HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: uhschreg@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Ulrich Schreglmann)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Realism in Guards!Guards!
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 11:54:30 GMT
Organization: Student Pool, CSD, University of Erlangen, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: faui09.informatik.uni-erlangen.de

jeremy@garland.bt.co.uk (Jeremy Pavier) writes:

>She was most disappointed. She felt that the romance between Errol
>and the female Draco Nobilis was "completely unrealistic". While she
>could presumably handle the concepts of the Discworld, Dragons, Wizards, etc,
>she was completely unable to accept that such a large dragon could be
>won by such a small male. When I said that I thought there was supposed
>to be an element of comic effect there, I was verbally assaulted on the 
>viability of "weak jokes" and generally felt that I should have left
>my copy of the book on the shelf and let her read the Sun like all the
>other intellectuals.

She has obviously never heard about those large spiders, the male of
which is about one tenth smaller than the female, and gets eaten by her
if he doesn't bring home a box of really big candy every night.  But I
guess that's nothing that counts among the ampro--, the anthromop--, the
anthropomorphizers of this world.

>Am I the only one who feels that there are a lot of people
>out there suffering from a serious Sense-of-Humour Failure?

How dare you insult us like this!
WE HAVE THE BIGGEST SENSE OF HUMOR IN THE WORLD!
WE JUST HATE BEING MADE FUN OF!


See You in Court!

(C)OOL mcmxciii
"A knocking without a door?  Must be some kind of Zen!"  Wyrd Sisters
From: cmac@castle.ed.ac.uk (Colin MacDonald)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: My tuppence
Date: 21 Jan 93 10:19:33 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <damiene.727504655@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au> damiene@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Eccles) writes:
>
> [STUFF DELETED COS YOU SHOULD HAVE READ IT BY NOW AND I AM AN ECO-NETTER.
> SAVE THE BANDWIDTH! SAVE THE BANDWIDTH!]
>
>Are you suggesting that knowledge is also affected by the second law
>of thermodynamics? 
>That knowledge will be conducted throughout a room, until everyone in 
>that room will have the same degree of knowledge, even if they started
>off with more knowledge than the average. This could have wonderous
>effects on the educational processes of the world. 
>Lets see, if we got a room full of blondes/arts students/favorite minority
>to pick on (knowledge 0) and placed someone who wanted to learn, oh, say
>statistics at one end, and soemone who knows stats at the other, could
>you beam the knowledge through the 'knowledge-vacuum' that exists in
>between them?>

I think that, to a certain extent, this could be true, but it is
reasonable to think that the transmission of knowledge through the
intervening spaces would result in inevitable losses, due to the
non-ideal conditions present so this would be a less than 100% efficient
process.  You would need to find the psycho-kinetic equivalent of a
superconductor (although the vacuum tunnel should be a fairly resistance
free channel - it might even help the transmission due to the pressure
imbalances at either end).  In addition, the process is probably
assisted by having a suitable academic flux status within the immediate
environment (are you getting all this Terry?) such as a lecture, but
especially in an exam situation.  After all, how many times have you sat
an exam and discovered you didn't know half as much as you used to? And
you suddenly develop sharp insights to the early process of the Russian
revolution from the History exam in the next room?  What is really
needed is some kind of insulating material, perhaps a helmet made of
densely packed Conservative Education Policy (a provably effective
method of barring the transfer of knowledge).  Of course this would be
for those in the upper bracket of the appropriate subject - those in the
lower end would benefit from some kind of reception and amplification
equipment, but I'll leave that up to someone else to get research grants
for.  I'm sure you can see that it is true though... really, it works -
no, get off!  Where are you taking me?  What's this jacket for??  But
I've still to do my cold fusion theory!!  No... get off...

Colin

-- 
Colin MacDonald, Dept. of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh
.........  cmac @ castle.ed.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk (D N Crow)
Subject: Re: Small Gods Annotations
Originator: daniel@csgi60
Organization: The University of Leeds, School of Computer Studies
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 16:52:57 GMT
Distribution: alt
X-Posted-From: csgi60.leeds.ac.uk
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu


In article <SR.93Jan20190147@zen.mp.co.umist.ac.uk>, sr@mp.co.umist.ac.uk (Simon Read) writes:

|> 
|> p. 10 "Give me a boy up to the age of seven, Nhumrod had always said."
|> 
|> A reference to the Jesuit saying: "Give me a boy to the age of 7 and I
|> will give you the man.". They boasted that they could convert anyone
|> if they started early enough.

Surely "Give me a boy up to the age of 7 and I will give you a Catholic"?

|> 
|> p.49 "Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time."
|> 
|> A reference perhaps (Pterry to confirm) to the saying (of a US
|> President, Ford I think) that: "He can't walk and chew gum at the same time."
|> 

That's what I thought when I read it.

|> p. 60 "Below it, the doors of the Great Temple, each one made of forty
|> tons of gilded bronze, opened by the breath (it was said) of the Great
|> God Himself, swung open ponderously and - and this was the holy part
|> - silently."
|> 
|> The doors of a temple in Alexandria were opened by a steam engine
|> designed by the Greek philosopher Hero. With similar legends
|> surrounding it.

I believe this is a myth. Hero *did* invent a steam "engine", but it was
merely a small sphere that rotated due to steam pressure (history's
earliest executive toy?) There is no evidence that he ever used the
invention for any real work (e.g. opening doors). Unless someone knows
better...

|> 
|> p.162 "'And the wrong sort of ash', said Vorbis"
|> 
|> British Rail (last winter I think) were having difficulty getting
|> trains to run on time and they blamed it on the snow. They
|> were then quizzed as to why their snow-ploughs couldn't deal with it.
|> They replied that it was "the wrong sort of snow". (perhaps this story
|> was leaves first, I can't remember). Again "the wrong sort of X" is
|> now part of the idiom.

The real beauty of it is that they had used the *same* excuse the autumn (fall)
before when train failures/delays were blamed on "the wrong sort of leaves".
For American's out there, British rail are either the nationalised railway
system in the UK or a running national joke. Or perhaps both.

|> 
|> pp.0- The running theme of the arrow comes from the famous arrow
|> paradox. The details of which escape me at the moment.

Well, its pretty obvious from the book, but it goes:

I shoot an arrow at a target. But in order to reach the target it first has
to travel half the distance to the target. Then to get from there to the
target, it has to travel half the remaining distance to the target. Because
we can always divide the remaining distance in half, and the arrow always has
to travel that distance, this process goes on ad infinitum, and the arrow
cannot reach its mark.

This, and many variations on it, happen when you try to apply discrete
reasoning to an analogue world. And they wonder why computers have such a
problem....

-- 
Dan Crow
daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk
From: ma_blase@csd.uwe.ac.uk (Fox)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Rankin.
Date: 25 Jan 93 11:01:18 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Paul Sammy 4th Year iE/CES (ssammy@cs.strath.ac.uk) wrote:
> 
>  > Whats wrong with glow in the dark condoms?
>  > P.
>  > -- 
> 
>   What worries ME is: what kind of radioactive compound do they use
>   to make them glow? :-)
>

Oh gawd,  think about the cancer!

Mike 
-- 
 |\_/| F  "The only way to hold onto something is with a closed fist so
 \O O/ O   no theiving git can nick it.  A shotgun helps too..."
  \o/  X					     - Ebeneezer Goode
From: eyvind@Lise.Unit.NO (Eyvind Bernhardsen)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Merchandise Etc
Date: 21 Jan 93 17:06:15 GMT
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology

In article <RSHOLMES.93Jan21103728@rodan.syr.EDU>, rsholmes@rodan.syr.EDU (Rich Holmes) writes:

 > >128   64   32  16   8   4   2   1
 > >  0    0    0   0   1   0   0   0   =8  (Original poster)
 > >  0    0    0   0   0   1   0   0   =4  (barretpj)
 > >
 > >Well, I think that says it all, really, doesn't it? ;)
 > 
 > Not really. Who said "00000100" was in binary? Could have been base
 > sqrt(8), now couldn't it?

Could it?  Can you have fractional bases?  Is this why I failed my math exam?

All these questions will never, ever be answered.  At all.  I mean it this time.

 > - Rich "mcmxciibo" Holmes

-Eyvind ;)

-- 
     //|                             | DISCLAIMER: I don't HAVE opinions.
    // |                             | I just repeat what everyone else says!
\\ //--|miga: There can be only one. |
 \X/   |         eyvind@lise.unit.no | Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!  Ackpth!
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: leveret@warren.demon.co.uk (Nick Leverton)
Subject: Re: Small Gods Annotations
Reply-To: leveret@warren.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: Indexed; Access: Random.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:16:51 +0000

In article <SR.93Jan20190147@zen.mp.co.umist.ac.uk> sr@mp.co.umist.ac.uk (Simon Read) writes:
>p.49 "Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time."
>
>A reference perhaps (Pterry to confirm) to the saying (of a US
>President, Ford I think) that: "He can't walk and chew gum at the same time."

"So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time" - Lyndon B.
Johnson, speaking of Gerald Ford.

>p. 60 "Below it, the doors of the Great Temple, each one made of forty
>tons of gilded bronze, opened by the breath (it was said) of the Great
>God Himself, swung open ponderously and - and this was the holy part
>- silently."
>
>The doors of a temple in Alexandria were opened by a steam engine
>designed by the Greek philosopher Hero. With similar legends
>surrounding it.

We've discussed this before ... but I'm still sure that they weren't.
Hero's engine never existed in 304mm/ft scale :-)

Nick
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: damiene@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Eccles)
Subject: Re: Reaperman Annotations
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 02:31:16 GMT

ajw@manta.mel.dit.csiro.au (Andrew Waugh, 723 Swanston St Carlton) writes:

>From article <1993Jan26.163904.1@rchep.ph.unimelb.edu.au>, by bertram@rchep.ph.unimelb.edu.au:
>Australian bush would quickly realise that corks on strings would be
>totally bloody useless in detering flies!

The only thing that deters them is a mucking great hand on the
back of their 'skull'

>Chalk another one up to misconceptions -- like Australians using the
>term 'cobber'.
One of the funniest things I have ever heard was a German immigrant
who had been here just long enough to get an accent say 'cobber'

I couldn't stop laughing for twenty minutes, and he got very annoyed.
Eccles
"Bother me  -  I'm trying to work"
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
Subject: Re: Magrat's Huge Tracts of Land
Organization: Contract to CSC, Victoria Uni, Wellington, New Zealand
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:58:25 GMT
	<1993Jan26.170927.14773@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>

wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) writes:

> I don't know; I think this is a picture of three *other* witches.
> Anyone know who they are?

Quite possibly they are the three would-be witches from L&L?  While
this would require clairvoyance on the part of the cover artist for
WA, I figure that their skulls must be being used for *something* :)

From all descriptions, they would have been busty, lusty and not at
all musty :-)

Nat.

Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: rsholmes@rodan.syr.EDU (Rich Holmes)
Subject: Re: My tuppence
In-reply-to: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu's message of Wed, 20 Jan 1993 22:41:52 GMT
Organization: Syracuse University
	<damiene.727504655@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au>
	<1993Jan20.224152.7289@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 17:37:54 EST

In article <1993Jan20.224152.7289@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser") writes:

>Probably not.  Since the blondes/art students/etc. have absolutely no
>knowledge whatsoever, knowledge will be sucked in from all corners of the room
>to fill the void.  Not only does this usually deprive all the students (and
>the teacher) of any knowledge they might once have had about statistics, but
>there will often be an overlap into related fields (social "sciences,"
>mathematics, engineering, sports) as well, and in extreme cases an entire
>roomful of students may be left drooling and trying to remember how to spell
>their names.

A similar phenomenon can also be observed, rather frequently, in
certain newsgroups. 

Present company excepted of course.

--
- Rich "mcmxciibo" Holmes
"Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of
accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave
like this." -- Douglas Adams
From: jmorris@spider.co.uk (John Morris)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Loyalist Opinions
Date: 22 Jan 93 18:34:01 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK.

In article <leo.727521324@draconis> leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl writes:
>
>Quite amazing, by the way, how *everybody* on this newsgroup seems to
>go absolutely crazy over both "Witches Abroad" and especially "Lords
>and Ladies", right up to the point where they admit that the novels
>that went before constituted a "downhill slide", and how glad they are
>that Terry is 'back on the track' again, etc.

Interesting stuff, this news - I've seen about four follow-ups to this
message in the last couple of days, and only now do I get to see the
original posting!

>Personally, I still don't particularly like neither of those two books,
>while all three of "Moving Pictures", "Pyramids" and "Small Gods"
>(the first two of which get regularly slammed, the latter hardly ever
>talked about) are among my favourite Discworld novels.

Pyramids has long been my favourite. Parts had me laughing out loud - not
unusual with Mr P's outpourings of course, but this was on the third or
fourth reading...

I am particularly fond of the "axiom testing station" and all that follows. 
But then, I have read many over-twee books presenting the original pardoxes
in a "light hearted" (Hah!) fashion, so the way it was taken to the
extreme in Pyramids maybe released some intellectual steam - or something.

But, unlike Leo, I think that L&L is the second best, which only goes to show
that...

>
>Oh well, it takes all kinds I suppose.
>
>-- 
>Leo Breebaart  (leo @ cp.tn.tudelft.nl)

John.

ps: Given TP's way of extrapolating from life and incorporating the results
into DW, and his proclaimed hobby - how come we have not seen any really
good carnivorous plants there yet? (Or maybe he did write something but
it turned out to be a lot less interesting than most people would think,
so it got dropped.)


-- 
-John Morris-Spider Systems Ltd-031 554 9424-jmorris@spider.co.uk-GM4ANB@GB7EDN-
From: eesshlgb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (S H L G Bisson)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Just a long note *&)
Date: 25 Jan 93 10:06:43 GMT
Organization: School of Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, UK

In the referenced article, tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:

>4) There's a rather nice shop in Walcot Street, Bath, that orders them
>specially for me.

Hmm. Is that the one that is never open, and if you peer through the 
windows, you see a pony-trap?

(Me, I never understood the pony-trap, I mean, they're big enough, and 
come quite quickly if you wave a carrot in their general direction, and
anyway, how did they get into the skirting boards?)

Odd street, Walcot Street, they let _me_ live there...

---
Simon H le G Bisson...net.jerriais...Reunite Pangaea!....................
----
From: uhschreg@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Ulrich Schreglmann)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Alien Controversion
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 12:12:36 GMT
Organization: Student Pool, CSD, University of Erlangen, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: faui09.informatik.uni-erlangen.de

leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart) writes:

>S_MARTIN@IRAV21.ira.uka.de (|S| Ralf Martin) writes:

>> The really strange stuff is that every bug-eyed,slime-drooling monster
>> from planet #@$%^%$&%@#%51776 Dillington,Murmansk jumps out of his 
>> Spacecraft,grabs a shapely Blonde and zooms off to a erotic
>> extravaganza in outer space.

>Science fiction *has* progressed a little since the 1930's, you know...

Yeah, right! Nowadays it's black eyeless, slime-drooling monsters from
Planet #@$%^%$&%@#% 67715 Brewstershire, Xiang Gang jumping out of their
spacecraft, grabbing a shapely brunette and zooming off to an erotic ex-
travaganza in outer space.


May the Cool Be with You!

(C)OOL mcmxciii
"Help, help, the Alien is sucking my brain dry!"  Garfield with banana
peel on his face
From: ma_blase@csd.uwe.ac.uk (Fox)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Friar Tuck
Date: 25 Jan 93 11:17:02 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

In <727462427.3634@minster.york.ac.uk> car-a@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
 
>And another thing, how come all those space aliens out there call
>thier planet Zak or Quargotron or Jpimpzxx, not Earth or Home or
>something a bit more logical like that?  And why do there names 
>always contain rather too many Zs and Qs and Xs?  Probably so's
>they can get very high Scrabble scores.

Nope, wouldn't work.  Propper names you see.

Mike
-- 
 |\_/| F  "The only way to hold onto something is with a closed fist so
 \O O/ O   no theiving git can nick it.  A shotgun helps too..."
  \o/  X					     - Ebeneezer Goode
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: neilb@physics.su.OZ.AU (RiemannZeta(s))
Subject: Re: My tuppence
Organization: School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:11:28 GMT

On the subject of different species of lectures I came across a book
a while back entitles 'a random walk through science' and in it had
an article about different methods of proof. Some of the better ones where:

Proof by boardem: The lecturer  continues in an incompherensible manner
until everybody is asleep. He then says the magic words "and thus it has been
proved" which causes everybody to wake up, and decide to get the notes from
somebody else, which of course they never do.

Proof by Osmosis: The lecturer makes uses of the result all semester
without ever proving it, just saying "oh, we will prove it later", by the
end of the course everybody knows the theorem so well, they assume that it has been
proved.

Proof in a different course: The lecturer in Course A, says you will prove it
in course B. In course B, they state that you had proved it in course A.
(I find this one very popular at Syd Uni, especially between maths and physics)

Proof by Assigement: The lecturer sets the proof as a simple problem to be
done by the class.

Another species of lecturer is the Quo, the ability of the Quo is to
give out irrelevant information, so that you won't notice he is sucking
anything useful out of your brain. You will come out of a complex variable
lecture knowing about Gauss's love life, which blinds you to the fact you
know less about complex numbers than you came in. The Quo is a very
dangerous species as the information he imparts is slightly addictive,
and you end up coming back again and again ... 

Neil

--
*************************************************
I ache for the touch of your lips, Dear,
But much more for the touch of your whips, Dear.
You can raise welts
Like nobody else,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
*************************************************
From: ssammy@cs.strath.ac.uk (Paul Sammy 4th Year iE/CES)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Endless Discworld
Date: 28 Jan 93 11:46:37 GMT
Organization: Information Engineering
In-reply-to: tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk's message of 27 Jan 93 21:59:00 GMT

>Regarding Endless Discworld; tpratchett@cix.compulink.co.uk (Terry Pratchett) adds:

 > I've had one of thoese mailings hwere the author says, why not answer in
 > a.f.p rather than privately 'cos other'll want to know...so...

 > Question was: do the publishers force me to write DW books? 

 [stuff zapped]

 > I can't imagine how
 > anyone can be _forced_ to write a book.

  Well, signing a contract to produce 40 books over the next 5 years would be
  one way.

  What other projects do you have in mind, Terry? Or is it top-secret?


 > Terry

   Paul
--

Q:  Why are electrons patriotic?            | Internet: ssammy@cs.strath.ac.uk
A:  Because they go to the poles and volt.  | JANET   : ssammy@uk.ac.strath.cs
Copy this line into your .signature to protect it against viruses! [version -9]
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
From: Edward Julian Craft <e.j.craft@aston.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: N. Rhymes
X-Xxdate: Wed, 27 Jan 93 10:12:46 GMT
Organization: Aston University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 10:05:57 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.172605.8608@turing.ac.uk> Gary Smith,
gary@arkaig.turing.ac.uk writes:
>|> Speaking of blood 'n' gore, the last verse of 'London Bridge is
falling
>|> down' is all about sacrificing childen to put in as the foundations.
>|> 
>|> Just the thing to get a kiddie off to sleep methinks.
>|> 
>
>   You can't make a posting like that!  I can only remember
>
>     "London Bridge is falling down,
>      Falling down, fallin down.
>      London Bridge is falling down.
>      .... ?"
>
>   What is the remainder?

The first verse is of the form :

					London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down,
					London bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

Each pair of verses after that are a way of rebuilding and a reason why
it won't work
eg. ( this probably isn't a correct example but it shows what I mean ) :

					Build it up with sticks and stones, sticks and stones, sticks and
stones,
					Build it up with sticks and stones, my fair lady.

					Sticks and stones will wash away, wash away, wash away,
					Sticks and stones will wash away, my fair lady.

The final couple are ( again, the wording my be wrong but the content is
right ):

					Build it up on children's bones, children's bones, children's bones,
					Build it up on children's bones, my fair lady.

					Children's bones will save the day, save the day, save the day,
					Children's bones will save the day, my--- fair------ lady.

I'm sure someone out there will correct me on the exact words :-).
From: gk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Gavin Kerr)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Re: Merchandise Etc
Date: 21 Jan 93 15:10:46 GMT
Reply-To: gk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Gavin Kerr)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U

In article <1993Jan20.103616.300@aston.ac.uk> barretpj@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Phil J Barrett) writes:
>Simon Harwood (sfch@dmu.ac.uk) wrote:
>: to find out exactly what happened, READ THE BOOK.) Therefore, after Rincewind
>: et al. had finished with Bel Shammaroth, he wasn't going to be summoned by
>: a wizard saying 00001000. Logical?




>
>00000100 even.
>

NO IT IS 00001000 Binary!!!!!

00001000b = 8d

00000100b = 4d

8d = 00000100 * 00000010 !

Binary works like this :

	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	128	64	32	16	8	4	2	1

You multiply each of the ones by its position value and add them all up...

so 	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
	128	64	32	16	8	4	2	1	

is 0*128 + 0*64 + 0*32 + 0*16 + 1*8 + 0*4 + 0*2 + 0*1
   = 8.

OK???
Got it now???



>Phil


Gav : gk@dcs.ed.ac.uk  gk@castle.ed.ac.uk  gkerr@nyx.cs.du.edu

*******************************************************************************
- if it GLISTENS, gobble it!!
*******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett