The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Marvin

02:05

0

Q: Whatever Happened to Jones From Aliens [Updated]

There was a question years ago about what happened to Jones the cat in Alien. A woman named Anne Billson wrote a short story about it. But the story is kind of difficult to find without buying a very expensive book. I found the audio version of the story online after looking everywhere. It was re...

Marvin

02:56

1

Q: Has anyone ever acknowledged this interpretation of the name of the Galactica?

Before Edwin Hubble discovered the true distance to objects such as the Andromeda "Nebula", it was widely believed that all the stars in the universe were contained within the Milky Way, which was named for its appearance in the night sky as a light-colored band resembling a swath of spilled milk...

names battlestar-galactica

Babel fish

03:11

0

Q: Period book, need to find link between Anna and Amber

Doing some research for school. I have been asked the question what is the link between the name Anna and Amber? The clue that I've been given is it has something to do with period literature. Possibilities can be, both Anna and Amber are characters in a period book. Or it could be a book written...

identification-request

Marvin

03:46

0

Q: Book where a spacefaring crew lands on a planet with ruins of a high tech civilization, including a great maze containing deadly beasts

I want to identify the author of a book. The title of the book was "the devil planet" or that with minor grammatical variations. Unfortunately, there are several books with this type of title. It is certainly dated earlier than 1980, perhaps than 1970. It could be earlier. It was science fiction,...

story-identification books ancient-races

Marvin

05:52

0

Q: I am trying to find a fiction book I once read

It was about 2 Greek Couple cursed by a deity and a satanic being. Basically, the man was cursed to be immortal and the girl reincarnates to different animals. It was a Greek Mythology. Details I remember: The woman turned into a maggot, eagle, dolphine etc. There was a war and the man killed an...

books greek-myth myth-adventures

DavidW

13:11

@Spencer Well, it picks the most-voted reason unless there's a tie. In this case there were 4 close-voters who picked "opinion-based" so that's how it was closed.

TheLethalCarrot

13:33

I mean it's opinion based, off topic and too broad at the very least

AncientSwordRage

13:54

@TheLethalCarrot AKA very bad

DavidW

@TheLethalCarrot Not to mention bad science. :)

After all, an infinitely fast computer makes a literal Maxwell's Demon possible, so it basically destroys physics.

AncientSwordRage

14:10

@DavidW the second (?) law of thermodynamics is just observational though

that is, there isn't (AFAIK) a reason for it exist besides statistics

there're some nano-systems that violate it

DavidW

Ah, I guess you're right.

Well, I think it's a first law violation, though, as it would be actively anti-entropic, not just entropy-preserving.

AncientSwordRage

c.f. recent progress

DavidW

(I always keep the laws of thermodynamics straight using the punchline of an old joke: "You can't win; you can't break even; you can't even get out of the game.")

Interesting. I'll need to read that in more detail when I'm not supposed to be in a meeting. :)

b_jonas

14:46

@DavidW See irregularwebcomic.net/431.html

DavidW

14:57

Like I said, it's an old joke. :)

And of course there's the follow-on: "Did you know that most major political systems are based on denying one of the laws of thermodynamics? Democracy is based on the premise that you can win. Communism is based on the philosophy that you can break even. Theocracy is based on the idea that you can get out of the game."

AncientSwordRage

15:14

@b_jonas Talking about Coruscant: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/198222/…

DavidW

It's interesting how world-cities fell out of favour with everyone dissing on Lucas' Trantor-expy. The major complaints are (primarily) overheating and (secondarily) inability to ship in sufficient resources. But nobody ever seemed to think past passive cooling; SW technology (at least) is certainly up to the task of actively cooling a planet.

AncientSwordRage

I've never heard of trantor

or of anyone having issues with cooling Coruscant...

DavidW

@AncientSwordRage Hisssss!!!

AncientSwordRage

15:30

@DavidW so it's a city full of snakes?

DavidW

@AncientSwordRage It's a thing: irregularwebcomic.net/396.html

@AncientSwordRage To a certain approximation I'm not sure that's wrong...

Marvin

0

Q: Why did "Finn" defect from the First Order?

So, It seems really weird that Finn was kidnapped as a baby and then groomed to become a First Order solider, and when he goes on his first (correct me if i'm wrong) combat mission, one of his buddies dies and he just chickens out. Is there any canonical material showing Finn's training or why he...

star-wars

AncientSwordRage

@DavidW I mean, sure it's a challenge, but not an insurmountable one

ancient passive cooling systems can be very advanced

Passive cooling

Passive cooling is a building design approach that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building in order to improve the indoor thermal comfort with low or no energy consumption. This approach works either by preventing heat from entering the interior (heat gain prevention) or by removing heat from the building (natural cooling). Natural cooling utilizes on-site energy, available from the natural environment, combined with the architectural design of building components (e.g. building envelope), rather than mechanical systems to dissipate heat. Therefore, natural cooling depends...

Modern people just went: AC goes BRRRRRR and ignored these solutions

Jenayah

Poke @Mithical who I think is the resident expert on Percy Jackson stuff (at least the one I know about). Does it feel to you that the percy-jackson tag's info should be updated to talk about the series as a whole and not the character?

At least that's how it seems to be used...

DavidW

No, the problem goes way beyond that. You can't passively cool a planet by anything other than black-body radiation. So every Joule of insolation, work done, etc. needs to be radiated into space.

AncientSwordRage

15:45

@DavidW can't you effectively heat the air? Or conduct the heat into underground reservoirs?

also I don't know where the heating calculations come from...

DavidW

Only until you turn the air into plasma and melt the crust.

AncientSwordRage

well thats the heating and cooling problem solved

no more population, no more heating

DavidW

Well, each person is going to need at least a modest energy budget just to have light, computers, food preparation, transportation, etc. Say 1kW/person. Corruscant canonically has trillions of people, so we're talking teraWatts of heat that need to be radiated into space (in addition to energy gains from insolation).

AncientSwordRage

insolation gains can be partially mitigated

relevant: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_heat#Anthropogenic_heat

> The American Meteorological Society defines it as "Heat released to the atmosphere as a result of human activities, often involving combustion of fuels. Sources include industrial plants, space heating and cooling, human metabolism, and vehicle exhausts. In cities this source typically contributes 15–50 W/m2 to the local heat balance, and several hundred W/m2 in the center of large cities in cold climates and industrial areas."

DavidW

Sorry, not teraWatts. PetaWatts.

AncientSwordRage

15:55

area of earth X heat estimate per m^2 = 5.101×10^16 W

DavidW

@Marvin I'm tempted to use Darths&Droids to "explain" this too. :) It makes so much more sense than the movies do...

AncientSwordRage

thats just a ballpark from using 100 W/m^2

DavidW

Anyway, I'm not really interested in going into the details of it again; it was just a random thought that occurred to me in response to b_jonas' bringing it up.

For which I have been adequately punished. :)

AncientSwordRage

It's an interesting comment!

DavidW

@Jenayah Certainly right now the question that's tagged percy-jackson and magnus-chase is odd, based on their respective usage.

AncientSwordRage

16:03

@DavidW are they set in the same same universe?

DavidW

I think we need a universe tag, so that percy-jackson can be specific to the 3 Camp Half-Blood series.

@AncientSwordRage That's my understanding.

AncientSwordRage

do we need a rick-riordan tag or a riordanverse tag?

DavidW

I hate riordanverse, but in a way that means it's perfect.

AncientSwordRage

Other suggestions are percyverse or jacksonville

Cereal Bot

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Trolley

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AncientSwordRage

16:16

Mithical

16:30

Re: PJO tags

There should ideally be several series tags and an overall universe tag

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical agreed

Rand al'Thor

@Mithical What should the overall universe tag be called?

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical do you like the sound of riordanverse

Mithical

@AncientSwordRage That works.

AncientSwordRage

YAY

I'm guessing Percyverse and Jacksonville wouldn't work

Rand al'Thor

16:33

<prancing ferret gif>

@AncientSwordRage :-D

Mithical

Personally, though, I'd make the Percy Jackson tag the universe tag and forget about a character tag.

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical that doesn't feel right to me

Rand al'Thor

@AncientSwordRage Works for harry-potter.

AncientSwordRage

I can see why, because it's unlikely for percy jackson to appear elsewhere

Rand al'Thor

I think a potterverse tag has been proposed on meta and never took off.

AncientSwordRage

16:34

@Randal'Thor I like it

Mithical

Have individual PJO, HoO, KC, MC, and ToA tags, with a general PJ tag as the universe because that's what people call it. (Riordanverse is also used but less common.)

Also... I dislike character tags :P

Rand al'Thor

@AncientSwordRage Me too actually, but harry-potter has kind of stuck by now.

I think it's OK to have tag names which are more used by fans/experts even if they might be less familiar to casual viewers.

As we do for tolkiens-legendarium.

So potterverse would be fine in my book.

But ...

-9

Q: Should we change [harry-potter] to [potter-verse]?

Should we change harry-potter to potter-verse? Reason(s) for: I feel that doing so removes the confusion about character tags, in that we're not asking about "Harry Potter" the character, we're asking about the body of work or the whole fictional universe / franchise. Looks neater Reason(s) ...

discussion tags

-5

Q: Do we want to create a new Wizarding World tag?

As of 12th March 2018, the Potterverse has a new name for the whole Harry Potter franchise - Wizarding World. This term covers the whole range of Harry Potter media, not just the original seven books. Do we want to create a new tag [wizarding-world] as the new catch-all tag for questions set in...

discussion tags

DavidW

@Randal'Thor I object; that should be reserved for The Tale of Peter Rabbit and following.

Rand al'Thor

@DavidW Fair :-D

The Tale of Potter Rabbit, a rabbit with a distinctive facial mark who takes on the Dark Lord and ultimately wins. No, wait, that's Watership Down.

2

Mithical

Or a riordanverse tag with a synonym percy-jackson-universe, so that it shows up when people type Percy Jackson in the tag box.

AncientSwordRage

16:38

@Mithical I think that's as close to perfect as we'll get

Rand al'Thor

I did a spoonerism variant to get Paccy Jerkson and now I can't unsee it ...

Mithical

Thanks, Mr. D.

AncientSwordRage

@Randal'Thor thats not a spoonerism... not sure what it is. Should be: Jarcy Perkson

Is there even a question that needs this tag?

Mithical

@AncientSwordRage suddenly questions about a random city in Florida start showing up

AncientSwordRage

@Mithical Good ol' Percyverse, FL

googling percyverse brings up actual hits for that world

Mithical

16:45

Anyway, my fingers are too cold to be typing, so I'll check back in in a couple hours.

AncientSwordRage

trends.google.com/trends/…

Rand al'Thor

@AncientSwordRage Spoonerism variant. Not swapping the first letters of the words but some other bits instead.

Rord al'Than.

AncientSwordRage

@Randal'Thor It's something funny at least :D

Marvin

17:16

1

Q: Where is it specifically stated that the T'au could be easily defeated by every other race in 40k?

There is an almost universally accepted notion in the Warhammer 40k community that the extermination of the T'au would be a trivial matter for any of the other races so much so that not one believes it's worth the effort or they're too busy fighting amongst each other to bother. Which is "said" t...

warhammer-40k

AncientSwordRage

@Marvin It's a numbers game

every other major 40k race probably outnumbers the Tau by several orders of magnitude

Jenayah

17:36

@Mithical who isn't for forgetting about character tags?

AncientSwordRage

@Jenayah Hmm, not sure I am?

Do characters exist outside of their universe?

Hoid is a good example

Marvin

0

Q: Are parents of muggleborns kept informed on what's happening in Hogwarts?

There are a lot of casualties happening in Hogwarts on a regular basis. Sometimes serious enough for parents to visit. But it seems like only wizards get to be aware of what is happening to their children in the school. As discussed in the relative question, it is possible for muggle parents to c...

harry-potter hogwarts

Jack B Nimble

19:32

@Marvin No one really cares unless an influential parent makes a big stink because of their bratty kid.

DavidW

So, kind of like a real school then.

Jack B Nimble

I would say Hogwarts is more dangerous than the average school. They do have the advantage of magical healing though.

Marvin

0

Q: Is Artemis Batman's niece?

In the time stamp of 04:42 and 05:13, Artemis' mom says something that shocks me, she said as she was in jail for her time as Huntress, she lost one daughter... but when she said Huntress, Researched to see if i was correct and i believe i am, after looking at Huntress (DC Comics), I learn that s...

dc young-justice

Jack B Nimble

20:15

If these easy DC questions keep coming up maybe I will get a gold badge out of it.

I already have the score, just need the 200 answers.

DavidW

20:51

@JackBNimble There's another one queued up for you...

Jack B Nimble

Not a particularly good question.

DavidW

The last one was better?! You're getting squeamish now? :D

Marvin

0

Q: Why doesn't The DEO (Supergirl-2015) actually instruct recruits?

In the 17th episode of season 1, Alex asks J'onn Jonzz When will I be ready? to which he responds When you can beat me. This is also shown in the first episode of the 4th season when Alex is training Jensen. She doesn't appear to actually instruct him, she just says Let's dance. and when Je...

dc arrowverse supergirl-2015

0

Q: What can Amy mean in this dialogue?

Continuing my quest of translating Doctor Who, in "The God complex" I encountered a piece of dialogue which I can really understand. In the farewell scene at the end, Amy says Well, I think this is about the washing up, personally. What can that mean?

doctor-who language-explanation amy-pond

Jack B Nimble

21:15

@DavidW Fortunately my answers only have to be good enough to not get deleted.

xkcd

22:15

I'm actually not sure if Vader and the Emperor count as a household or if Vader lives in that weird black egg thing or what.

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The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…