Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Book:Thud!/Annotations

2016-05-18T18:11:46Z

Jgharston: /* Third Rock romance? */

What an interesting way to get people interested in reading! Book trailers are like movie trailers, but for books! You can find them all over the internet now, but here is a site that's featuring them on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/booktrailers

Re: Mr. Sheen. The gag referred to cleaning stubborn surfaces, not polishing furniture, and Mr. Sheen seems to made by something called ''Reckitt Benckiser''. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 13:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

re: 74, 93 – The “Following Dark” symbol which Helmclever makes with his spilled coffee (explained by Carrot later) is a circle with two diagonal lines through it. This is similar to British roadsigns meaning “No parking.” - the sign it remind me of is the "No Stopping (Clearway)" e.g. at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/Signsandmarkings/index.htm?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=96192&Rendition=Web

:Yep. See [[Mine sign]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 21:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

== American sorority? British public school? ==

Hmmm. Americans have sororities and fraternities at their universities, institutions designed to bond likeminded people and for which Britain has no real equivalent. Apparently the more prestigious sororities and frats are ''exceedingly'' choosy about who they recruit, and tend to be élitist, snobbish, class-conscious, et c, and reduce their new intake each semester to People Who Are Demonstrably Like We Are. (Yes, I have watched "Animal House").

Meanwhile, British public schools, especially the older and more expensive ones, have already pre-selected on grounds of class, income, social background, et c, and tend to restrict their new intake to People Who Are Demonstrably Like We Are. so, especially at the more prestigious (and now more expensive) universities, there is no need for another selection process to weed out the hoi-polloi and the poor and socially unconnected - That Which Rises To The Top And Which For Politeness' Sake Is Generally Referred To As "Cream" will always know each other, so as to form a coagulation of impressively clotted cream together.

So I'd say both sets of compsrisons to Sybil Ramkin's school and her schoolmates are in their way equally valid. Buntys and Bubbleses exist on both sides of the great divide, after all!--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 21:44, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Although ''Bunty'' is peculiarly English, I think, for either sex. American debs tend to sound more like bunny-rabbits: ''Mimsy, Bitsy,...''. I had an aunt nicknamed ''Bunty'' (not to her face); I suspect lately that was foisted on her because she was a little too ladylike and upper-crusty for the crowd. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 22:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The former and much-missed BBC radio presenter Sarah Kennedy was an exceedingly upper-drawer woman with a plummy voice to match. In a previous incarnation, she had actually '''been'' the feared and dreaded Matron at a boys' public boarding school. Her on-air nickname, which she cultivated with listeners, was in fact ''Bunty''. Ah, what we lost when Chris Evans got more power than was good for him...--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 13:42, 2 March 2011 (CET)

== "Ankh-Morpork Mission of the Uberwald League of Temperance and red ribbons: " ==

Black ribbons, surely?

[[User:Chrisboote|Chrisboote]] 13:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

== ferric chloride ==

Ferric Chloride is indeed very nasty stuff
When dissolved in water, it undergoes hydrolysis and gives off heat. The resulting brown, acidic, and corrosive solution is used as a coagulant in sewage treatment or for etching copper
What that would do to the superconductor brain of a troll is anyone's guess - but nothing good!

== p181 ==

In Jingo, Nobby extends his drag activities by briefly becoming an exotic dancer called ''Beti''. It does seem unlikely he would have succeeded in this profession whatever his name, but it is a neat reference.

== Joseph Wambaugh - an influence on the Watch ==

Wambaugh, LAPD beat cop turned novelist, chronicles the everyday lives of the LAPD in a series of gripping books including ''The Choirboys'' and ''The New Centurions''. The latter, his debut novel, came out in 1971 and chronicles the lives of several new recruits to the LAPD. Several years later, they are variably disillusioned, divorced, about to be promoted to Sergeant, or dead. One of the new recruits is a shy, diffident, not especially physical, not imposing, intellectual called Augustus Plebesley. His tutors point out they want him to graduate as a cop because the force needs - ''desperately'' needs - literate guys with business admin degrees who can add up and do the paperwork. But first he has to do street time. Plebesley learns to control his fear and prevent being seen as a coward. His crowning moment (of awesome) is during the Watts Riots - the novel covers both the build-up and the explosion of the race riots in LA in 1967, as seen by the police. During the riots Plebesley repeatedly puts himself in harm's way as he believes this is the right thing to do, once chasing down, defeating, and handcuffing, three black looters each of whom is twice his size. He is made sergeant for exemplary courage and leadership. [[A.E. Pessimal|Reminds you of anyone]]? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 20:27, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

== Third Rock romance? ==

Nobby's romance with Tawneee is predicated on her being too dumb to know 99% of men are too intimidated by her looks to ask her out - except for policeman Nobby Nobbs.

There's a similar set-up in TV sitcom ''Third Rock From The Sun'', where the equally unworldly Sally (although she ''is'' an alien from another world) is not aware that her human body is so stunningly attractive that 99% of men are scared off. She settles for short fat incompetent policeman Don Orville, who is perhaps too savvy and takes care not to make her aware of this.[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 14:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

== Kings of stone ==
The "fossilised" king of the trolls and dwarfs reminds me of something, I'm sure it's alluding to something about an ancient king alone on his throne turned to stone by time. [[User:Jgharston|Jgharston]] ([[User talk:Jgharston|talk]]) 18:11, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Clacks

2014-06-01T10:05:41Z

Jgharston: /* Mechanical */

==Six Shutters?==
Does anyone know why [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacks Wikipedia]] thinks a clacks array only has six shutters? Eight seems obvious and I thought that had been mentioned.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 04:18, 3 June 2007 (CEST)
*Possibly due to the same reason we have chapter 7a instead of 8 -[[User:Lord rel|Lord rel}} Jun 4 12:42 2007 (IST)
*I thought of the possible dangers, but things come in 7as all the time, and I remember the reference to the sixteen shutters (either both sides or one side of a duplex tower.)--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 14:56, 4 June 2007 (CEST) And in {{T5E}}, just after we meet Skimmer, Lord Vetinari watched the semaphore tower. "All eight of the big shutters facing him were blinking furiously..."
**that would indicated that maybe shutter numbers are not static or that we have a continuity mistake --[[User:Lord rel|Lord rel]] 13:51 05 June 2007
***Not unless someone can find a mention of a six-panel array somewhere in the text. - --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 14:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

==Practical Matters==

Considering the concentration of computer professionals and general geeks in Discworld fandom, it's odd that I haven't seen much in the way of technical analysis of the Clacks. Perhaps some of the more digital (or just imaginative) contributors could produce some answers to practical problems.
Please add comments, solutions, or just more questions here to see if we can produce a workable model. - --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 13:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

: Here's ours: [http://blip.tv/file/4906971 Clacks, phase I]. ''(Unsigned comment by [[User:76.191.219.152|76.191.219.152]] at 18:55, 20 March 2011)''

==Optical==
At eight miles, a clacks array needs to be 138 times wider than one that can just be read at 100 yards. Supposing very sharp-eyed young operators could see four-inch panels at 100 yards, the panels would be 46 feet square and the array nearly 100 feet wide and 250 feet! high. Since towers have been reported to be 150 feet tall, this is unlikely. Therefore we have to assume optical technology from the Counterweight Continent has produced useful telescopes quite quickly since Twoflower's strange lenses.

:In Jingo, Lord Rust has a telescope, which he claims was only invented the previous year. Of course, the Klatchians have had them for ages. Every reason therefore to expect the Clacks had telescopes.--[[User:Solicitr|Solicitr]] 13:24, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

==Mechanical==
A more manageable 20-by-50-foot array with 9-foot panels is equivalent to a 3/4 inch panel at 100 yards, perhaps readable with a simple telescope. Flashing multiple 9-foot shutters randomly at twice per second would still be difficult with purely mechanical timing and control; the maintenance problems described are understandable.

What powers the mechanism? ([[Golems]] are suggested for the future.)

Is there a reference to the shape of the array? Do we know if it's 1x8, 2x4 etc? Not that it makes a huge difference, but a 1x8 array would imply binary encoding. I've known people to be able to read a binary stream almost as fast as normal text.

A 1x8 would have heavy unusable redundancy. There are eight versions of "one light on" each indistinguishable from each other, and, erm, 7+6+5+4+3+2+1 versions of "two lights on". A rectangular array removes a lot of redundancy, you get two-side-by-side, two-up-down, two-left-diagonal, two-right-diagonal, etc.

==Digital==
{{MR}} mentions a separate clock panel above the array of eight. Why would it be synchronous?
Is it, rather, a parity bit?

As with ASCII, etc., the eight bits allow for many control characters and subcodes (the ''overhead'') besides the basic alphabet, but how are these separated? Reading semaphore at all at 120 per minute is a good enough trick without multiplexing; I would expect they read numbers which are interpreted or decoded later, by others, but the operators are said to be able to read the overhead as they go.

Clock rate = 2 : Bit Rate = 16 : Bytes/sec = 2

At this rate, a low-res picture 100 pixels square in 8-bit color takes nearly 11/2 hours, 3/4 hour for 4-bit color duplexed. How good a compression algorithm can Lieutenant [[Blouse]] write?

:Use 8bit CMYK (256 colour) encoding, 1 byte per pixel, 2 bytes/sec, header frames encode the picture size. A 100x100px picture is 10000px or 10002 frames total, so 5001 seconds total transmission time, or just over 83 minutes. You could probably improve on that by encoding something like "pixels 25-95 are colour ccmmyykk" for example. Then is just a matter of creating the right imp for the job. --[[User:Megahurts|Megahurts]] 15:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

==Health and Safety==
This has been a difficult area for the industry. The obvious dangers of working at great height can be guarded and on-the-job fatalities are much reduced, but the stress of long periods of intense concentration still produces mental casualties. Attention is now being paid to the expensive [[Klatchian Coffee|Klatchian Coffees]] that are associated with the group.

==Alternatives==
We have already seen faster-than-light communication (including voice) demonstrated with the [[Omniscope]]. Why aren't the technomancers of the [[Unreal Estate]] providing a much better system than the Clacks? The Omniscope works better than their [[Dis-organiser]]; co-ordinating the two they could be as rich as Creosote (or Bill Gates.)

hmm. Would mass use of a magical device such as the omniscope for communication and entertainment also bring certain intractable problems with it? If an Omniscope can see and open a doorway to ''everything'' happening ''everywhere'', this would at the very least make it an Internet analogue in the Discworld.(All you would need would perhaps be a sub-fingernail sized sliver cut from an Omniscope - its ''omni-chip'', maybe, or Central Perception Unit? - , and some sort of magnifying device). And just as the Internet is stupendously popular in our dimension of space and time, so it would be on the Disc. In fact, it could be the next big craze after Music with Rocks In and after the Clicks.

Here lies the problem. Mass popular interest in anything technomantic, given a magical focus, has in the past offered a gateway to things from the Dungeon Dimensions to come in and colonise our plane of reality. And why shouldn't it, as from an Omniscope's point of view, the Dungeon Dimensions are a valid sub-set of ''everything'' and ''everywhere''.

To extend the Internet analogy: these would be some malicious viruses and self-replicating malware should they manage to get onto the Omni-Net! Cue Ponder Stibbons and Hex to write the AV protection? --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 09:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can see the dangers; I recognise them, but we're talking about Wizards. They don't let the occasional rip in the fabric of reality worry them. They might balk at allowing the general public too much access to their toys, though; simple bloody-mindedness might deter them. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 12:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
:: You assume that rips in the fabric of reality would not interfere with any of their 9 moments of food intake. I assure you that even the chance of having to skip even one of them would keep wizards away from the notion of ripping any sorts of fabric. Good heavens! --[[Special:Contributions/94.213.120.101|94.213.120.101]] 11:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

==Major Edit==
I think what's called "Light Clacks" here is actually a one-bit optical telegraph, unrelated to the Clacks. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 22:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
*Oh right. Well the characters call it a light clacks in the text, so just assumed. I notice you've grouped it under "Earlier Semaphore" now; it is mentioned after the Clacks introduction in {{TFE}}, but then it could still easily be older technology. Here's the reference if you want to check: ''Monstrous Regiment, Page 137 (Doubleday UK Hardback)''. [[User:JaffaCakeLover|JaffaCakeLover]] 10:08, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Clacks

2014-06-01T10:04:51Z

Jgharston: /* Mechanical */

==Six Shutters?==
Does anyone know why [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacks Wikipedia]] thinks a clacks array only has six shutters? Eight seems obvious and I thought that had been mentioned.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 04:18, 3 June 2007 (CEST)
*Possibly due to the same reason we have chapter 7a instead of 8 -[[User:Lord rel|Lord rel}} Jun 4 12:42 2007 (IST)
*I thought of the possible dangers, but things come in 7as all the time, and I remember the reference to the sixteen shutters (either both sides or one side of a duplex tower.)--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 14:56, 4 June 2007 (CEST) And in {{T5E}}, just after we meet Skimmer, Lord Vetinari watched the semaphore tower. "All eight of the big shutters facing him were blinking furiously..."
**that would indicated that maybe shutter numbers are not static or that we have a continuity mistake --[[User:Lord rel|Lord rel]] 13:51 05 June 2007
***Not unless someone can find a mention of a six-panel array somewhere in the text. - --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 14:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

==Practical Matters==

Considering the concentration of computer professionals and general geeks in Discworld fandom, it's odd that I haven't seen much in the way of technical analysis of the Clacks. Perhaps some of the more digital (or just imaginative) contributors could produce some answers to practical problems.
Please add comments, solutions, or just more questions here to see if we can produce a workable model. - --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 13:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

: Here's ours: [http://blip.tv/file/4906971 Clacks, phase I]. ''(Unsigned comment by [[User:76.191.219.152|76.191.219.152]] at 18:55, 20 March 2011)''

==Optical==
At eight miles, a clacks array needs to be 138 times wider than one that can just be read at 100 yards. Supposing very sharp-eyed young operators could see four-inch panels at 100 yards, the panels would be 46 feet square and the array nearly 100 feet wide and 250 feet! high. Since towers have been reported to be 150 feet tall, this is unlikely. Therefore we have to assume optical technology from the Counterweight Continent has produced useful telescopes quite quickly since Twoflower's strange lenses.

:In Jingo, Lord Rust has a telescope, which he claims was only invented the previous year. Of course, the Klatchians have had them for ages. Every reason therefore to expect the Clacks had telescopes.--[[User:Solicitr|Solicitr]] 13:24, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

==Mechanical==
A more manageable 20-by-50-foot array with 9-foot panels is equivalent to a 3/4 inch panel at 100 yards, perhaps readable with a simple telescope. Flashing multiple 9-foot shutters randomly at twice per second would still be difficult with purely mechanical timing and control; the maintenance problems described are understandable.

What powers the mechanism? ([[Golems]] are suggested for the future.)

Is there a reference to the shape of the array? Do we know if it's 1x8, 2x4 etc? Not that it makes a huge difference, but a 1x8 array would imply binary encoding. I've known people to be able to read a binary stream almost as fast as normal text.

A 1x8 would have heavy unusable redundancy. There are eight versions of "one light on" each indistinguishable from each other, and, erm, 7x6x5x4x3x2 versions of "two lights on". A rectangular array removes a lot of redundancy, you get two-side-by-side, two-up-down, two-left-diagonal, two-right-diagonal, etc.

==Digital==
{{MR}} mentions a separate clock panel above the array of eight. Why would it be synchronous?
Is it, rather, a parity bit?

As with ASCII, etc., the eight bits allow for many control characters and subcodes (the ''overhead'') besides the basic alphabet, but how are these separated? Reading semaphore at all at 120 per minute is a good enough trick without multiplexing; I would expect they read numbers which are interpreted or decoded later, by others, but the operators are said to be able to read the overhead as they go.

Clock rate = 2 : Bit Rate = 16 : Bytes/sec = 2

At this rate, a low-res picture 100 pixels square in 8-bit color takes nearly 11/2 hours, 3/4 hour for 4-bit color duplexed. How good a compression algorithm can Lieutenant [[Blouse]] write?

:Use 8bit CMYK (256 colour) encoding, 1 byte per pixel, 2 bytes/sec, header frames encode the picture size. A 100x100px picture is 10000px or 10002 frames total, so 5001 seconds total transmission time, or just over 83 minutes. You could probably improve on that by encoding something like "pixels 25-95 are colour ccmmyykk" for example. Then is just a matter of creating the right imp for the job. --[[User:Megahurts|Megahurts]] 15:11, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

==Health and Safety==
This has been a difficult area for the industry. The obvious dangers of working at great height can be guarded and on-the-job fatalities are much reduced, but the stress of long periods of intense concentration still produces mental casualties. Attention is now being paid to the expensive [[Klatchian Coffee|Klatchian Coffees]] that are associated with the group.

==Alternatives==
We have already seen faster-than-light communication (including voice) demonstrated with the [[Omniscope]]. Why aren't the technomancers of the [[Unreal Estate]] providing a much better system than the Clacks? The Omniscope works better than their [[Dis-organiser]]; co-ordinating the two they could be as rich as Creosote (or Bill Gates.)

hmm. Would mass use of a magical device such as the omniscope for communication and entertainment also bring certain intractable problems with it? If an Omniscope can see and open a doorway to ''everything'' happening ''everywhere'', this would at the very least make it an Internet analogue in the Discworld.(All you would need would perhaps be a sub-fingernail sized sliver cut from an Omniscope - its ''omni-chip'', maybe, or Central Perception Unit? - , and some sort of magnifying device). And just as the Internet is stupendously popular in our dimension of space and time, so it would be on the Disc. In fact, it could be the next big craze after Music with Rocks In and after the Clicks.

Here lies the problem. Mass popular interest in anything technomantic, given a magical focus, has in the past offered a gateway to things from the Dungeon Dimensions to come in and colonise our plane of reality. And why shouldn't it, as from an Omniscope's point of view, the Dungeon Dimensions are a valid sub-set of ''everything'' and ''everywhere''.

To extend the Internet analogy: these would be some malicious viruses and self-replicating malware should they manage to get onto the Omni-Net! Cue Ponder Stibbons and Hex to write the AV protection? --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 09:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can see the dangers; I recognise them, but we're talking about Wizards. They don't let the occasional rip in the fabric of reality worry them. They might balk at allowing the general public too much access to their toys, though; simple bloody-mindedness might deter them. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 12:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
:: You assume that rips in the fabric of reality would not interfere with any of their 9 moments of food intake. I assure you that even the chance of having to skip even one of them would keep wizards away from the notion of ripping any sorts of fabric. Good heavens! --[[Special:Contributions/94.213.120.101|94.213.120.101]] 11:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

==Major Edit==
I think what's called "Light Clacks" here is actually a one-bit optical telegraph, unrelated to the Clacks. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 22:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
*Oh right. Well the characters call it a light clacks in the text, so just assumed. I notice you've grouped it under "Earlier Semaphore" now; it is mentioned after the Clacks introduction in {{TFE}}, but then it could still easily be older technology. Here's the reference if you want to check: ''Monstrous Regiment, Page 137 (Doubleday UK Hardback)''. [[User:JaffaCakeLover|JaffaCakeLover]] 10:08, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Gulli, Gulli and Beti

2012-03-23T00:29:06Z

Jgharston: /* Annotation */

The undercover identities adopted by the [[Patrician]], [[Fred Colon]], and [[Nobby Nobbs]], when circumstances force them to go undercover in enemy territory during the war with [[Klatch]].

While Vetinari and Colon are conventionally dressed (by the standards of [[Ur]]), "Beti" has to adopt the gauzy, filmy, dress designed for a woman about a foot taller, and with far more to conceal which other people might actually like to see.

It is a tribute to the sheer strength of the Laws concerning [[Narrative Causality]], that they fight such a spirited rearguard action that Nobby is actually mistaken for a woman. Especially by other women who at first feel sorry for such an unfavoured lady, but who then respect and appreciate "her" liberated streak and unrestrained sense of humour. Nobby may have done more to awaken a womens' rights movement in Klatch than is apparent...

Meanwhile, Colon is playing the part of a fat, slow-witted fall guy to perfection, and the Patrician is also letting himself go on holiday from his usual cares by performing routines which are straight out of the [[Guild of Conjurors]] training manual. (only better)

They also perform a shuffling Djelibeybian sand dance, and succeed in getting a donkey down from a minaret without anything having to make a distressing splash in the sand. Finally, they hijack a [[Magic Carpet|magic carpet]].

==Annotation==

The Roundworld act being parodied here are the British music hall entertainers '''Wilson, Keppel and Betty''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%2C_Keppel_and_Betty] , who entertained the nation between the 1920s and 1960s with a performance in ill-fiting bournous and fez (for the men) and something gauzy and filmy with strategically located soup-plates (for Betty) which contained most of the above elements, save perhaps for the donkey and the magic carpet. They are perhaps remembered for the Egyptian sand dance [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkhJpr2zR8s]: this has inspired two chart hits, the Bangles' ''Walk Like an Egyptian'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MimmTdn9314], and Jonathan Richman's band The Modern Lovers released an updated version of W,K & B's signature "Sand Dance" theme under the title of ''Egyptian Reggae''.... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg7WG6tCbrw]

The act is also partially based on comic and magician Tommy Cooper. Whilst demonstrating "Find the Lady" Vetinari's use of the line, "Egg, Melon. Melon, Egg" is a reference to Tommy's "Bottle, Glass. Glass, Bottle" catchphrase while badly performing a magic trick. Tommy's act and stage persona, he performed simple magic tricks and wore a fez, were derived from the itinerant street magicians found in arab ports like Alexandria and Port Said known as Gully Gully Men.--[[User:Attercop|Attercop]] 17:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[[Category:Groups]]
[[de:Gulli, Gulli und Beti]]

Tanty

2012-03-22T23:56:50Z

Jgharston: /* Location? - Located! */

[[Ankh-Morpork]]'s main prison. This is the principal State facility, and as such is suppplemental to the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Watch]] cells, and any local brigs or bridewells the various [[Guilds]] may maintain as a disciplinary measure (or in the normal run of commercial transaction, in the case of the [[Seamstresses' Guild|Seamstresses]]).

The Tanty is fairly humanely run, and the stirabout has got named meat in it (at least once a day). In fact, run to humane liberal principles, it offers a better standard of living than most criminals would be assured of on the '''''outside''''' (what with fairly clean straw to sleep on, three stirabout meals a day, at least one with named meat, and dry cells into the bargain) ...

Knowing this and keen not to provoke an unseemly queue for admission, the [[Patrician]] sees to it that stays in the Tanty are fairly short and usually end quite conclusively. With a suspended sentence, one might say....

The prison gave its name to the penny dreadful crime reportage paper, the [[Tanty Bugle]]. "Gave" is probably the key word, as it is unlikely the paper pays royalties for use of the name....

The Staff:

* Mr. [[Bellyster]], a nasty warder;
* Mr. [[Wilkinson]], a more pleasant warder;
* Ron, who works with Mr Wilkinson
* The Warden - un-named, but evidently the Governor, answerable to [[Vetinari]] for his management of the prison;
* Mr [[Trooper|Daniel "One Drop" Trooper]], the Civic Hangman.

We are told in the {{NDC}} that the Tanty is on Ankh-Morpork's "Rim Bank", but there is no clue on {{SAM}} as to where this is, whether it is a street, a region, or other location. The name suggests the "Rimward Bank" of the river - ie, the Morpork side? - but it doesn't narrow it down any further.

== Location? - Located! ==

The {{NDC}} tells us the Tanty is a corrupted name of ''the Tantiment'', a former royal palace which several hundred years before the present day was converted to a prison. It also provides the information that the prison is located on the Rim Bank, which is neither marked nor referred to on {{SAM}}.

The original {{DC}} (1994 edition) has no entry on the Tanty. What is ''does'' have, however, is an illustrated endpaper which takes the form of an expanded and more detailed Mapp of the city centre, zooming down into more street names and additional features than the small scale of the Mapp can comfortably hold.

And guess what... the Rim Bank is clearly marked. It is that part of the riverside running along the edge of the [[Isle of Gods]] between the Brass Bridge and widdershins round, possibly to The Cut. The Tanty is clearly marked as immediately adjacent to the Opera House, just across Pseudopolis Yard in the ten o'clock position. Its immediately adjacent streets are not noted on the Mapp, but the illustration in the {{DC}} identifies them as Body Street(on the Mapp) While the name of one street is unclear on this reproduction of the map section, it has been suggested that this text can be interpreted as ''[[Lag Lane]]'', which fits a service road to a prison. Close examination of the original endpaper bears this out.

A block away and also facing the Opera House, just off Holofernes Street, the major road leading over the New Bridge, is a street called "The Screws". (Accomodation for prison officers?)

so now we know!

[[File:Tanty.JPG]]

[[Category:Locations]]
[[de:Kittchen]]

Glooper

2012-03-22T23:42:51Z

Jgharston: /* Annotation */

Otherwise referred to as the Thing in the Cellar, this is the [[Hex]] analogue, independently devised by [[Hubert Turvy]] to precisely replicate the circulation of money in [[Ankh-Morpork]], and then with the aid of [[Igor]], made ''absolutely perfect''. Being constructed between a borderline mad scientist and an Igor, this can have some worrying implications.

The city affects the Glooper, which shows not only the current economical situation in Ankh-Morpork, but can also show what may happen in theory, and more worryingly, what happens in the Glooper can affect the city, as seen at the end of ''[[Making Money]]''. It has been reflected upon that taking a hammer and smashing the Glooper would result in a complete and total economic crash.

==Annotation==

As TP himself points out in the Author's Note to {{MM}}, this is directly taken from [[Roundworld]]'s Phillips Economics Computer, a bizarre but effective water-powered machine [http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I034/10303576.aspx] devised in 1949, but which was so good at reproducing an economic cycle that the last of the Phillips machines were still going strong in economics schools in the early 1990s - when orthodox computer power had finally caught up with hydrology, and could at last replicate what the machines had been doing for nearly fifty years. The operators must have cheered this, as they could finally hang up the oilskins and sou'westers they had needed to wear indoors. The MONIAC[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer] - note one significant letter away from being a MANIAC - was also, with superb Discworldian ontology, called a '''''Financephalograph'''''.

[[de:Blubber]]
[[Category:Devices]]

Prince Haram's Tiller

2012-03-22T23:31:51Z

Jgharston: /* Annotation */

On board the [[Kite]], this is an enigmatically-titled lever that, in the absence of [[Leonard of Quirm]], neither of the other two crewmembers has the faintest idea of the purpose of. With an imminent crisis looming - ie, uncontrolled re-entry into the Disc's atmosphere and an awful lot of unforgiving ground coming up to meet them 'very, very' quickly, [[Ponder Stibbons]] is at a loss to advise. However, he has just, rather unwisely, denigrated the value of an arts-based education where [[Vetinari]] can hear it. Vetinari, a product of an arts-based education, suggests Ponder tells the crew to pull Prince Haram's Tiller. Ponder relays the suggestion, Rincewind pulls the lever, and the Kite levels out into free flight. Vetinari then affably tells Stibbons that there is an old myth, derived from Klatchian folklore, about a Prince Haram who devised an ingenious way for his ship to safely steer itself on long journeys, while he slept. But then, one whose education has been purely technical and scientific, and deficient in areas such as languages and history, is hardly likely to be aware of that...

Prince Haram's tiller is therefore what we might describe as the '''''autopilot'''''.

==Annotation==

There is a readable discourse dating from the 1950's but still relevant today, called ''The Two Tribes'', which describes and deplores the way the educational process in Great Britain - almost uniquely in the developed world - forces able school pupils to make a prematurely early choice between "Arts" and "Science" streams. Even as early as age fourteen, the British pupil is then progressively locked firmly into either Arts or Science, and becomes as firmly embodied in that stream as a Hindu is in their caste, or inhabitants of the old South Africa were embodied acording to their skin colour. Especially at the A-level stage, the pupil must choose to specialise in ''all'' Arts subjects or ''all'' Sciences: mixing the two is not permitted and is looked on with as much horror as, say, a Boer who seeks to marry into the Zulus.
The net result of this is a system where Britain has a great number of Arts grads who might be up to speed in English Lit or History, but who at age 21 last saw the inside of a laboratory at age 15 and who are woefully science-illiterate. Worryingly, a lot of these people get into government. Similarly, we have science grads who last read a novel at school and whose foreign language skills, viewed as belonging to Arts, have atrophied. These are the Two Tribes, whose stereotyped opinions of the other are illustrated by the interaction between Vetinari and Stibbons.

[[Category:Devices]]

H.P. Lovecraft Holiday Fun Club

2012-03-22T23:18:21Z

Jgharston:

This was the rather enigmatic subject of the dedication of an earlier [[Discworld]] novel. Research has discovered that this is Pterry's reference to a group of what were then new wave British fantasy and sci-fi authors who seemed to attend just about every conference and fan-meet in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Members of the happy campers included [[Neil Gaiman]] and Mary Gentle (see [[Reading suggestions#Mary Gentle|Reading suggestions]]). Of course, the association between Terry and Neil eventually created {{GO}}.

Mary Gentle's unique take on fantasy fiction is believed to have influenced {{TOT}} and was a very definite influence on {{UA}}, where Terry made at least ''one'' very deliberate homage to her novel of [[Orcs|Orc]]dom, '''''Grunts'''''. (see annotations to [[Book:Unseen Academicals/Annotations|''Unseen Academicals]])

[[Category:People|H.P. Lovecraft Holiday Fun Club]]