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Taear posted:If you read Colour of Magic and go right to Night Watch it'd be such a whiplash, it's hard to believe it's even the same author. In fact both CoM and LF are extremely, extremely different to anything that comes after. He started in 83/84, in deep 'Douglas Adam humour' that was the popular style at the time.
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Sep 1, 2019 15:36
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 Man, I really miss Terry Pratchett. Haven't been able to read anything Discworld in ages.
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Sep 1, 2019 15:39
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To come back to XR chat for a sec, I've come to really dislike them tbh. I find it very frustrating that probably the largest direct action movement in ages is so misguided and short sighted, and so neglectful of the knowledge built up by the activist movement over the years. Getting people deliberately arrested as an objective might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, and their alienation of Green and Black Cross shows a deep arrogance. On the other hand, there are alternatives, the pushing of which was the real point of this post. The Green Anti-Capitalist Front are great and we're doing some good stuff right now. If you're hosed off with XR's ridiculous middle class liberal bullshit, pm me and you can get involved. London based atm, but very down with people setting up regional groups.
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Sep 1, 2019 15:47
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OwlFancier posted:Would it even get to the courts or would bercow get annoyed and send the mace man round? There was that thing a while back where parliament wanted some info on internal Facebook tech documents or something, so they sent the parly sergeant dude to some hotel to... subpoena (?) those docs from some random businessman character. I didn't understand much about the legalities but thought it was pretty interesting Presumably if parliament decrees something to be done, and it isn't, they might find the non-doers in contempt of parliament (if that's what the term is) and then send the mace dude around, at least in theory
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Sep 1, 2019 15:57
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Surprise Giraffe posted:Is there anything to stop bojo actually pushing the exit date backwards? Might be their last shot if they think they're going to be kicked out anyway. Wouldn't really make a difference to the degree of chaos and the blaming the mess on remainers/Corbyn strategy. Farage. The Brexit party apparently has candidates of varying degrees of lunacy ready to stand in every constituency. So long as Boris keeps his foot firmly on the no deal accelerator pedal, they've sort of promised to stay out of his way. If he takes his foot off even a fraction, all bets are off and the next GE becomes a blue-on-blue bloodbath.
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Sep 1, 2019 15:59
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jaete posted:There was that thing a while back where parliament wanted some info on internal Facebook tech documents or something, so they sent the parly sergeant dude to some hotel to... subpoena (?) those docs from some random businessman character. I didn't understand much about the legalities but thought it was pretty interesting https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/technology/data/news/100115/mps-send-serjeant-arms-seize-secret-facebook-papers "A serjeant-at-arms was sent to a London hotel to seize internal Facebook papers as part of parliament’s ongoing fake news inquiry, it has been revealed." I don't think it was Kamal el Hajji (the big dude). He has apparently stepped down now anyway (retirement).
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Sep 1, 2019 16:01
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There are only two more City Watch books after Night Watch - Thud! and Snuff. Snuff is... not great. Thud! is passable but of course ymmv... Some of it was Pratchett's gradual decline - Unseen Academicals was not a great Wizards book, Raising Steam was not a great Moist book - but the City Watch cast becoming problematic to plot around was probably a factor too. Vimes is an actual superhuman, Carrot effortlessly charismatic, the bumbling but distinctive Fred and Nobby displaced by a cast of super-effective secondary characters (Wilkins, Angua, Cheery, Detritus...). The secondary cast starts to blend together, and it shows - in the closing scenes of Thud! there's a passage where Pratchett has Vimes dispatch Cheery to go offstage to protect Sibyl. Three pages later Cheery is still there to translate dwarfish to him (i.e. the reader). In later print editions the latter is changed to Angua, which doesn't really make sense either. The writing leaning towards meandering can be perhaps pinned on Pratchett switching from typing to dictation, and from numerous rewrites to hastily closing themes and plots, but I guess it's the sprawling cast and complexity of plots that hampered the stories the most as the Alzheimer's set in - the New Witches YA books set around Tiffany Aching, with a much smaller cast with no protracted history or series-within-series arc, didn't seem as hampered
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Sep 1, 2019 16:02
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RockyB posted:A bit dated now, but one of the most compelling explanations for this remains the monkeysphere / Dunbar number: David Wong wrote some fantastic stuff though, especially 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable. Also just about to pop the podcast on now.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:14
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All of Pratchetts takes on fantasy races are extremely good. I really like his Dwarfs so much. They have a distinctly non-human culture but as they progress they deal with progress and integrating into a broader society and lots of other great bits.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:23
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Dungbar's number is the number of non-human primates you can keep in a pub before feces gets thrown. It's very low.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:23
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I've not read Pratchett's YA stuff, but all the rest of this resonates a lot and I think it's a great observation about some of the flaws/problems with later Pratchett. Night watch works in part, I think, because it does that self conscious stripped back reboot thing of taking a superheroic character back to their roots and removing most of their supporting cast and ingrained authority. It's Daniel Craig in casino royale, basically. It's formulaic, but not in a bad way - and frankly Pratchett has always been extremely formulaic in his plotting.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:28
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Guavanaut posted:Dungbar's number is the number of non-human primates you can keep in a pub before feces gets thrown. It's very low. Was the "non-human" part even necessary here?
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Sep 1, 2019 16:30
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carrots magic charisma solves like four books in a row, vimes was never the problem
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Sep 1, 2019 16:35
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CoolCab posted:carrots magic charisma solves like four books in a row, vimes was never the problem Vimes is always the one though stopping things from getting a poo poo load worse. Others around him do the finer details.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:41
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CoolCab posted:carrots magic charisma solves like four books in a row, vimes was never the problem It's coz ee's got narrative, innit?
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Sep 1, 2019 16:45
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ronya posted:The writing leaning towards meandering can be perhaps pinned on Pratchett switching from typing to dictation, and from numerous rewrites to hastily closing themes and plots, but I guess it's the sprawling cast and complexity of plots that hampered the stories the most as the Alzheimer's set in - the New Witches YA books set around Tiffany Aching, with a much smaller cast with no protracted history or series-within-series arc, didn't seem as hampered Unseen Academicals is where I think the serious drop off in quality starts - from it onwards they're lacking the vitality of the earlier works.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:48
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So uh. Was the scumm engine discworld point and click based off elements of "Guards! Guards!"? Because this is kind of uncanny. Nice to be reading Pratchett again. I'd really missed how much his general prose just makes me smile.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:51
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Ok guys, I'll say what we all thinking. Tiffany Aching rules.
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Sep 1, 2019 16:53
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Save yourself a lot of disappointment and don't read the third Science of Discworld book I mean, the first two weren't superb but the third one brings back one of my favourite one-off characters in what I will politely describe as a loving disaster of a plotline
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Sep 1, 2019 16:58
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Mebh posted:So uh. Was the scumm engine discworld point and click based off elements of "Guards! Guards!"? Yes.
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Sep 1, 2019 17:00
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Mebh posted:So uh. Was the scumm engine discworld point and click based off elements of "Guards! Guards!"? Because this is kind of uncanny. yes, actually! i believe it was the model/inspiration for that game.
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Sep 1, 2019 17:01
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Ok guys, I'll say what we all thinking. Tiffany Aching rules. I always considered Granny Weatherwax as my best character. I wanted to think like her. But then Tiffany came along.
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Sep 1, 2019 17:09
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Mebh posted:So uh. Was the scumm engine discworld point and click based off elements of "Guards! Guards!"? Because this is kind of uncanny. "That doesn't work." Still got a fondness for that game, it's obviously not an accurate representation of what Discworld was and would become, but it's still got some pretty funny dialogue. Nobby: "[Carrot]'s the first volunteer to the watch we've had in decades. Only, he's bit literal-minded on account of the fact he's a dwarf" Rincewind: "A Dwarf!? He's seven foot tall!" Nobby: "He's the tallest Dwarf in the world." Carrot: "I lied about my height, see." Rincewind: "A tall Dwarf?" Nobby: "It's alright, he's growing out of it."
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Sep 1, 2019 17:16
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I made a bet on the goodreads reading challenge at the new year, so I set myself the goal of re-reading all Pratchett's books this year, along with the culture series. As well as 150 books in general, because I read far too many trashy novels. I've chewed through everything I loved as a teenager and now I'm about to read the Shepherds crown for the first time. Kind of dreading it in a way, honestly. His later 'proper' novels definitely aren't as good as the early stuff, but the Tiffany Aching series is wonderful and definitely the kind of books I'd try to get my kids to read. That said I've also got some pretty battered redwall and swallows and amazons books floating around so I can introduce them to a Britain that is long gone, probably never existed for the vast majority of people, and is definitely not coming back after Brexit. The best Terry Pratchett thing: The Register still has the X-Clacks-Overhead header set. So do 950 other websites. https://xclacksoverhead.org/home/about https://xclacksoverhead.org/listing/the-signal
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Sep 1, 2019 17:48
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ronya posted:There are only two more City Watch books after Night Watch - Thud! and Snuff. Snuff is... not great. Thud! is passable but of course ymmv... Unseen Academicals gets better on second reading, IMO - it's really not a Wizards book, it's Romeo and Juliet mashed up with Escape To Victory. The wizards are really just background characters, like Vimes in Monstrous Regiment (another one that got better with re-reading). Totally agree that Thud should have been where he ended the Vimes story - like you say Vimes is basically a superhero at that point. Also him retiring/dying would have finally set up the resolution of Carrot's aborted [spoiler]is the actual King of Ankh Morpork[/url] arc, which would have been a much more interesting conclusion especially after a few years of exposure to and hero-worship of Old Stoneface. Might even have made a better conclusion to Night Watch - Vimes realising that he also had to be Keel to Carrot, which is sort of played with but never really goes anywhere. Or actually, given the way we know belief works on the Discworld and the mostly throwaway lines about how A-M's criminals see Vimes, you could make a case that The Watchman/Summoning Dark is actually a new god of policing, and seeing arch-atheist Vimes dealing with being an actual god would have gone in some interesting directions.
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Sep 1, 2019 17:50
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I watched a Let’s Play of the Discworld game a while back and it was very nostalgic as I remembered the opening areas of the game extremely well since I’d desperately wandered around them for hours and hours as a child unable to progress as I couldn’t solve the unbelievably bullshit puzzles. It got less and less nostalgic as it went on and it got further away from the bits I repeated a thousand times and into the bits I only played once a few years later after I got the internet. But seriously those puzzles are breathtakingly bullshit. Oh, and seeing it now is also entertaining because while you always knew that half the voices were Tony Robinson, now you realise that the other half are a pre-fame Rob Brydon.
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Sep 1, 2019 17:52
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It's been a long time since I read any Pratchett but I definitely loved them when I was a teen. I think I read up to about Carpe Jugulum, and then there were only about 2 new ones out and I don't think my library/bookshop had them yet or something? Something I've not seen people mention is that the more "standalone" stories like Moving Pictures and Pyramids were also very enjoyable IMO.
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Sep 1, 2019 18:12
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Comrade Fakename posted:I watched a Let’s Play of the Discworld game a while back and it was very nostalgic as I remembered the opening areas of the game extremely well since I’d desperately wandered around them for hours and hours as a child unable to progress as I couldn’t solve the unbelievably bullshit puzzles. It got less and less nostalgic as it went on and it got further away from the bits I repeated a thousand times and into the bits I only played once a few years later after I got the internet. Most puzzle games of that period were bullshit because it was the only way to get their 5 hour (or one hour) game to last longer. See: everything Sierra made. WhatEvil posted:It's been a long time since I read any Pratchett but I definitely loved them when I was a teen. I think I read up to about Carpe Jugulum, and then there were only about 2 new ones out and I don't think my library/bookshop had them yet or something? Pyramids is the only one I'm not a fan of. Everything else has at least some connection to the rest of the world but Pyramids just....doesn't.
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Sep 1, 2019 18:22
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Unseen Academicals gets better on second reading, IMO - it's really not a Wizards book, it's Romeo and Juliet mashed up with Escape To Victory. The wizards are really just background characters, like Vimes in Monstrous Regiment (another one that got better with re-reading). I think an earlier Pratchett might have taken it in that direction, but by Moist his choice in A-plot arc is less "fantasy logic wrapping in on itself" in its maximally Pyramids sense but instead a a interleaved historical trivia/contemporary social comment narrative even Night Watch itself is more in that mode (interleaving any number of French revolutions with remarks on the 20th century)
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Sep 1, 2019 18:22
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Taear posted:Pyramids is the only one I'm not a fan of. Everything else has at least some connection to the rest of the world but Pyramids just....doesn't. the first ~100 pages with Teppic doing the Run in Ankh-Morpork are really good in terms of scene-setting and especially exploring how the Assassins' Guild works, which hadn't really been touched on all that much to that point the rest of it though, yeesh
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Sep 1, 2019 18:25
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I was about to protest but then realised I was thinking about Small Gods, and have forgotten Pyramids entirely, so yeah maybe it's not great
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Sep 1, 2019 18:48
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I posted this on reddit's legal advice UK subreddit but I'll repost it here to see what advice I can get. Hello, I have just moved to a new city and into shared accomodation. I had moved most of my stuff in when I realised the door to my room did not have a lock on it. I have a key to the front and the back doors (which if not actually locked can be opened from the outside without a key). I did some cursory research, which indicated that houses of multiple occupancy are required to have locks on the rooms, and texted my landlord to request a lock for my room. He said it wasn't possible, as he did not want to be called out for when people lose their keys. I pushed back a bit, stating that from my understanding that it is the law that shared houses have locks on the rooms, and he responded by telling not to "guess the law", that he is a professional landlord, that he does not need this on a Sunday evening, and that if I don't like it he is willing to void the contract and I can find somewhere else. I've decided to leave it there for now, but wanted to ask you folk, what is the legality of this? Do I have a leg to stand on here? e: Also this is in England For context, I am a 30 year old professional, this is not student housing. It is just the room I am renting, I have an en suite but there is a shared kitchen.
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Sep 1, 2019 18:50
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Failed Imagineer posted:I was about to protest but then realised I was thinking about Small Gods, and have forgotten Pyramids entirely, so yeah maybe it's not great Having lived in Egypt I do appreciate some of the themes of Pyramids very well. I often though Ankh Morpork was modelled on Cairo. (There were guilds of beggars, prostitutes, pickpockets in the 17th century!)
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Sep 1, 2019 19:00
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Julio Cruz posted:the first ~100 pages with Teppic doing the Run in Ankh-Morpork are really good in terms of scene-setting and especially exploring how the Assassins' Guild works, which hadn't really been touched on all that much to that point
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Sep 1, 2019 19:07
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Jakabite posted:To come back to XR chat for a sec, I've come to really dislike them tbh. I find it very frustrating that probably the largest direct action movement in ages is so misguided and short sighted, and so neglectful of the knowledge built up by the activist movement over the years. Getting people deliberately arrested as an objective might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, and their alienation of Green and Black Cross shows a deep arrogance. It's the socially acceptable middle class gateway protest movement that you can tell your colleagues about, but they've warmed a lot more people to the idea of direct action than any masked figure smashing up NatWest. If XR dissipates they'll still have moved a lot of people in the right direction, and those people will have learned that activism can go well beyond a letter to the Guardian and £5 to Greenpeace. On the left wing we're far too keen to find enemies amongst our allies- I think it's far more effective to recognise what they've achieved and build on it than to tear it down because it wasn't exactly the thing we wanted.
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Sep 1, 2019 19:08
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LOCUST FART HELL posted:I posted this on reddit's legal advice UK subreddit but I'll repost it here to see what advice I can get. Check your contract- if you're specifically renting the room then you're entitled to have that room secured in the same way if you were renting the whole house then you'd expect the external door to have a lock.
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Sep 1, 2019 19:10
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LOCUST FART HELL posted:I posted this on reddit's legal advice UK subreddit but I'll repost it here to see what advice I can get. Do you have a tenancy agreement for your specific room or does it cover the entire house? If the former, then your room should have a lock. If the latter - a shared tenancy agreement - then no, the landlord doesn't have to provide internal locks.
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Sep 1, 2019 19:13
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LOCUST FART HELL posted:I posted this on reddit's legal advice UK subreddit but I'll repost it here to see what advice I can get. If you're sure of the law, can you put your own lock on? Does landlord live there, if so maybe they are misusing the 'rent a room' rules for tax whereby you can get £7500 rent tax free as long as lodger doesn't have self contained accommodation (which a lock would make it).
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Sep 1, 2019 19:16
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Re the podcast, good job guys, look forward to the next one. Would it be possible to keep it shorter though? Not that your dulcet tones get grating, but honestly unless it's super in depth anything over an hour (or even 45 mins) tends to be pretty baggy and self indulgent. I mean, the gold standard of smart and interesting people talking about a complex thing, in our time, clocks in at less than an hour even in the extended podcast cuts. Also, as a point of praxis for your audience, going beyond 50 mins or so makes it harder to fit into a commute
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Sep 1, 2019 19:29
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Niric posted:going beyond 50 mins or so makes it harder to fit into a commute luckily this will get less true over time as all the jobs move to london and all the affordable houses move to three villages in the Highlands
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Sep 1, 2019 19:36
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