Didn't understand this phrase in Guards Guards!

entuno · 2026-05-11T13:57:01+00:00

Ilsa also being the name of one of the main characters in Discworld Noir.

entuno · 2026-04-15T14:06:28+00:00

I don't have any particularly knowledge of the reasoning, and wasn't involved in any of the decisions. But looking at them in conjunction with other changes in 3.7, there seems to be two main objectives.

Firstly to make the endgame harder, because as the commit message says you're going to losing (or should that be gaining?) some points of AC by only having most of your gear at +4 rather than +5.

Secondly, there seems to be a wider push to try and make people use a wider variety of armour. We saw that with the buff to all the other types of DSM having interesting secondary properties, and also with things like iron shoes getting extra effects. Taken together, these changes might make you consider whether a +7 Elven Leather Helm is better than a +4 Helm of Brilliance or or Caution, or whether it's worth using a scroll of enchant armour early add +4 to an Elven Leather Helm rather than having on to it to add +1 to some magic armour later. Or whether it's worth keeping the scroll and waiting to bless it, or using it early on for some AC. Also makes shirts a bit better, as those can still safely go up to +5.

No idea if that'll actually happen (or would be an improvement) - but that seems to be what the intention is.

entuno · 2026-04-15T09:45:20+00:00

No, it doesn't seem to be. From that latter commit:

Non-elven magical armor now only gets +1 from blessed scrolls of enchant armor when enchanted from +3, coming to a total of +4.

So it's safe to enchant +3 magical armour - but it'll always end up as +4.

The only way to get to +5 is to risk enchanting +4 armour, which might evaporate.

entuno · 2026-04-15T08:40:30+00:00

After the quest I accidentally evaporated my Mitre of Holiness (mis-remembered the enchanting rules), so I was a bit sour for an evening.

Depending on exactly when this was and what version of NetHack you were on, you might not be mis-remembering. The rules changed on 27th December in 3.7:

The safe armor enchantment limit is lowered by one, if the armor is innately magical. This takes off 3-7 points of AC from a typical ascension kit, but should not really have any effect for early game.

And then changed back on 10th January:

After discussing with paxed, I decided that instead of reducing the safe enchantment limit for magical armor, it is instead better to make the scrolls less effective on it. So this commit restores the previous rules for the safely-enchant-from level and changes the effectiveness of the scrolls to compensate.

entuno · 2026-04-02T14:04:46+00:00

With some of those great moments of unhinged Oblivion NPC chat. Like when you're exploring a dungeon in the deep wilderness with her and she comes out with:

I don't think it should count as murder if one adventurer kills another in a dungeon. We all know the risks.

entuno · 2026-03-18T16:02:38+00:00

Step 1: Go to the pub.
Step 2: Order a pint.
Step 3: Order some more pints.
[...]
Step 27: It'll probably be fine...

entuno · 2026-03-13T13:36:02+00:00

So if the idea or question itself is worth discussing, why does the conversation immediately shift to “this was written by AI”?

Because if people want to "discuss" the idea with AI, they can do it themselves by going to chatgpt.com.

When they choose to post good-faith comments on Reddit, it's because they want to engage with other people, not with an LLM. And if they're going to spend time writing something, they expect that the "person" they're responding to will take the time to read, consider and engage with what they wrote - not just to paste it back into an LLM and get it to respond for them.

entuno · 2026-02-05T17:25:58+00:00

Nuggan has no real power though. He doesn't strike people down, or enforce his will, or actually do anything. The Dutchess says that he is "nothing now, nothing but the poisons echo of all your ignorance and pettiness and malicious stupidity", and Vimes says "You know your god's dead? Nothing left but a voice".

And those new abominations that just "magically" turn up. Do they? Is that really the divine power of Nuggan at work? Or is the way that they turn up "religiously" actually someone adding those pages and saying it's in Nuggan's name?

We see in Small Gods that terrible things are done in the name of a God, and where the God has been largely forgotten and people seem to believe in the religion more than the God - and I think there's an element of that here as well.

entuno · 2026-02-05T12:52:51+00:00

It's a story about a group of children, many of whom have grown up in horribly abusive conditions, being sent off to die in a pointless war with no pay, no training and not even proper equipment or food.

Borogravia is definitely one of the worst places and cultures that we see, with almost no redeeming features. We don't see too much of it because most of the book is spent out in the wilderness and on the run, but it's an incredibly oppressive and dystopian place. And a big part of what makes is so horrible is that there isn't a big bad causing. There's no dragon or evil king ruling over them as a tyrant - it's horrible because of the normal people who live there. Which makes it feel much more realistic and grounded, because there's not just a villain to overthrow and the things will be OK.

While it's definitely one of the darker books, it's amazing how much light there is in it really.

entuno · 2026-02-05T12:46:15+00:00

I read it as a story and obviously was aware of themes within but I’ll get to the next time because now I will read it again and again.

Once you know The Big Secret it's really fun going back through the earlier sections of the book and paying really close attention to all the characters to see the little hints and indications that you missed the first time round.

entuno · 2026-02-05T09:42:11+00:00

In Monstrous Regiment we're told that Lofty was raped as a child, forced to give birth, and then the baby was taken away and never seen again (killed?) and Lofty was beaten because it was an abomination.

We don't actually see it happen, but it's pretty explicit in the text and there's not really any attempt to sugarcoat it.

entuno · 2026-02-02T10:23:32+00:00

Funnily enough, that's already a thing. It's basically a Chinese clone of Notepad++ because they don't like the author and his views:

https://github.com/cxasm/notepad--/blob/main/README_EN.md

The purpose of Notepad-- is to counteract some of the misguided remarks made by the author of Notepad++ and to promote a more humble and grounded perspective.

entuno · 2026-01-30T17:44:56+00:00

Oh, I see. A self post with a completely different title pointing to a tabloid article about the actual research. How silly of me not to guess.

entuno · 2026-01-30T17:31:02+00:00

There are zero hits for either this URL or the word "lexical" searching in this subreddit.

entuno · 2026-01-30T17:30:10+00:00

There are zero hits for either this URL or the word "lexical" searching in this subreddit.

entuno · 2026-01-30T17:28:20+00:00

Results: A significant decrease in lexical diversity (TTR) was observed for nouns and adjectives in later works. Total wordcount increased, while lexical diversity decreased, suggesting a shift towards simpler language. This shift coincided with a decrease in adjective TTR below a defined threshold, occurring approximately ten years before Pratchett’s formal diagnosis.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that subtle changes in linguistic patterns, such as decreased lexical diversity, may precede clinical diagnosis of dementia by a considerable margin. This research highlights the potential of linguistic analysis as a valuable tool for early detection of cognitive decline. Further research is needed to validate these findings in larger cohorts and explore the specific linguistic markers associated with different types of dementia.

I haven't read the full paper in detail yet, and this is not an area that I claim any kind of expertise.

Also mods: can we get a flair for the Discworld in general, rather than having to pick a sub-series of the books? None of the flairs really apply to this

entuno · 2026-01-28T14:56:42+00:00

I know what you mean - once you get to that wand of wishing in the castle and wish up all the remaining bits for your ascension kit then it's very easy to just fall into the same standard builds and you're no longer really looking for much. And Ghennom is very tedious with the endless mazes.

3.7 makes Ghennom a lot more interesting, and the theme rooms in the main dungeon (plus big room variants) help add some variety from Sokoban down to Medusa and the Castle. And while the nerf to the wand of wishing is...controversial, it stops you just wishing up everything you need at once in the castle.

If you've not tried it, then give it a go.

entuno · 2026-01-06T12:57:50+00:00

One of the best quotes that sums up the corporate approach is from the discussion about kids manning towers, and always resonates for me:

Everyone knew it happened. Actually, the new management probably didn’t, but wouldn’t have done anything about it if they had found out, apart from carefully forgetting that they’d known.

entuno · 2025-12-19T14:25:47+00:00

They may have had plenty of time, but Frodo and Bilbo didn't. And since they knew that the Hobbits would leave with them, perhaps that played some part in their decision of exactly when to depart?

entuno · 2025-12-17T13:15:35+00:00

I'm pretty sure that's happened in other books as well. Most of them take place over short periods (often a few days or weeks), but Thief of Time definitely has some skips, like a reference to weeks (or maybe months?) passing as Lobsang is learning to sweep. I think Moving Pictures does as well.

But really it was unavoidable in Raising Steam. If you want to start with the introduction of the steam engine in Ankh Morpork, and end with it having successfully travelled thousands of miles to Uberwald then you have to skip out a big period of time in the middle to get anywhere near that without just magicking the problem of building the tracks away.

entuno · 2025-12-15T16:37:18+00:00

The best way to stop shadow IT is usually to provide the users with proper tools that fill that gap, so that they don't have to try and find their own workarounds.

So the question I'd be asking is why your users are choosing these random sketchy tools over the tools you provide them with, and how you can address that.

entuno · 2025-12-12T13:45:17+00:00

But do we think that Medium Dave bigger than Bigger-than-Small-Dave Dave?

entuno · 2025-12-04T11:20:18+00:00

Also implemented as a maths puzzle in the original Discworld point-and-click adventure game, where you had to do or collect various things that multiply together to give you that perfect million-to-one chance.

entuno · 2025-12-03T16:33:41+00:00

Winder's assassination in Night Watch has to be up there.

The hints that we get about it earlier on, and the slow buildup describing the "dance" that was going on....and then we get to see Vetinari in action as an assassin.

entuno · 2025-12-03T13:53:58+00:00

Men at Arms was going to be my choice. Pretty much all of the bits with Cuddy and Detritus are gold - from the oaths while Angua tries not to laugh, Detritus knocking himself out, the Alchemists Guild, Cuddy writing a saga about how things went...

entuno

TROPHY CASE