The Reading Room

North Læraðr

00:01

@Randal'Thor Yeah, I had to leave to go somewhere, so I couldn't make it too detailed

Gallifreyan

06:23

@Randal'Thor I was waiting for the election to end since, due to all the meta announcements from SE, there was only space for one featured Lit meta post in our sidebar

Rand al'Thor

07:59

Is anyone going to answer this bountied question? Preferably someone who speaks German - I found a few results but I can't tell how relevant/specific the German-language ones are.

Tsundoku

08:29

@Randal'Thor I might try tomorrow; I don't think I'll find the time today.

Rand al'Thor

09:25

Just finished "Second Opinion", by far the longest story in the 1982 Malgudi Days collection, nearly 20 pages where most of them are 3-5 pages. I'd thought it would be difficult to get through such a long story, but it flowed naturally and I was finished before I knew it.

Tsundoku

11:07

I didn't manage to read any other Narayan novels besides The Painter of Signs. That novel was fun to read and I can recommend it.

b_jonas

11:32

And I was re-readinng Hal Clement's "Mission of gravity" yesterday.

Does that count?

Rand al'Thor

Count for what?

Tsundoku

11:43

It doesn't count for the currently running reading challenges, but if you post a question about it, it counts for the site :-)

Tsundoku

11:58

> I purr, therefore I am. (René DesCats)

2

Rand al'Thor

> I purr, therefore I am a cat. (Natsumeow Sōseki)

2

Tsundoku

> I calculate, ergo I sum. (René DesMaths)

3

Rand al'Thor

12:33

Wouldn't René DesMaths be ... well, the original one? :-)

DVK-on-Ahch-To

12:47

@Gallifreyan That was before Stack Exchange company decided that "1984" was an instruction manual instead of dystopia

Also, congratulations @Randal'Thor!!!!

Strugatsky brothers would have been rather put off if I helped SE at this point

Although, I STILL owe a 30K long overly epic answer to Rand on SFF for "Night Watch" series timeline

for like 4 years running now iirc

i should probably polish that up and actually post

it is 90% done

or more

Gallifreyan

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Dang it, that's the one!

Gallifreyan

14:09

I'm looking forward to reading it

Tsundoku

15:00

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I hope the answer will be shorter than the novel :-P

Tsundoku

16:08

A book-seller in Narayan's novel The Painter of Signs says that bookworms have sense of design:

> Book-worms posses a sense of design. Some books are tunnelled end to end, some they give up with the preface, in some they create a perfect wizardry of design, but confined to the endpapers, never an inch beyond.

> A real masterpiece must be read only in an ancient edition and you could easily recognize it by the fact that the book-worm has already gone through it end to end and left its testimonials in its own code.

Take that, e-books!

That reminds me that Andrew George wrote somewhere that one of the clay tablets found in Ancient Mesopotamia had also been tunnelled through by a worm. I bet archaeologist are still debating whether the worm was on a paleo diet or a low-carb diet.

Bookworm

1

Q: Where can I find R. K. Narayan's maiden speech to the Indian parliament?

In 1980 R. K. Narayan was appointed to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. In his maiden speech to the Rajya Sabha, the author spoke of children having so much homework that they had no time to play. He focused on the school bag. “The school bag has beco...

Tsundoku

@Bookworm The fifteenth question in the Narayan reading challenge. For what it's worth, this is the highest number of questions ever generated by a single reading challenge. Admittedly, reading challenges lasted for only one month before 2020.

Rand al'Thor

16:37

@Tsundoku Wow!

All the questions in this reading challenge have been asked within half a month, despite the two-month period of possibility.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku I have a story-id answer about it on Sci Fi. I don't have a question.

I don't think I can really ask any question about it unless I somehow get access to the sequels.

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I owe several long answers to the internet that I'm too lazy to write.

For years.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas Oh, i also have answers on my to-do list. But I don't think I promised them to anybody :-)

@Randal'Thor And three out of those fifteen questions reached HNQ.

Rand al'Thor

I've found the answer to your latest question, btw. Just need to transcribe it by hand ...

Tsundoku

Is it one of those I didn't find because I don't use Google?

Rand al'Thor

16:53

Probably. I found it in a book which is on Google Books.

But per-page availability of things on Google Books seems to differ from person to person anyway.

Mithical

17:12

@Tsundoku I'll definitely be posting fewer questions now that lockdown restrictions are lifting and I'm spending less time at home.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical Oh, they're lifting in your country now? Lucky you.

Tsundoku

Here in Germany, lockdown restrictions are being lifted very gradually - except for the compulsory wearing of masks in public transport and supermarkets.

Mithical

@Randal'Thor Yep. And the restrictions are even looser for athletes, which I count as.

Tsundoku

Nobody really checks whether people on buses etc wear masks, but Germans are so law-abiding.

If bookworms were recognised as athletes, I would make it to the Olympics :-P

Rand al'Thor

17:36

@Mithical Well, at least you got your Socratic during the lockdown ;-)

North Læraðr

17:47

@Mithical What;s your sport?

Mithical

I'm a competitive cyclist.

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Bookworm Ironman Challenge?

@Mithical Nice!

I would say I'm in sports, but Marching Band counting as sports is rather a ... controversial topic

How do you do like the text link in chat?

Mithical

Huh?

North Læraðr

You know, a URL that's within a text

Mithical

A link?

North Læraðr

17:52

Yea

Mithical

[text](URL)

North Læraðr

OH, it that simple

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical That doesn't work.

Mithical

Apparently it doesn't work with /u/.

Rand al'Thor

Needs the full users not just u.

North Læraðr

17:53

Like my ~~least favorite user~~

huh

Rand al'Thor

Oh, got it within the 2-minute limit, nice.

Mithical

--- on the other side of the parentheses

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Need to put the --- around both parts of the link.

North Læraðr

ah

COOL

Click here to (insert random spam message)

I'm so mature :)

Mithical

I recognize that URL. ;)

Rand al'Thor

17:56

Nah, you've gotta hide it better than that.

North Læraðr

@Mithical wow, you've been rickrolled that many times to the point you recognize the URL?

Mithical

You should try stackoverfIow.com/q/638464/46396484.

Tsundoku

See markdown in the Chat FAQ.

North Læraðr

@Mithical You might have a typo?

Mithical

@NorthLæraðr Indeed

@NorthLæraðr There is no typo, just an annoying security certificate that ruins the joke

North Læraðr

17:59

@Mithical Welp school laptop just blocked whatever site you were trying to send me to soooo

woah

that's sick

Mithical

In any case, you should see the old TSL transcripts from when I was constantly trying to rickroll Rubio while destroying spammers.

North Læraðr

AHAHAHAHAHA

Tsundoku

TSL?

North Læraðr

The Sphinx's Lair

Mithical

The Sphinx's Lair

General discussion for puzzling.stackexchange.com

6

North Læraðr

18:00

The chatroom for Puzzling SE

Mithical

chat.stackexchange.com/…

North Læraðr

Which honestly should be retitled "The C4 chatroom + Avi's consciousness" at this point

Tsundoku

@Mithical I see. You never gave him up, never let him down ;-)

Mithical

:)

North Læraðr

I remember the days when Rubio tried so hard to hammer out those spammers

Mithical

18:03

Yep, we'd tag-team: I'd search them out and he'd destroy them

North Læraðr

I've talked so much here, I've gotten the Outspoken badge

@Mithical I was the little sidekick that occasionally helped

Tsundoku

I remember the days when "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played on the radio.

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku You're old

Tsundoku

@NorthLæraðr No, I have a good memory :-P

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Well I was never alive when that song would play on the radio

I'm pretty sure

Tsundoku

18:05

@NorthLæraðr That's what I guessed ;-)

Mithical

Released... 1987. My parents were teenagers.

North Læraðr

I like to think of myself as a tree, but I suspect I might be a little sapling.

Tsundoku

Even a redwood starts as a sapling.

North Læraðr

~~Explains why haven't been cut down yet~~

@Tsundoku Yeah, and even a Rand al'Thor starts at 1 rep

Rand al'Thor

> The Stack Exchange turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving newbies who become users. Users rise to regulars, but even regulars should never have forgotten the Age that gave them birth.

Tsundoku

18:09

Unless he started at 101 because he had sufficient reps elsewhere when he joined Lit SE.

Rand al'Thor

On the whole network, though.

Mithical

@Randal'Thor At this point, I think it's the wheel that's forgotten what gave it birth....

Tsundoku

Sure.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

(Try saying that five times fast.)

Tsundoku

As long as nobody breaks the wheel while conquering the world.

Mithical

18:10

@NorthLæraðr Rand's not even in the top 100 on the network yet. ;P

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Little cheater

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical I noticed recently that egreg has passed 1 million total network rep.

That makes three that I know of: Skeet, Gilles, and egreg.

Mithical

Chat makes that easy to check.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical That's where I check, but it doesn't work if the user's chat profile hasn't updated in a while.

E.g. VonC (last post 3192d ago) now has more than the listed 959k.

Ditto Hans Passant.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I spent like ten minutes trying to find this message

in The Sphinx's Lair, Feb 12 '18 at 1:03, by Rand al'Thor

^ even I was new once ;-)

Kind of hard to imagine that

Rand al'Thor

18:21

@NorthLæraðr Did you find this one too?

in The Sphinx's Lair, Nov 4 '16 at 13:14, by Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr I constantly remember it: it helps me to be understanding with new users.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Oh that's ironic, that's definitely NOT my birthday :P

Rand al'Thor

Same thing in real life with teaching: remembering when I was a student helps me to understand the situations and points of view of students, and what/how they might have difficulty learning.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Mm.

On a different note, it would be so weird if I found out one of teachers is on SE

Talking to my teacher without even realizing...?

That's awkward

Rand al'Thor

I've occasionally seen people on SE that I'd also met in real life.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I have yet to

ACtully I got my friend to join once but he never really got into it

Rand al'Thor

18:28

And on one memorable occasion, saw another SE mod in a pub just around the corner from my home.

North Læraðr

oh, that's hilariious

Mithical

I was supposed to meet up with Yaakov Ellis, but the Israeli military messed that up. ;)

Rand al'Thor

Oh, is he down there too? Somehow I thought he was in the US.

SE has a lot of remote employees. Probably makes the Covid lockdown relatively easy for them.

North Læraðr

I'm so sad I can't play codenames on discord uyosbusdb

Rand al'Thor

Uyo's bus database?

That is, indeed, a discordant code name.

North Læraðr

18:34

Har har

Mithical

@NorthLæraðr Why can't you?

Tsundoku

We reached more than 5,000 visitors on our site today, the highest number I have ever seen here.

Tsundoku

19:00

Anyway, I'm out of here - need to do some shopping.

Rand al'Thor

For books? ;-)

North Læraðr

20:10

@Mithical Personal laptop is broken

School laptop blocks discord

Timelimit on phone

Mithical

I see.

North Læraðr

And bc of the whole coronavirus, getting it repaired is not exactly a practical option

I might just buy a monitor, since the only thing that's not working is the screen

It might be cheaper that way instead of repairing it

*used monitor

North Læraðr

20:25

Yeah nvm it's prob just cheaper to get it fixed

Bookworm

20:51

0

Q: Were there really such camps in India as attempts to prevent overpopulation?

Content warning: the story, and this question, concern implied mutilation. In R. K. Narayan's short story "The Edge", which I read as part of his 1982 collection Malgudi Days, the knife sharpener Ranga is picked up by a friendly man in a car painted with "TWO WILL DO, a propaganda for birth cont...

short-stories historical-context r-k-narayan

Rand al'Thor

21:05

Do we really need both historical-context and historical-accuracy tags? It seems like the latter is a subset of the former, and it's often hard to know which one to use.

North Læraðr

21:25

Hmm

If there is a question about historical-accuracy, it would seem that historical-context would be tagged as well

@Randal'Thor I think we should merge the two, and update the historical context tag to include "historical-accuracy" but I don't know how others feel.

Rand al'Thor

That was my thinking too.

North Læraðr

should it be tag synonyms are just outright deleted?

Tag synonyms might make it confusing?

But it would direct question with historial-accuracy to historical-context

Rand al'Thor

21:49

Well, there's a few ways.
(1) Synonymising without merging: questions tagged [historical-accuracy] stay that way but any future questions with that tag will be mapped to [historical-context].
(2) Merge-synonymisation: all those questions are tagged just [historical-context] and anyone typing "historical accuracy" in the tag box in future will get [historical-context].
(3) Merging without synonymising: all existing questions are tagged just [historical-context] but people may not find that tag in future by typing "historical accuracy".

Option 1 is a bit confusing, but it's the only one that can be done without a mod.

Napoleon Wilson

22:03

@Tsundoku Uh...my preferred radio channel still plays that regularly, and they're dead serious about it.

Bookworm

23:55

0

Q: What does the last line of the poem "Managed Diversity" mean?

I wonder if anybody could you help me to understand the last line of the poem “Managed diversity”, written by Daniel Borzutzky: “The global economy brightens my room with the surveillance of my rotten asset” The focus here is on the motive or the circumstance? Motive = The surveillance is the...

meaning poetry

The Sphinx's Lair

Transcript for