The Reading Room

verbose

00:07

@Mithical Yes, I've found Ursula LeGuin a bit heavy too. I'm relying on a very small sample though

@bobble No

@Randal'Thor heh well I have read the short story in question (in fact I first came across the phrase there) so ...

@Randal'Thor wow! That's jaw-dropping

Tsundoku

@bobble That's a guide for Stack Overflow employees, isn't it? Not for us.

bobble

Mostly, yes

No way they can enforce the "American English" bit everywhere

Tsundoku

00:23

Those guidelines even say Write for a 7th grade reading level. That's meaningless if you aren't familiar with the American educational system.

verbose

Ofc someone downvoted the Myra Breckinridge question. I've no idea who but it's pretty easy to guess why.

Tsundoku

That apparently happened just 30 minutes ago.

verbose

I noticed it last night, actually. I think you're looking at the daily vote summaries, which are posted at 00:00 UTC

Tsundoku

Then I misread the vote summaries. And I share your suspicion about the reason for the downvote.

verbose

00:54

Is it time for @bobble to cast one of her soporific spells on @Tsundoku?

Tsundoku

Haha, that seems to be what is needed :-)

bobble

Shall I?

sprinkles dust in a circle

tsundoku must sleep, tsundoku must sleep, TSUNDOKU MUST SLEEEEEEEEEEP

there that should work

Tsundoku

ZZZZzzzzz....

Alex

Moderators sleep?

verbose

@Alex not of their own free will, they don't. Which is why bobble has to cast spells to enable them to rest, for their own health and sanity.

Alex

01:06

Moderators have free will?

Perhaps I should become one.

verbose

@Alex Good point. In which case I'd say, they don't, they just do whatever bobble tells them to, and for their own health and sanity, she tells them to sleep sometimes.

You're gonna ask whether moderators have sanity, aren't you

Alex

Moderators have sanity?

bobble

Rand has free will, at least - he wakes up while I'm sound asleep

Alex

@verbose You just met me yesterday (I think) but you already seem to know me well.

bobble

bobble will dinner now

verbose

01:09

@Alex well, hanging out in Lit SE enables one to read quickly 🙃

Enjoy your dinner @bobble!

Alex

I guess I have to hang here more often.

But I can't ask new questions until my existing ones get answered.

bobble

01:31

Why the ever not, kind sir?

Alex

@bobble I'm mostly joking.

Though it doesn't look so good to have so many unanswered questions.

bobble

I make up for it by answering other people's questions

Sorta silly, but this recent answer-spree was a challenge to myself to hit 15 answers, after which I would start posting The Lusiads questions

Alex

I like that. How about for every unanswered question you post you have to post five answers to counteract it?

I owe ten answers then.

bobble

Ah, too hard for me. I just try to stay neutral. One answer to an Unanswered question for every Unanswered question I have.

I call it my "net Unanswered score"

Alex

Oddly enough, this is the only site on the network where my number of answers and questions are about the same.

(Not counting sites where I only have one or two.)

bobble

01:45

I have more questions than answers on Puzzling, but those puzzles take a lot of effort to make.

Alex

Why is there nowhere to see total network questions and answers?

I have to look at each of my accounts separately if I want to calculate it.

bobble

You can see all your "good" (+5, I think) questions and answers on your network profile

stackexchange.com/users/9279508/alex

Alex

But it doesn't tell me how many.

I want to see something like Total Network Questions: 156 Total Network Answers:1,549

Never mind.

You can figure it out quickly enough from the Accounts tab.

bobble

You might be able to whip something up with the Data Explorer, it supports network-wide queries: meta.stackexchange.com/a/333148

Alex

Wow, my guess was pretty close! 197 questions and 1,483 answers.

bobble

01:55

Do you do much moderation work here? Commenting, flagging, editing, closing, voting, etc.

Alex

A little. Mostly on other sites, though.

bobble

I help moderate Puzzling and here, it takes up more time than is probably wise :P

Alex

There are certainly worse things you could be doing.

For a while I didn't even realize I had close and edit privileges here.

These things sneak up on you.

bobble

I have been told it was very noticeable once I got editing privileges

Alex

On one site I got close voting privileges from my first question.

Gotta love Hot Network Questions.

bobble

02:07

A beta site, I assume

Alex

On Beta sites.

Association bonus plus 40 upvotes is all you need.

bobble

One of my earliest questions here stands at +21

Alex

My top question here is only at +20

I guess you win.

verbose

03:41

@Alex well, I answered one, so there 😛

@bobble oh it was

(and that's a good thing)

verbose

04:41

@Alex and a second one.

So with the exception of the answer I just posted, all your questions here have at least one upvoted and/or accepted answer.

bobble

why don't you do mine ^^

Two of my questions (first, second) have sorta been answered in comments already.

verbose

When I read Alex's unanswered questions I thought of an answer immediately. I don't have the same luck with the two questions you've posed, sadly! I wouldn't know what answers to give. If you think the commenters aren't going to be back, you could self-answer by expanding the comments?

bobble

04:57

Part of the problem of Literature is the answerers and the askers need to have overlap, and some of my questions (the ones on Rose Under Fire, for example) seem to have no available answerers here.

Which is sad, it's a great book

verbose

@bobble yes, I agree

I think that's one reason our topic challenges are more successful if we choose lyric poetry rather than novels or other long works. Picking up an epic to read takes commitment, whereas reading short poems can be done more easily. So there are potentially more readers who can ask questions.

bobble

Good night, dearest verbose. I must away to dreamland

verbose

@bobble Good night!

Mithical

@Alex not always *rolls eyes*

Bookworm

07:34

0

Q: Book about a girl who was rich and moves in with a family where she learns how to bake and make silk

I'm looking for a book that is about a girl who seems to have been rich at one time and has to move in with a family where she learns how to do chores and baking from scratch and making silk out of silk worms. She falls in love with the son of one of the parents. It seems to be a story about the ...

identification-request

Rand al'Thor

Echoing @user14111's comment, is this question about the GLC series as a whole or about The Count of Monte Cristo specifically? Maybe you should edit the title or expand the question to make them match better. (Personally I'd suggest making it about the specific book, since there might be different reasons for the changes across different books ...) — Rand al'Thor ♦ Oct 28 '18 at 9:36

I just noticed now that for some reason I abbreviated Great Illustrated Classics as G L C.

I could silently mod-abuse a comment edit, of course, but may as well give @Alex the pleasure of needling me about it :-)

Tsundoku

10:29

@Alex In that case, I would owe 666 answers.

Alex

10:58

@Randal'Thor I hadn’t noticed it until now, but it’s definitely something to needle you about.

@verbose Both now, thanks.

I guess advertising in Chat works after all.

Tsundoku

12:08

Prompted by the comments on Is burning a theme in Jude the Obscure? I have expanded the tag wiki excerpts for theme and motif. Please have a look. CC @Randal'Thor @verbose

Bookworm

14:18

0

Q: Follow up Poetry to the Raven

Not sure if this is an appropriate question for this forum. I did not see any rules against it, so apologies if I have inadvertently committed a grave transgression here. My 6-year-old has enjoyed hearing me recite the Raven. It has a great rhythm and rhyme, and she finds the archaic language int...

poetry

bobble

14:47

Nice numbers!

@Bookworm Recommendation request, VTC

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku A beastly debt to pay off indeed.

bobble

Hello, dear moderators

Tsundoku

Hello, dear bobble!

bobble

I only got one ping overnight from here - I expected more of y'all :P

Tsundoku

You put a spell on me. What else could you expect ;-)

Rand al'Thor

14:52

@bobble more pings (can get several from the same message if you like)

bobble

There we go

Tsundoku

@bobble and a pong (for better balance).

bobble

I'm giggling

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku Nice. Now there's probably some retagging to do :-)

@Tsundoku Pooh, who made a smell in here?

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor I can add some 乒乓球。

bobble

14:55

2

Q: Are birds a theme of Enrique Villasis's poetry, and why?

Enrique Villasis is a Filipino poet, and every poem of his that I've found is something to do with birds: Birds in Flight, 1965 Birds of Paradise, 1965 Birdman, 1973, and White Bird Dark Shadow, 1962 (all links are to webpages including English translations of these poems originally in Filipino...

poetry motif enrique-villasis filipino-literature

"theme" in the title, motif in the tags

Tsundoku

Aisling Bea: To me, ping pong looks like two perverts spanking a ghost.

Rand al'Thor

I see you're quite the fan of these sceptred isles' comedians.

Tsundoku

@bobble Since I am not familiar with the author's work, birds may be a theme or a used as a motif.

bobble

In my dream last night, I browsed a library and picked out a Redwall book to read. Perhaps this is a sign.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor I wonder if the UK has the highest rate of comedians-to-population ratio.

Tangentially related: for a long time I was under the impression that there were more comedies among Shakespeare's plays than in all of German literature.

@bobble So you picked a Redwall book from a wall of books? Fortunately, the librarians didn't stonewall you.

Rand al'Thor

15:02

@Tsundoku Especially Glasgow and Liverpool, perhaps.

Of course Aisling Bea isn't from the UK.

Mithical

@Alex oh definitely not.

Alex

@Mithical It’s not meant to be easy.

Tsundoku

Feb 14 at 14:59, by Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Heh :-) And I'm not posting any new questions until I have twice as many answers than questions.

Alex

That’s the spirit.

bobble

That would take me 29 more answers D:

Alex

15:14

@bobble It’s probably a sign that you’ve had Redwall on your mind.

Tsundoku

@bobble s/D:/:D

bobble

D: D: D:

bobble

18:26

I got accepted to a second university over the weekend, and something has broken in my brain - now I'm checking my portals every day, worrying and worrying over the remaining applications.

b_jonas

18:51

@bobble Have you got a reply from the university that would be your first choice?

bobble

Yes; that was a rejection

Tsundoku

22:39

I'm going to totally shock @bobble by going to bed before midnight without a soporific spell.

bobble

gasp

Mark Giraffe

I read my homework...

I was told to build another header...

bobble

?

Mark Giraffe

I have some room where I have my headers. Not giving the link however because I'm not supposed to advertise.

bobble

You realize this is still advertising, right?

Also, why are you so enamored with making designs? Already got one room frozen over inviting random people over.

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