The Slacktiverse

(Time Sensitive) Things you can do

The American Red Cross is requesting donations and organizing and coordinating responses to Hurricane Isaac. The Red Cross site also has information on how to find the nearest shelter and the American Humane Society provides information and tips for pet owners in the path of the storm

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Slipping the surly bonds of Earth

The death of Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on the moon, has touched a chord with millions of people. With memories of that moment so recently revived, how would you assess the health and value of space exploration?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



The folks round here do say...

What local customs or superstitions have you found to be unique to where you were born or live now?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Turn the Record Over

Certain songs become maddening after only a few hearings, others (maybe most) get maddening if they're repeated a lot, but others seem to stay good even if you hear them over and over. What songs do you find bear repetition? What qualities do you think make a song bearable or not bearable for repeated hearings?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



An apologetic accomplishment, or just an accomplished apology?

What was the best apology you ever received? How did it change your relationship with the person who made it?

Do you think that formal, official apologies to long-dead victims -- like the ones made by the U.S. government for the internment of Japanese citizens, Pope John Paul II's apology for the condemnation of Galileo, or the British Government's apology for the treatment of Alan Turing -- accomplish anything important?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Private Slang

Many families and other close-knit groups seem to develop a private set of slang that can seem baffling to outsiders. (For example, the designation "Real True XXX" and the welcome "Please don't kill us with sheep" that originated on this site.) What are some of these expressions that you have encountered? Do you think their value in cementing group culture outweighs the possibility of seeming exclusive and tribal?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Drugs and Medicines, Good and Bad

Whether legal or illegal, chemical substances can be potent things. What's the best/worst drug or medication experience you've had? And what laws or principles do you think would best serve everyone's interests as regards that drug or medication?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Neither A Borrower Nor A Lender Be

The library community has been struggling with the increasing demand for e-books among their patrons. Wildly inflated prices (often ten times what consumers pay), severe restrictions, and outright refusal to loan by many publishers has led libraries to slash budgets for other materials, and to abandon their collection standards in a desperate attempt to fill their virtual shelves with something, anything.

Meanwhile, consumers are more and more being frustrated by the clampdown on perfectly legitimate lending of e-books that they own. The shut down of LendInk, a site to facilitate legal sharing, is just the latest symptom of this trend.

Balancing these factors is the importance of copyright, and the perfectly reasonable desire of publishers and authors to control the distribution of books they have created.

Keeping this in mind, how has the digital revolution changed what it means to "own" a particular story?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Favorite and Un-Favorite Tropes

Is there a theme or trope or type of character in a story that you find irresistible, even though everything else about that work is terrible? On the flip side, what themes or tropes in books, movies, and other media will keep you from reading/viewing/playing something that you think that you would otherwise love?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Hey, I Know A Great Game

Chili Chocolate Roulette is a slightly sadistic but mathematically pleasing pub game that you can win with advance knowledge. The way it works is this: you lay out a plate with thirteen^[1] chocolate candies and one chili pepper. Two players take turns to eat the chocolates: you can eat either one, two or three. Whoever is left with no chocolates to eat has to eat the chili.

How do you win? Well, if you go second you have to hope your opponent doesn't know the trick, but the basic rule is to make sure that your opponent is always left with a multiple of four. Say you go first - it goes like this:

- You take one, leaving twelve.

- If your opponent takes one, you take three, and vice versa; if your opponent takes two, so do you: that leaves eight.

- Repeat the maths, leaving four chocolates on the plate. At this point, no matter what your opponent takes, they're going to lose.

What pub games do you know that can be won by knowing the trick? Or indeed, pub games that are actually fair but fun?

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^[1] Originally posted as "twelve" chocolate candies. This is what happens when one's proof reader was a Canadian whose attention may have been distracted by a certain women's football match at the Olympics.↩

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)