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Sounds like you're reaching toward Pratchett's Dayscrip.

When my younger sister's turn came around, she listed; "Nuclear Physicist, Circus Clown and Phrenologist"

She should have used retrophrenologist instead; much more fun, and a practical use of one's sibling experience. Of course, that might have resulted in her going to a different sort of counseling. "Temponaut" is another fun one.

They don't have a way to enforce ads on books...yet.

can they see Octarine?

But has the cat pee'd on your copy?

BTW (and back towards topic), the The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0 should fit on the smallest PDA. (878k in PDF)

There's a chance this is just a ploy to make the PS3 seem like such a bargain. They're selling it at such a low price they're cutting their own throat!

Given that there's generally at least a tiny bit of truth in legends, and knowing that the bombardier beetle can emit a kind of hot chemical spray from its butt to defend itself, I wonder if the ancient reptile looked anything like the little guy in this picture (sorry it's not a better image).

Isn't he cute? His name's Errol.

You mean something like this?

Nephilium

    Later lifeforms had been smaller, brighter. Some, like the Wheelers, had been evolutionary dead ends. Some, notably the Great Spindle Kings and the shameleons, had been successful in the only way that evolution measured success - they survived longer. But even star-striding races died. The universe was tombs upon graves upon mausoleums. The comet that brightened the pagan skies was the abraded corpse of a scientist, three eons ago.
    The Policy of the Company was simple. It was: make Man immortal.
    It would take a while, and had only just started. But if Man could be spread thinly on many different planets, so that he became many types of Man, perhaps he would survive. The Spindles had died because they were so alike. Now, upon dozens of worlds, men were being changed by different forces, maddened by different moons, bent by different gravities.
    Since the universe could not be said to have a natural ending, because the universe was not natural but only the sum of the lives that had shaped it, Men intended to live for ever. Why not ?

err... that should have been "see http://www.lspace.org/ ". Oops.

The interesting thing about Discworld is that, to borrow your phrase, it's a meaty bone. To that end, it actually works that there are a billion (actual number may vary) books set in it. It's an amazingly rich setting, with a semi-established history that makes it possible to write interesting novels about just about anything without getting stale, or running out of ideas. So really, unlike Good Omens (which I did like a lot, by the way), the world is more fully explored as you read through all the books.

Anyway, starting points...

Someone at Lspace has helpfull created this chart, which is mostly up to date (minus the newest book):
http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/t he-discworld-reading-order-guide-colour-1-25.gif

Personally, I'd suggest Small Gods. It's a favorite of mine, and I think it's pretty representative of the series as a whole, stylewise.

I honestly believe that anyone approaching DiscWorld with a screen in mind had better be thinking about making a lot of films otherwise the economics of it all will probably make it difficult. Once you have done the work to create all the races and scenery involved you may as well use it.

Where to start is a difficult question, but I may well choose the very book you dismiss, as it establishes Ankh-Morpork and the Assassains Guild to start with, and then moves into a standalone plot which shows the nature of Discworld as a medium to parody our own cultures. Otherwise you may be able to start with Guards Guards and make a whole *logy of movies following Vimes and Carrot.

The problem is that so many of the plotlines intermingle that any starting point other then the beginning (The Colour of Magic) will naturally mean reworking all sorts of twists or dropping all sorts of otherwise brilliant moments as the backstory is missing. While writing this comment I've been looking at the Discworld reading order and being underwhelmed at how it fails to recognise so many of the intertanglings which make the world so complete (e.g. Carpe Jugulum and The Fifth Elephant are an Uberwald series of their own, Moving Pictures would to me be a sybling to both the Pyramids/Small Gods line and the whole Ankh amalgam (guards and wizards) and how can you disentangle The Truth from the Guards).

Nobody is yet ready to put a billion on the line to bank-roll a dozen or so DiscWorld movies, pity because anyone attempting to jump in half way will probably be doomed, and anyone starting at the beginning without following it up will likely lose their shirt on the deal. But this article is not about the quest to make the above films, but the hope of exploiting the Childrens works.

I started with "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic," which were the first two Discworld books he wrote. They do a good job of getting you started. But you could start with (almost) any book. The reading order guides on lspace should give you a decent overview -- try any of the books marked in orange.

There was rumor of another Pratchett movie that started popping up back in 1999. It's now 2006 and still no movie.

"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

But you really asked for that one, didn't you? ;-)

Mort preceeds "Reaper Man" and is a better starting point.

If you want to work out where to start for each of the various plotlines, there is a diagram of the various streams of thought involved. Check out the reading guidelines for more options.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Mort preceeds "Reaper Man" and is a better starting point.

If you want to work out where to start for each of the various plotlines, there is a diagram of the various streams of thought involved. Check out the reading guidelines for more options.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

And if you like pTerry, but you're pretty sure you're not getting all of the jokes (or, better yet, if you actually think you are), you have to check out LSpace (ie: Library Space) and read the annotations. Woefully out of date, they're worth spending a couple of hours on in no uncertain terms.

You've never heard of this guy, Mr Slant

The world is flat, and it sits on the back of four elephants who stand on a turtle.

"Pull one of the others; they've got bells on." --Deep Bone, The Truth

What I find interesting is that over the last few years, fantasy has been filled with golems.

Also Jonathan Stroud second Bartimaeus book. Also Terry Pratchett's older Feet of Clay or more recent Going Postal. Feet of Clay predates 72 letters by some 4 years.

I never said it didn't. That doesn't stop some people from arguing the position... persuasively enough to convince our congresscritters to tailor the law thusly. Regardless of whether both types are wrong, I'd also agree (as the marketroids claim) there is a difference between bothering someone you doubt will be interested but hasn't said "no" yet, and bothering someone who already has said or is trying to say "no" -- but you've got your fingers in your ears to keep from hearing them say it. The marketroids may say it's the difference between right and wrong, I say it's the difference between nuisances and assholes, but there is a difference.

If it is unsolicited and sent in bulk it is spam.

Not everyone agrees that everything thus described is Spam. Furthermore, the absense of definitions for "bulk" and "unsolicited" in that would make any legal beagle's ears perk up... along with those of most marketroids, too. Anything that meets the criteria I gave will be agreed as being spam by anyone who recognizes the existance of the category. There may be other things that are Spam, but their inclusion is not universally undebated.

Religious spam is more worrying in someways, because the irrational nature of the people sending it - just ask the senders what my boss did "who would Jesus spam?".

Inadequately helpful against biblical scholars.

Et dixit eis euntes in mundum universum praedicate evangelium omni creaturae.
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." --Mark 16:15

More important from the perspective of making Spam illegal, religous speech-- in whatever form-- is given a higher degree of protection under US Law than ordinary speech, due to having a double whammy of first amendment protection. Since having any Spam be constitutionally protected weakens attempts to ban it (short of constitutional amendment), sensible people adjust the definition of Spam accordingly.

There are responsible mass-mailers out there. I've told my spam filter to let through the Circuit City email circulars, because I find their ads relevant to my job. (Not that I buy from there often....) Similarly, I let Omaha Steaks send me junk mail, even though I never have bought anything from them... but it's nice to dream I could afford to regularly do a hunk of my grocery shopping with them.

The responsible mailers want everyone to hear from them, but are happy to go away if you tell them to. Target doesn't want to bother people 90 miles from their closest store, because they might loose a customer before they even get a store near them... and the bulk of business is still firmly brick-and-mortar anchored. If we could drive out the scum who are just looking for short-term sucker business, rather than long term regular customers, the problem would be reasonably solvable with POP-server or Client-based blacklists, selection depending on the relative affordability of server processor power versus client side bandwidth. Alas, there's still too many suckers out there, and double that number trying to take 'em.

Worse, Fray. (no, not a fray, but Fray!)

take a dekko at the Annotated Pratchett File it will explain quite a few of the jokes and references. you may miss out on the joy of catching them out later when you know more though..

Speaking of movies, what happened to the plans for a movie based on Mort?

"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.

Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years."

"The person also said that Americans "weren't ready for the treatment of Death as an amusing and sympathetic character". This was about 18 months/2 years before Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey."

"Currently, since the amount of money available for making movies in Europe is about sixpence, the consortium is looking for some more intelligent Americans in the film business. This may prove difficult.

It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America, no Four Horsemen... oh god."

"What you have to remember is that in the movies there are two types of people 1) the directors, artists, actors and so on who have to do things and are often quite human and 2) the other lifeforms. Unfortunately you have to deal with the other lifeforms first. It is impossible to exaggerate their baleful stupidity."

Darn, wrong FAQ. Well, it's on lspace.org somewhere...

Pterry? Sounds like a Pokemon.
It's an alt.fan.pratchett in-joke

I noticed on LSpace that there's also a short of "Troll Bridge" being filmed by a bunch of Aussies.

They even got a quickie script rewrite from PTerry himself.

I noticed on LSpace that there's also a short of "Troll Bridge" being filmed by a bunch of Aussies.

They even got a quickie script rewrite from PTerry himself.

Reminds me of a quote from terry pratchett & neil gaiman's Good Omens (a book which depicts a very British apocolypse, including satan's admiraton the london beltway among other englandisms)

- "Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"
- There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."

-- The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)

a very funny read by the way. drop by your library and check it out.

Beowulf clusters of rats are probably older than Beowulf the text, although the first depiction is from the 16th century. They are called Rat Kings (scroll down to "Feet of Clay")

What Apple needs to do is execute a Canary Trap. They probably have made a list of who could have leaked the mini Mac info. Then they should separate those people into groups and give each group a credible but different "rumor" of new products. When the rumor shows up in print, they know which group leaked and are much further down the path of finding out who it was. This is assuming they _want_ to stop the leaks!

If you've got someone who has already read Adam's extremely small collection of works (including HHGTG and the Dirk Gently books, his "we picked up all the clippings of stuff he wrote and put it into a book," and "Starship Titanic" based on his video game), then they might also like Terry Pratchett's books.

He tells a ripping good yarn, almost all parodies, usually insightful, and always funny. His most famous series is the Discworld books, of which there are 30 or so.

Reading through these books my favorite author slowly switched from Douglas to Pratchett. The humor style is almost the same, but Pratchett's a little more optimistic about the nature of life, which I find refreshing.

"Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind."

-- Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

So what, exactly, makes the Christian standpoint the right one?

You can't define what's right and wrong for everyone based on your personal beliefs, since so many different belief structures exist in this world.

For those of you not familiar, The Librarian is a character in several Terry Pratchett novels.

The Librarian is librarian at Unseen University (for wizards). After a freak magical accident, among other things, the librarian was transformed into an oranguatan. The librarian decided that he liked being an ape better than being a human, and decided to stay that way. He likes bananas.

Now, personally, I'd perfer to see The Luggage as the next clippy. It would somehow be fitting....

For those of you not familiar, The Librarian is a character in several Terry Pratchett novels.

The Librarian is librarian at Unseen University (for wizards). After a freak magical accident, among other things, the librarian was transformed into an oranguatan. The librarian decided that he liked being an ape better than being a human, and decided to stay that way. He likes bananas.

Now, personally, I'd perfer to see The Luggage as the next clippy. It would somehow be fitting....

For those of you not familiar, The Librarian is a character in several Terry Pratchett novels.

The Librarian is librarian at Unseen University (for wizards). After a freak magical accident, among other things, the librarian was transformed into an oranguatan. The librarian decided that he liked being an ape better than being a human, and decided to stay that way. He likes bananas.

Now, personally, I'd perfer to see The Luggage as the next clippy. It would somehow be fitting....

Possibly. Me, I thought Discworld...

Reminds me of a quote by Terry Pratchett:

I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce.

"The students at Copenhagen's new IT University will soon be guided by invisible, but talkative digital agents [...] Ignored ghosts can die out completely. [...] - several papers have been published already."

Yes, I think I've read one of those papers.

Patriot Games...

Canary Trap
Canary Trap

The Science Daily link has more links about Canary Traps and other fingerprinting methods.

...light reading. (-:

They only shipped the truly dangerous ones. You figure it out.

Scene: Microsoft HQ
Present: Emporer Gates, DBallmer

Emporer Gates: Darth Ballmer, it has come to my attention that we do not possess 90% market share in certain aspects of our operation. Your performance diappoints me...

Darth Balmer: Ook.(1)(2)(3) [Hooo...haaa...hooo...haaa](4)

Emporer Gates: Our code causes only 50% of crashes, yet we control 95% of desktop computers...can you explain the ineffectiveness of our operation? Why are we lagging in this area?!?!?

Darth Balmer: Ook. [Hoooo...haaaaa...hoooo...haaaa]

Emporer Gates: Please put your army of flying monkey dark Jedi to work on this problem immediately. I expect results, Ballmer. You will not fail me in this, or you will be looking for bananas in the sodomy pits of the Hutts!

Darth Balmer: Ook! [Hoooo...haaaaa...hoooo...haaaa]

GF.

(1) Monkeyboy
(2) Librarian
(3) I'm aware that it should be "Ape-boy" if the Librarian is an Orangutan, but if you don't tell the Librarian, I won't.
(4) Darth Vader breathing sound

Unfortuately, a lie has gone three times around the world before the truth has even got its trousers on.

A nice bloke with a beard told me this, or something very like it.

T&K.

The names come from the Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Vorbis was a corrupt religious ruler hell-bent on world domination in Small Gods and Nanny Ogg is a funny, old, hard-liquor drinking, foul-mouthed witch featured in many of the books.

The Lspace links to a veritable treasure trove of Pratchettiana but there's so much there, you'll have to have a poke around to find what you're after.

Terry Pratchett is an English writer known for his Discworld novels, a series that began purely as a humourous parody of fantasy books. The Discworld stories have evolved over time, a reflection of Pratchett's own development

The HEX is the Discworld version of a computer made by the guys in the HEM (High Energy Magic) building. It contains ants. A buggy system indeed *ducks*. Some of the more common error messages include: "++ Permission Denied +++ ++ Out Of Cheese Error +++ and ++ Redo From Start +++".

Do you have any information about this?

Enter the wonderful world of Lspace.