to-bury-the-castle:

Just finished a reread of The Truth, and something I love in it, that I don’t really see discussed much, is the relationship between William and the dwarves. Because the press could so easily have been a human enterprise, the way the clacks is later on, but Pratchett specifically makes it a dwarfish one, and I think I know why.

You might not pick up on if you haven’t read some of the surrounding books, but dwarfs really, really value truth. Goodmountain claims the press is all about the money for him, and obviously William interacting with people who don’t share his privilege is key to the novel, so there are Watsonian and Doylist reasons for this choice. But still. If you reverse your perspective, and look at the events of the novel from the point of view of the dwarves …

They’re new in the city, not really sure how it all works or even what they plan to do with this thing they’ve created. And then on day one, along comes William, this human who makes his living taking the truth and writing it down. Who hates to tell a lie. Who makes his newspaper’s manifesto “The Truth Shall Make Ye Free” (or “Fret”, depending on the typographical error of the day, honestly either fits). A human boy, who lives and breathes and puts his life on the line for the truth, in a city where most people just don’t care. And William can see that they don’t care, but he does it anyway. Because he thinks the truth matters. Goodmountain is more cynical than most dwarfs but he’s still a dwarf, and I bet that struck a chord somewhere in his soul. If Harry King sees himself in William, I wonder what Goodmountain sees?

And then there’s the little detail of the way the press brands William at the start of the book. He doesn’t think much of it, but we know from Thud! that dwarves are highly superstitious, especially in the whole area of brands and signs. They laugh it off, but I wonder how they really felt about that? The press has a power of its own, and when something brands you like that, claims you for its own like that … well, maybe it’s better not to get in the way. But I would have loved to hear some of the conversations Boddony and Goodmountain had about that one.

In part, that’s a residual part of the original plotline for The Truth, which was about the dwarves accidentally tapping into a magical spring and anything printed with the ink becoming true, which resolved into the published plot when pTerry realised he didn’t really need the magic bit.

(Source: … Terry holding court at a Discworld convention somewhere early this millennium or late last. Sorry, feel free to assume I’m lying)

sufficientlylargen:

anapplepie:

when programs fucking autocorrect <3 to ❤️ and :) to 😃,,,, do you have any idea what you’ve just done?? what you just fucking destroyed ?

A) It’s irritating when systems turn lovely ascii art into crude little pictograms, and

😎 It’s even more frustrating when you weren’t actually trying to make an emoji.

Our desktop IT department did a massive rework of the network drives system over last Christmas, changing how windows would map the shared drives to windows disks. While there were security drivers, a major reason to get it done was to stop people from reporting problems with accessing their 😄\ drives in support tickets.

whencartoonsruletheworld:

ghostlybluemuffins:

whencartoonsruletheworld:

disney when they spend exactly $2 promoting their new movie and release it during a busy weekend and then it flops

ALT

@artist-heart83 There is actually a reason for this. A very disgusting and greedy capitalist reason but a reason nonetheless.

Basically, they are banking on it not doing well in theaters, but doing well on streaming services in October, over three months after the release date.

Most of the writers/actors/workers/etc paycheck depends on how well they do in theaters and the three months after the release.

Since it’ll fall in theaters and won’t pick up in streaming until after everyone has gotten (the majority of) their paycheck, they won’t have to pay their workers as much as their work is worth.

cool cool cool im making a molotov cocktail

This is also literally why the WGA & SAG-AFTRA are on strike

goldensunset:

do you look anything like your icon irl

my icon is a photo of me! (ok bot)

my icon is a drawing/picrew/etc of me

my icon isn’t me but they look a lot like me

i think with a few tweaks i could be them. more or less

some general similarities (face/body type, gender, age, race, etc) otherwise no

lol nope

i could not possibly look any different from the character in my icon

non-humanoid icon option/show results

feel free to elaborate in tags of course on how easy or hard cosplaying them would be

bonus question: how much do you WANT to look like your icon. like are they the goal you aspire to

My icon is a recoloured version of the coat of arms for my family name. I aspire to be well known enough that the Royal College of Feet takes issue with it.

samreich:

Dropout is back in production. 🫡

As I mentioned, Dropout is not associated with the AMPTP, who negotiates on behalf of the majority of studios and streamers. But truthfully, there’s no such thing as a “struck company.” There are instead “struck contracts” – and not-struck contracts.

We assumed Dropout’s contract - the New Media Agreement for Non-Dramatic Programming - was stuck because it wasn’t specifically on a list of non-struck contracts. After speaking at length with our lawyers and with SAG, turns out that is not the case.

So, Dropout can return to business as usual. And because none of our shows were ever struck, talent can go back to promoting their Dropout appearances. 🎉

SAG’s decisions are in part strategic. Small streamers like us continuing to work while the major streamers cannot gives us a competitive advantage and puts more pressure on them to make a deal. 😎

But make no mistake about it: We continue to support our striking performers and their cause.

- Between Dropout and me personally, we have donated $20,000 to the Entertainment Community Fund.

- If anyone doesn’t feel comfortable working with us or promoting their work during the strike for whatever reason, we respect their decision.

- While we already pay above minimums, we will continue to go above and beyond to reward and protect our performers *and* crew members, and plan to put even more of our money where our mouth is before the end of the year.

Dropout fans, thank you for your support and solidarity during this uncertain time. Keep supporting the Entertainment Community Fund, as well as the pet projects of your favorite creators.

And with that, it’s back to work. ⛏️

starshipheartofg-erti:

happy birthday

Sure. I mean, in the event of my death, @aquarions-of-history will continue to spew forth everything I’ve ever said on here ten years later, until the server dies or the API breaks.

In this we achieve as close to immortality as I can possibly engineer.

The ripples I leave in the world will spread from the stones I throw in it from the machines I have created to do so.

huachengapologist:

Why couldn’t my MMO be a popular one like WoW or FFXIV. Why’s it gotta be a dead horror MMO in indefinite maintenance mode.

City of Heroes will always be my first,

but The Secret World will always be my home.

Funcom’s treatment of it makes me genuinely too angry to engage with the game as it stands, so I stand back and watch from a distance its slowly cooling corpse as it shambles towards another community lead anniversary event.

I’m looking forward to the RPG coming out.

taneb:

whetstonefires:

the-punforgiven:

I wish wizards were real so bad imagine coming out of a wal mart and seeing some guy with long robes and a big hat in the parking lot surrounded by wacky particle effects screaming some shit like “By the moon and the starlight, by the shield and the sword, I summon to me, my Honda Accord!” And then just getting into his car and driving off

so there’s basically two reasons he would need to do this and they’re both funny

1. his magical honda unsummoned while he was in Walmart; this means it’s not even a real car and could look like anything and he picked or was forced somehow to pick a Honda Accord
2. his normal honda was left someplace while he came to Walmart by other means, and he can teleport the car to him more easily than he can teleport himself places

Third possibility: he forgot where he parked

By moon, and by starlight, By shield and by sword,
Please bring to my presence, my Honda Accord.
By the presence of car keys, I hereby implore,
The fates to bring to me, My Honda Accord.

(To the tune of Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz)

(Which is also the tune of Bob Rivers’ Honda Accord)

cassolotl:

WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP, in the story “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, does the name Frankenstein refer to…

The doctor

The doctor’s creation

Other

I don’t know

See Results

I didn’t even know Doctor Who was in the novel, so that was news.