46, by Gallifreyan

I should remind people that we have a thing called monthly challenge, and this month's challenge is The SEA is Ours, which we have to read and preferably ask questions about, since that's why we started the whole gig for.

...This contest was supposed to last a month. No one's asked a question yet, and it's the 21st.

@Shokhet yeah, it seems like mythology is healthy in terms of all statistics except QPD!

It doesn't have a Wikipedia page, for some reason.

@DukeZhou Unfortunately, that's the one that SE looks at when they consider a site for graduation (or so I'm told).

6:46 PM

The Sea is Ours sounds really effing cool! I only read lit it paper form, but I'm going to look for it.

By the way, if you want to respond to a *particular message in chat, hover over the message and click on the arrow all the way on the right. (It's slightly different on mobile)

@DukeZhou Good luck! It's pretty hard to find. If you want to check in libraries, look at the WorldCat links in the meta post.

I quite liked the Gravity Fails series, not least because it was a cyberpunk story with a different cultural context.

Amazon seems to have many print editions through indie vendors: amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1495607569/…

6

Q: How can we get Bitcoin to graduate?

Recently, I was asked about whether or not Bitcoin was ready to graduate, after looking at the site statistics it looks like it's ready, but there are some things holding the site back which I'd like to address. When we review the health of a site, in terms of graduation, one of the first thing...

discussion featured graduation election

Not the only thing.

(Don't ask why I'm reading random meta posts on sites I'm not active on...)

@Mithrandir Very interesting (and recent!) post; thanks for linking it.

I didn't think it was the only thing, but most users assume that's the biggest one (and it even gets a nod in bluefeet's announcement)

@Mithrandir TL?

@Shokhet yep :P

6:57 PM

@Mithrandir Someone should link the Bitcoin guys to this and this from [that site with the long-arse name].

@Shokhet Word of God on main meta is that it's the primary consideration.

@Randal'Thor Right. I've certainly seen that, and voted on it. (The second item on the numbered list was in the back of my mind as I wrote about QPD.)

@Randal'Thor Thanks for the Word of God link!

@Randal'Thor The Electorate challenge is an interesting one.

1 hour later…

8:16 PM

I'm afraid that my latest question isn't so clear...

(and it looks like @Shok agrees)

0

Q: Are the illustrations part of Shel Silverstein's poems?

Shel Silverstein's poems are illustrated by himself. The illustrations often provide the 'punchline' of the poem, as in the following examples (all taken from Falling Up. Pictures are mine - feel free to replace them with better ones): Safe I look to the left, I look to the right, Before...

poetry shel-silverstein

8:40 PM

My library's copy of Norse Mythology still isn't here :(

8:55 PM

@Gallifreyan three people voted to close a question and there hasn't been an explicit decision made :)

@Shokhet Done.

9:39 PM

2

Q: Why does Zhan Xixi call Jian Yi an idiot?

I've been re-reading 19 Days - One Day1, a webcomic2 by the Chinese author Old Xian. One of the first chapters has me wondering, though: Click for full resolution What does Zhan Xixi mean when he says "What if..."? I'm guessing he's afraid Jian Yi slipped and fell, but it's not clear from ...

19-days-one-day old-xian manhua chinese-literature

0

Q: Is it Zhan Zheng Xi, Zhan Zhengxi, or Zhan Xixi?

One of the protagonist of 19 Days - One Day is called Zhan Zheng Xi. Or Zhan Xixi. I'm not sure, because he's been called all three: Zhan Zhengxi Zhan Zheng Xi Zhan Xixi The first two I can attribute to translation from Chinese to English. What about the third one, Zhan Xixi? Does he ha...

19-days-one-day chinese-literature manhua old-xian

9:51 PM

in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, 9 secs ago, by Gallifreyan

Humble Best of BOOM! Comics Bundle and Humble Fairy Tail Bundle.

Woo, chinese-literature questions!

I'll see if I can drum up an expert to answer those.

@Randal'Thor Poor Rand, still hasn't realised, or maybe doesn't care anymore, that those are yaoi comics.

Googles yaoi

2

Oh blimey.

Google for "yaoi" images with safe search off, I dare you.

I don't even know how to turn safe search on/off.

So I assume it's off by default?

9:56 PM

@Randal'Thor It's on by default.

Oh well. Good :-P

I don't think you even can find anything too saucy without specific search terms, but you get the gist.

Well, I may still see if I can drum up an expert to answer them.

This seems like the place to look.

Going to sleep now, you have fun ;)

@Gallifreyan No, I mean IRL.

@Gallifreyan Goodnight! :-)

9:59 PM

(Do not google for "yuri" with safe search off. Or do.)

Yuri is ... a Russian name?

Yuri Nation, the well-known Russian who invented the urinal.

user15026

@Randal'Thor also refers to female same-sex romantic pairings in anime/manga etc

Henry WH Hack v2.0

10:31 PM

@AdamLear Why where you called Anna Lear before?

Because that used to be my name.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Ohhhh

Ok the real question.

And chat stores display names basically forever.

@Mithrandir Yes. I don't understand what you're asking, and your explanation didn't really help me. Are you asking about interpreting Silverstein's works? Is there a poem of his that you think can't be interpreted that way? ...I'm pretty sure it's absolutely clear that the drawings were meant to be paired with the text; IINM Shel illustrated them himself.

I mean, you basically answered the question with all of the pictures you posted. What more are you looking for?

@Randal'Thor 👍

Henry WH Hack v2.0

So AdamLear changed his name.

interesting

10:36 PM

@Randal'Thor That's not...my first thought when I hear the name "Yuri." It's actually Yuri Gagarin.

I was very into space when I was younger ;-)

@Shokhet Me too :-)

But I was more into the really out-there stuff like supernovas and black holes, rather than the closer-to-home stuff like the first person in space.

@Randal'Thor !!!!

It's turning out more and more that you're just a British version of me.

:-D

I was going to ask if you had some British connection, since some of the books we both read (Bartimaeus and IINM the Charlie Bone series) are from these parts.

Not really, no. I just read whatever I could, as a kid, which was mostly the library, Barnes and Noble, and the Scholastic book order forms.

If you've read the Stonewylde books too, I may faint.

10:41 PM

I had a pen pal from London, once. That didn't go on for so long, but we never discussed literature.

@Randal'Thor You're safe. I haven't.

Skullduggery Pleasant was another book I read that, I'm pretty sure, was British.

@Shokhet If you're curious, I wrote a review of them for the SFF blog.

(And yes, that is a comment from the actual author.)

@Randal'Thor What quote?

@Shokhet Sounds vaguely familiar, and the artwork definitely looks familiar. I haven't read them, but I guess I must have seen them in the library.

@Shokhet I mean the person down at the bottom who commented on the blog post.

@Randal'Thor Oh, I didn't see that. I stopped skimming where you said to, because spoilers.

Oh, that's cool :)

Surprised she didn't like what you had to say about the last two books.

I was torn between fanboying over getting a personal response from the author, and mortified about how harsh I'd been on the last two books.

But I exchanged a couple of emails with her, and she was really nice about it.

10:48 PM

@Randal'Thor You might like them, actually. Modern day fantasy, light and enjoyable. I still read them, whenever they come out here (and I can find a copy).

@Randal'Thor Cool! That's always great when you can talk to authors.

> a funny, arrogant, fireball-throwing, 400-year-old detective named Skulduggery Pleasant, who just so happens to be a walking skeleton

Sounds a bit Bartimaeusish?

@Gallifreyan had some luck with Neil Gaiman; I haven't been able to get a response from him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Randal'Thor Maybe, actually, but Bartimaeus was much darker and more serious.

I like a bit of serious.

I mean, it's a kids' book...

The Hitchhiker's books, for instance, will never make it to my favourites list. Their lack of plot is only redeemed by their utter hilarity.

10:52 PM

There's definitely some dark stuff and serious in it, but I got the sense that it was overall much lighter.

@Randal'Thor Oh, there's definitely a plot. (Is that what "non-serious" means to you?)

Also, you said about Stonewylde:

> For those who don’t already know about such things, it also offers a great education in the ancient traditions of English folklore and paganism.

@Shokhet No; Hitchhiker's was just what came to mind as a book which is non-serious but which I still like.

Some of the most hilarious obscure references I ever exchanged were in comments on this question.

...that's not what Skulduggery is about. (I understand reading books that are faithful to original myths; that's why I read Norse Mythology. However, I don't see much point in only reading those -- seeing writers invent new forms of magic is a lot of fun.)

@Randal'Thor Got it.

@Shokhet Sure. Both can be fun.

Btw, have you read any William Horwood?

@leftaroundabout "The first Horcrux was the worst. The second Horcrux, that was the worst too. The third Horcrux, that was really bad. After that I went into a bit of a decline... But it's the Death Eaters that really get me down. The best conversation I had was over forty years ago, and that was with a Basilisk." — Rand al'Thor ♦ Apr 17 '16 at 22:28

Holes?

When it comes to creating really realistic-sounding mythologies (as in, you need to look them up to confirm that they're not actual legends in the real world), Horwood is the best I've come across.

Better than Tolkien, blasphemous though it may sound.

@Shokhet Holes??

10:58 PM

@Randal'Thor I don't think so, no.

@Randal'Thor Holes by Louis Sachar

user15026

I have read that book so many times

@Randal'Thor Sounds interesting.

@Shokhet Oh. No, that was a Hitchhiker's reference.

Marvin, naturally.

@Ash I read it at least once. I had it as an audiobook (on cassette tape!) that we used to play.

@Randal'Thor Oh, I missed it. It sounded like a conversation from Holes.

user15026

@Shokhet Have you seen the movie? It was pretty faithful to the book, I thought

11:00 PM

@Ash No, I haven't.

user15026

I recommend checking it out, it's fun

Sure, will add it to the list.

@Shokhet Sounds interesting. The Wikipedia description reminds me of a couple of other books which I enjoyed in a one-offy kind of way.

Wow, I used to read so much.

No time these days :-/

@Randal'Thor ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT ME? BECAUSE I'M NOT SURE ANYMORE.

rofl

Separated at birth?

11:05 PM

Could be.

Mind you, this is the right site to find fellow bookworms.

Lol. Fair enough.

Anyway, it's past midnight here (which should disprove the "I'm you" theory?) and I must head bedwards.

Goodnight :-)

Gnight :)

11:29 PM

Can you help us out? What is the symbolism of the "Mind Game" in #EndersGame? https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2747/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on June 21, 2017 at 10:55 PM

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