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2:21 AM
Okay. Who wants to discuss Hemingway, Stoker, Mary Shelley or Philippa Gregory?
in Mos Eisley, 3 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor
@steelersquirrel Sure you do! You can chat about Hemingway ... or, well, anything else that's written. Surely you don't only watch screens ;-)
in Mos Eisley, 2 hours ago, by steelersquirrel
@Randal'Thor And anytime that I bring up Hemingway, nobody is really interested. I just don't know a lot of other authors that well. I know a little bit about Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, but it just doesn't appear that they are the types of authors that people want to discuss in there. I tried bringing up Philippa Gregory once and just got crickets ;). It's not a big deal, it's just that I don't have anything else to contribute to chat over there.
I am attempting to start an on-topic chat in here at the urging of Rand... ;)
3:08 AM
@steelersquirrel Hemingway is on-topic on Scifi?
@Hamlet Well, no. We were just discussing how this room likes to stay on-topic.
I was just telling Rand that that's why I don't come around here anymore, because I really don't have a lot of stuff to contribute. I am always in The Screening room or Mos Eisley just because it's idle chatter and we pretty much just talk about whatever.
@steelersquirrel I can talk about Hemingway if we're talking about race/gender/hunting, but then I'm going to get really political.
@Hamlet Hmmmm...well, he is one of my favorite authors. It's not because I like him as a person, but I just like his story telling abilities.
@steelersquirrel meaning to re-read Frankenstein for many diff reasons
3:13 AM
I know that he was an avid hunter and he treated his wives like crap. I don't have anything against hunting. My entire family hunts and fishes. But, he was kind of an ass IRL.
@steelersquirrel don't know anything about Gregory or Stoker
@Hamlet Gregory mainly writes historical fiction focusing on the Tudor dynasty. And Stoker is well...the author of Dracula. He had an interesting life, though.
@steelersquirrel (ugh author intentions): I consider Hemingway's personal life to be irrelevant to Hemingway's portrayals of gender, race, and hunting in his books, which is what I'm interested in.
@Hamlet What exactly are you interested in?
IDK, anything specific you want to talk about RE: Hemingway or Shelly?
3:16 AM
Haha! Not really. They are just the only authors that I know somewhat about. That's what I was trying to explain to Rand earlier on the reason that I just don't know what to talk about in here ;)
IDK, it's not a crime if you don't participate in [chat room x], even if you have friends who like [chat room x]
Most of the time we talk about (a) book recommendations (b) weird site policy things
Or @BESW and I getting into conversations
@BESW have I ever sent you this link? ux1.eiu.edu/~cftde/3703S01/playingreview.html
There's a reason why people can create new rooms.
Of course! It just came up as a topic today in the sci-fi chatroom, so I was just explaining why I'm not around here anymore. It's no big deal at all. Every site has their own rules. No worries :)
@steelersquirrel people need to learn to promote the site outside of the Stack Exchange network.
@Hamlet Hmmmm...I don't really know who to promote it to. My sister is a teacher and an avid Poe fan. I got her to answer one of Rand's questions over here not too long ago. SE is just not really her thing and she doesn't have a lot of time to devote to it.
Well, I'm outta here. See you later :)
1 hour later…
4:47 AM
Have just received wonderful fan mail from 8yr-old boy, who tells me he doesn't like to read but he liked Harriet because she is not boring.
@Hamlet It's on my reading list.
Re: chat topicality. Over on RPG General Chat, it works pretty well to be able to talk about just about anything so long as we're Being Nice, but to have a side chat which serves as a pressure valve based on two guidelines:
> - If somebody wants to talk about RPGs, then any non-RPG discussion moves to the side chat.
- If anyone calls for a discussion to move to the side chat for any reason, it moves with no questions asked and no need to justify the request.
In rare cases where recurring patterns have been identified, a small handful of topics may get moved to the side chat preemptively.
This lets us be free-ranging without talking over the top of each other, losing the chat's primary focus, or creating topical cul-de-sac chats which inevitably wither and die.
5:14 AM
@BESW the Harriet books are fantastic.
So, I finished Digger tonight. That was also a super fantastic story. Although a couple bits made me cry.
@BESW I don't think it's been a problem, but if it does, sounds like a good plan.
Q: Would this be a story-ID question or a resource request?

Rand al'ThorI have an ID question about a particular short story I heard on the radio. I remember the whole plot of the story and a lot of verbatim quotes from it. I also think I remember the title of the story, and if I'm right, then I've found a reference to it and its author online. But I'm not 100% certa...

Q: Promoting the site outside of the Stack Exchange network

HamletWhat are some strategies for promoting the site outside of the Stack Exchange network?

5:57 AM
@Librarian @Hamlet Twitter? Social networks? Give bounties to people with "Announcer" badges, I can't see that ever backfiring.
2 hours later…
7:28 AM
@Librarian hrm. Thinking about ways...
@Randal'Thor but - but - but my Fanatic badge says 92!
2 hours later…
9:09 AM
@Librarian Share things on any social media you have followers on that might be interested. Find established groups that might have an interest (Reddit, other forums or communities), share content there. Unfortunately there isn't a real magic bullet for this stuff. And sometimes it takes a long time to start getting Google traffic for this stuff.
Especially for things like this, where they're not the sorts of things people necessarily will be googling for every day
adds to todo list: create a Lit.SE curated Twitter account
@Mithrandir let me know if I can help with that or when you create it, and I will totally see if I can get any of the author types I follow to peek at it. Mind you it's a lot of romance stuff so I don't know how successful I'd be, but it would be fun to follow anyhow!
9:24 AM
Sure, I'll ping you. Might give some volunteers access, along with the mods... *thinks*
9:52 AM
I might be coming back soon. I have just had a busy stretch.
@Benjamin good!
@Mithrandir I have still been following the site and voting, but haven't had time to write and ask, or even for that matter read books.
No time to read? :O
1 hour later…
11:22 AM
I wonder who's the most famous 20th century writer who isn't a journalist.
I'm gonna go with JK Rowling.
11:56 AM
@BESW Ah yes, you may be right. She was already famous in the 20th century, I remember when I asked about that in Mos.
12:08 PM
Ah, so you're asking about the non-journalist 20th century writer most famous during the 20th century?
That starts to bring in a lot of extra weird statistical questions like, how do we measure "most famous" over the period of a hundred years? Would a 1990s writer need 9 times as much exposure as a 1910s writer?
@BESW holy crap that's so neat! I feel special!
@BESW haha yeah that's about me right now :)
4 hours later…
5:08 PM
@BESW I suspect that level of organisation is only necessary for larger sites/rooms, and Lit doesn't have the necessary volume to merit it yet.
@Mithrandir Yes, because your Fanatic badge counts the number of distinct UTC days you've logged in to the site, while Area 51 counts ... something else. (I'm not going to waste time trying to understand the mechanics of Area 51 - even the devs have given up :-P )
@Randal'Thor Area 51 is fun. It's one of my favorite tags on Meta.SE.
@Ash Re getting Google traffic: I think that will happen sooner or later even if we don't consciously try for it. SE tends to do well on Google in general. Over on Arts & Crafts I recently got the first Famous Question badge for a question which AFAICT hasn't been especially promoted anywhere - it must simply be a question which a lot of people have and have found via web searches.
1 hour later…
@Shokhet Aww, you break my heart :) blushes
@Gallifreyan No, seriously, I thought it was an amazing answer :D
Still do :)
Although I'm still annoyed at you for killing my other Watchmen question about my Osterman/Manhattan theory (kinda my fault for including that theory in the free will question but whatever)
To be honest, it did take a hell of a lot of work.
@Shokhet Huh? Which one?
@Gallifreyan Whether Manhattan isn't actually a new entity/god/whatever, just a confused human being with more power and knowledge than he knows what to do with
> However, I think it's possible that Manhattan is simply a confused human being with more knowledge and power than he really knows what to do with. I think he's really Jon Osterman underneath his blue skin, but I'm not sure if he thinks that anymore.
And your answer:
> But firstly, he does not see himself as Jon Osterman anymore. Remember the line from Watchmen #12 (emphasis respected):

It didn't kill Osterman... Did you think it would kill me?
> I am not Jon, but Jon became me. His perspective informed me, his perspective--

-- created me? Is that possible?
@Shokhet I was totally going to ask that myself: "Just how much of Jon Osterman is Dr. Manhattan?"
But it seems now I've already answered that :(
6:35 PM
@Gallifreyan Well, you already answered it.
Jinx! :)
@Shokhet We could question it though. He says one thing and does the other, as with "I don't care about life"/"Laurie, I care about life again!"
@Gallifreyan Right. That kind of thinking is present in my free will question -- just because he says he doesn't have choices, that doesn't actually mean that his hands are tied
(and your answer proved that he actually does have choices)
(@Gall's avatar is doing the same thing as the candle/face picture...)
@Shokhet good nomination :)
@Mithrandir Hmm? :)
@Shokhet There was a related question on SFF:
Q: Was Dr. Manhattan actually time blinded by tachyons?

BroklyniteIn Watchmen, towards the end, Dr. Manhattan talks about his joy of being blind to time because of the tachyon emissions, and how exciting it is for him because he had forgotten the joy of not knowing something. But, we also know that he already knows everything that he will say and do, what will...

@Gallifreyan it's switching back and forth >.<
6:39 PM
@Mithrandir Optical illusion? Hehe :)
I was going to write an answer for that, but got too lazy. This one took all my strength (check out all the alt text):
A: Was the first Nite Owl pro- or anti-Dr. Manhattan?

GallifreyanThe original Nite Owl's feelings about Dr. Manhattan are complicated. Firstly, Nite Owl acknowledges Dr. Manhattan's and Watchmen's superiority when it comes to fighting crime. This is seen in the prequel comic series, Before Watchmen: Minutemen (which is narrated by Hollis Mason), issue 6: ...

And now I have a strange urge to eat matza.
@Gallifreyan Interesting. I think I saw that one before (but probably not before asking my free will question)
@Mithrandir You're one of the people that likes the stuff? ...my personal minhag is to stop eating matza almost a year before Pesach :p
@Shokhet of course. It's good with butter and cinnamon and sugar.
And I think the Sfardim are saying Mezonot on it today.
@Mithrandir I'll be in my bunk kitchen
(one day chag ;) )
6:43 PM
@Mithrandir Right. I could have matza brei any time, but no one seems to make it except during Pesach
@Gallifreyan it's leaning towards F I think.
@Gallifreyan Wow, that's a lot of information. Reading it now, but it looks really good
It's hard to find stuff for Watchmen answers, since it's all philosophical and stuff, and I can't keep in mind which series I saw a particular scene in. For 3 hours I thought that retirement dinner scene was in one of the Before Watchmen series; and it was, partly, but not this panel with the talk about electric cars, and not being able to find it drove me crazy, combined with the perspective of having to go through all 12 or so issues of Watchmen to find it.
@Gallifreyan I can understand that
I have it a little easier; right now, all I've read is the original 12 by Alan Moore. I haven't read anything else from that universe yet
@Shokhet Unless you're really interested, there's no need to read it at all. Some of them conflict with Moore's series, and not all contribute significant details to the plot.
Manhattan's story is important, as it is the only one that is not an "origin story" - since we already know his origin from Moore's run. Almost all the others are origin and character development stories (Nite Owl II, Rorschach, Silk Spectre II, Ozymandias, Dollar Bill, even Moloch). Comedian's story is different because it seems to conflict with Moore's canon directly. Minutemen can be read as an origin story as well, but it also has a historical satire tinge to it.
Not saying they're bad though, they explore respective characters in great detail, and I must say - with appropriate style. Rorschach and Comedian were written by Brian Azzarello, who also wrote Joker - which was good.
7:44 PM
I'm not sure if it is a good fit, but I would like to include Humble Book Bundle to our collection of electronic resources:
A: What are some good (legal) resources for finding the text of books?

Rand al'ThorSites which cover many books Project Gutenberg. An excellent resource containing thousands of texts in electronic versions with easily copy-pastable text. They also care about legality: Our ebooks may be freely used in the United States because most are not protected by U.S. copyright law, ...

Can I get some opinions on this?
7:57 PM
@Gallifreyan I see. So that's why you asked before writing an answer based on Before Watchmen?
@Gallifreyan ...thanks for the opinion of the prologues. They weren't very high on my "to read" list, now they're lower down :) ...if I read any, it will probably be Manhattan
@Shokhet Not really - at least Manhattan's solo series does not openly contradict anything from the original series. One could argue that it does, but that deserves a separate question. Mostly, it was because some people are against the prequels (hm, where have I seen that before?) because Moore disapproved of them.
@Shokhet I didn't actually read past first two issues of Comedian though (I don't really like him), so can't offer an opinion on whether it was good/bad/contributional.
Q: Does part four of Doll's House add to the narrative of the volume?

ShokhetThe second volume of The Sandman tells the story of Rose Walker and her relationship with Dream as the vortex of the modern era. While I was reading the volume, I was initially confused about how the prologue (#9 "Tales in the Sand") and Part Four (#13 "Men of Good Fortune") related to the narr...

@Bookworm @Shokhet Oh for Endless' sake, another one?
furiously flips through the book
8:24 PM
@Gallifreyan Ah.
@Gallifreyan There are an Endless amount of questions that one can ask from those books.
@Shokhet A question I'd like to hear the answer to is "What is the importance of Hob Gadling as a character?"
Or rather "What is the symbolism of Hob Gadling?"
Or some variation.
@Gallifreyan If you ask that I think I have an opinion
@Gallifreyan symbolism not as much. I don't really know Britain well enough to say
I can see him being a sort of antithesis of Morpheus, constantly finding new things to explore and never being tired of life.
@Shokhet I've just finished Lucifer. You just wait for those awesome questions.
Literature will drown in blasphemy, e.g. "Could Lucifer have destroyed Yahweh?"
@Gallifreyan Perhaps.I was thinking that he shows how Dreams relationship to humanity changes over time
@Gallifreyan Haven't read those yet. I'm trying to read more classic comics this year
Which reminds me; I have a Killing Joke question to ask
@Shokhet This could be as well. Dream once says to him that he has no friends; but then he visits Hob in his dream and they drink up a bottle of fine wine.
Morpheus was just lonely :'(
8:30 PM
It'll take a lot of picture work, though. It's about the symbolism of certain images
I feel sorry for him: dumped by 5 girls, manipulated into loving most of them.
@Shokhet I have it, just point the pages and panels.
@Gallifreyan in their second to last meeting, he's like "how dare you imply I need friends" but comes back to say "it's rude to keep friends waiting"
@Gallifreyan Oh, thanks! I'll let you know if/when I stay writing that question
@Shokhet Exactly. Did he learn humility in his imprisonment?
@Gallifreyan Oh! I totally missed that the last meeting was after his imprisonment. Duh.
@Shokhet My heart sank - I thought I only had the Russian version of the comic. Turns out the English version was just in another format
8:36 PM
@Gallifreyan 5? Guess I have to read some more. So far, I've only seen Nada and Calliope
@Shokhet By the way, a possible trivial answer to your question: Dream and Hob agreed to meet once a hundred years. Could it be that the exact date happened to be during the main events of Doll's House? It's not that Morpheus had much to do during that time.
@Shokhet I didn't count, so it's ~5.
Now I counted - definitely 5.
@Gallifreyan I hadn't considered that. That could be it
@Shokhet I'd have to get the dates, or at least the seasons to prove this though.
@Gallifreyan I think the comics were supposed to be published in the years that they happened, and I think that Dream and Hob met every century on the '89s. The year is definitely mentioned for "Men of Good Fortune," I'm not sure that it is for the other story(ies) in that volume
@Shokhet It definitely says 1489 for their first meeting.
8:53 PM
@Gallifreyan Great! Now we need to establish the dates for the other parts of the story.
Main events take place 50 years after unity was raped.
Burgess traps Dream in 1916
... And Unity was raped in 1939. All checks up!
@Gallifreyan Okay! Are you planning on writing an answer, then?
@Shokhet Well, now that I've already started...
@Gallifreyan :D
Thank you <3
9:03 PM
@Gallifreyan I think that depends on @Randal'Thor's answer to this:
Do you mean to ask about free resources? I infer from the sites you included in your answer that you were, but I don't see the word "free" in your question (unless I just missed it). Would amazon.com work in an answer? That site satisfies "good," "legal," and "online." — Shokhet Mar 31 at 2:14
@DForck42 beep
@Shokhet heh
Well, there's that:
@Shokhet (Sorry, I must have missed your comment at first.) I think I'd like to focus on free resources if possible, since you can get nearly any book reasonably easily if you're willing to pay for it, and I doubt many people will be willing to spend money just to write answers on SE. But if enough people think a non-free section in the CW answer would be useful, then by all means add one. — Rand al'Thor 1 min ago
@Gallifreyan ^^^
@Shokhet @Randal'Thor So how about Humble Bundle? It's books for ridiculously low prices, plus charity, plus people may read them and ask questions, instead of writing answers. It's also possibly to procure books to write answers, since they have thematic or author-based sells from time to time (right now it's Bandon Sanderson).
9:26 PM
Oh, wait. It doesn't check out:
@Shokhet It says "7 years ago", meaning 1932. Crap.
This is most unfortunate
@Gallifreyan I would create a new answer for cheap sources
@Hamlet Makes sense. I'll get to it tomorrow
9:54 PM
@Gallifreyan (that way if people don't like the idea they can vote it down). (I personally think it's a great idea.)
Wow, I just found a blunt mistake in The Sandman Companion
"Rose's natural ability as a 'dream magnet'" - huh?
10:58 PM
@Mithrandir You should also have your tea with butter, milk, and salt, like Benjamin Malvern.
@Gallifreyan I have nothing against Humble Bundle, but that meta post was designed to be about resources to use for getting quotes easily rather than about getting cheap books.
11:39 PM
Q: Were any of the Asbjørnsen og Moe stories transcribed directly from oral traditions?

Rand al'ThorAsbjørnsen og Moe are the Norwegian answers to the Brothers Grimm, the collectors of what is still considered the definitive volume of Norwegian folk tales. How many of these tales were taken from stories which already existed in written form, and were any of them the first written versions of s...

@Bookworm That was fast.
Should we have separate tags for , , etc., or roll them all together into something like or ?
When you go far enough back into the mists of time (and they did have literature back then), I doubt there was much cultural difference between what are now different countries within Scandinavia.
