The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 118: The Science of Discworld II Pt. 2 (Make Sure It Hovers)

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “The Science of Discworld II - The Globe” Belief! Meaning! Hover trains!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Good Omens Season 2 - Official Trailer - YouTubeThe history of four-footed beasts and serpents - Internet ArchiveList of anagram indicators - Cryptipedia Wine-dark sea (Homer) - Wikipedia Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate - Wikipedia anti- | - etymonline Asemic writing - Wikipedia Codex Seraphinianus - WikipediaThe Brown One, The Honey Eater, The Shaggy Coat, The DestroyerBBC Radio 4 - You're Dead To Me, Medieval Irish Folklore (Live)  Adams Cable Codex - Internet Archive ---Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

There was a Starbucks and I could get my iced coffee and then sit down and have an iced coffee in a cigarette. Was the iced bit important? Yes, I was feeling very bisexual at that point. So I don't think I'll go to Game's Expo again without a lot of planning. Oh, did you know how much fun? It was fun and I got a game I've been after for ages, which I was very pleased with, but it was really, really fucking crowded.

So you can't really stop and some of the beats, there was some space too, really fucking crowded. So, like, you couldn't really stop. And some of the beasts, there was some space too, but a lot of them, like, you just couldn't really stop and like linger and chat and look at things. Cause the crowds are kind of nudging you along. And they had like loads of tables where you could sit and play games but the people I was with didn't really want to like stop

and sit and play a game. They wanted to keep walking around these huge trade halls and look at stuff. And eventually I, there was like a second hand, but like a bring-on buy, which is I wanted to go see. You had to queue for like half an hour, 20 minutes to like get into it, because it was at limited space. So I went like with the sole aim of I want the guards guards, discord game. Oh yeah. Because it's out of print. And I walked in, it was on the first table as I walked in. Oh, and I was like, oh, amazing, it's there. Peaked it up.

That is going to be my game now, I'll buy that. But yeah, it's just eventually a hit of wall of like, and we have to leave now, there's two people. And if I don't get a nice coffee into me, I might die. So did you get the game? I did get the game. Okay, do we have any desk weld in news? What I suppose we haven't talked about the Good Omen's trailer in an episode.

Good Omen's season two trailer came out. Nick had John Hamm. Need to say more? Yeah, probably not, but we will. And I haven't rewatched it. I'm done the frame by frame thing. Yeah, I'm actually probably going to for this because I could spot the odd bit.

Or as I go, there's probably any stricter. But we live what we live reacted to it for a fairly amateurish live react video. I never understand how YouTube people managed to accept Amarish on my part, you kept your face doing expressions all the time. I rewatched it like, do I just look like that all the time? I wonder if people think I'm angry. I don't know how the YouTube people keep it up for like full, you know, five, six-minute reaction videos. Well, it's very rarely a live reaction to the first thing. I'm assuming those people actually watch it first plan that reactions and do it accordingly. So I'm doing this

whole thing wide open. Yeah, no, that's what else the fuck is happening. That's probably about all the happening. Second thing, I can't think of anything major in disability. It's nearly my birthday. It is nearly a birthday. Yay. Do you know what you're doing Saturday yet? I'm meeting you for a coffee and then I'm going to the pub. We've got a little heat wave coming up as well.

See you birthday. Just a time. I have. I'm very pleased. I'm going to be barbecuing again on Sunday with my shunning your barbecue your barbecue. Oh, how did barbecue the first go after you? Did you eventually get it to light? I'm having some problems with conflictation. I'm weirdly bad at licing barbecues, which is, you know, I'm good at other types of fire, just barbecues. Well, you want is one of these chimney starter. Yeah. Yeah, I order one on Amazon today or be here in Times of Bar bugle this weekend. Yeah, I need to order a new one because I left

ours outside in the winter and it's rostered. That is what I'm getting myself. But despite that, the chicken did cook perfectly and was absolutely delicious. Lovely. Glad to hear it. Do you know what you're cooking in it on Sunday? I'm going to do some pork belly, but over an indirect heat for a while, so it all cooks nice and slowly and lovely with a delicious sauce on it and some, I'll roast some peppers and chilies on there and make a little charcoal and salsa with those and I'm going to do some new potato and chorizo skewers and whatever else in the fridge that needs using up.

Judging by how hot it's going to be, probably going to put some pasto in some pasta. I'm not gonna deny it, we probably should stop talking about food eventually. I'm not that hungry luckily. No, I had a really big omelette for lunch so that I wouldn't get peckish while recording. Love a omelette. I don't have enough omelets in my life. I was talking about omelets in a second. I was saying that if you say your signature dish is a omelette, you have to be known as a really good cook cook already, otherwise it just sounds like you're saying I can't cook. You know what I mean? So like if a master whittler specialises in wooden spoons,

then you know that's going to be like the best wooden spoon, whatever. But if like I said, yeah, I know, I would, I can do wooden spoons. You can tell I've only got enough to that. Yeah, I don't know how hard spoons are. Well, depends on the width on the word. Jesus. Oh, show. Can we just make a podcast? Would you like to make a podcast?

So in like a podcast, I'm going to talk about nonsense. Long as you let me. I'm sorry. Let's make a podcast. MUSIC Hello and welcome to The True Show, Mickey Freight, a podcast in which we're reading a repeat happening every book from Terry Pratch's Discworld series, One-A-Time Inchronological Order. I'm Joanna Hagen.

And I'm Pranthine Carol. And this is part two of our discussion of the science of Discworld Volume 2, the Globe. The Paglib. The Pagloib. The Kid. The Kid. We're taking up the forum study. What a good day. We're taking our work very seriously here on the truth,

Shamaiky, for note on spoilers before we crack on. We're a spoiler like podcast, heavy spoilers for the science of Discworld Volume 2, the Paglobe. But we will avoid spoiling any major feature events in the Discworld past a hat full of sky which is where we're up to in the current canon. And we are of course saving anyinal discussion of the final Discworld level, the Shepherd's Crown until we get there. So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Thing, stage left, pursued by a whole shoe. Follow up.

Follow up. We have some. We asked if any of you had experiences of corporate away days and no paintball, but definitely some away days. Yes, very sorry to bring up these memories. Craig's email particularly, when I highlight the line, some days felt like fingernails were being extracted without anesthetic, the rest were worse. Oh.

But no paintball. Oh, good. Space Alex has never done corporate paintball or any kind of paintball, but has stories of scientists doing bonding activities. Okay. At least do something called Dr. John's Pizza Party in the park, which

was awkward for his B, followed by pizza. One Christmas, they all went to the supervisors apartment and had a gingerbread building competition, master's students versus PhDs versus postdocs. And the master's students lost quite badly, which is embarrassing for me, who has an engineering degree. And I love this. I should also mention anytime my lab goes anywhere, we invariably see the sky doing something like sun dogs, halos and rainbows, and then get distracted for a bit, staring up near the sun and taking photos. daring at the sun, a fun, cool, for bonding activity, you

heard it here first. Absolutely. near the sun, I'm sure they were very careful to say. And Pete from Patreon, also no paintball, but firing arrows from a bow with a target, which just likes. Yeah, I think that's the closest to we've had to paint ball. Well, but how depending on the target? What?

Well, I'm thinking, do you remember that scene in the Disney's Robin Hood? But they all have paint on the under their arrows. Oh, yeah. Um, they were put in Robin Hood or something else. Well, now I'm thinking of my son, Frances. I just went along with it. I'm sorry, but arrows in Robin Hood and Shimji were right. Uh, I'm sure word forest and nodding ham.

Sorry, there were also quad bikes and things all at the behest of Branson when he was contract programming at Fetch in mobile. I went through a brief phase while working on the book of being like mildly obsessed with Richard Branson, so I respect that. He's, oh, I see, the other space thing when Dyncraft respect that. He's, oh, I see the end of the news, oh, the space thing went bankrupt, didn't it? Yeah, but like, as billionaires go, he seems to not be the worst. Well, that's it. Lohba. Yeah, Tree.

We've got anything else. Yeah, we've had a really fantastic email from Peter, who has sent us a PDF of a 17th century bestiary, which as you've got it beautifully demonstrates a moment of time when scientific rationality was struggling to be burst out of superstitious assumptions, which is what we're talking about in these two books. And these two parts of this one book, he has very kindly sent us a PDF of this wonderful weird bestiary, which includes chimera such as the manticle. Our friend, the manticle, as Pete has captured it, is possibly the worst thing I've ever seen. I love it. And he did highlight the fact that there's

a very agnus nutter-esque title, which we all know I love, the history of four-footed beefed, giving it to temptation today, and serpents, describing it large, they're true and lively figure, there are several names, conditions, kinds, virtues, brackets, both natural and medicinal, countries of their breed, their love and hatred, demand kind and the wonderful work of God in their creation, prephabation and destruction.

It goes on for a while. Anyways, one of the best things we've ever been said, I had a quick skim through it earlier, and I'll have some haunting shit in there. I'll add the giraffes are drawn. I've surprised you looked at the giraffes. Usually you refuse to believe that they exist. Yeah, but it's also got manticles and unicorns in it,

Francine. I'm not going to be the one to judge what's real and what's not in that case. Absolutely, sir. Right. Enough fucking about. should we talk about the book? I guess. So, what scene do you want to tell us what happened previously on the science of Discworld volume 2, the clip? Yes, certainly.

Previously on Science of Discworld 2. Very Christmas. Jesus. With its war, in the name of peace, that their corporate conflict is cut short by a frosty intrusion. Luckily, all seven buckets Rintzwin is hanging around ready to receive a message

in a bottle from his castaway colleagues and learns that they're stranded in an elf-infested world that just happens to live in his office, which means that there are numerous elves on his shelf. The reluctance rinse wind and a wary library and a chivied through elves' face and on to round world to save the faculty from whatever nonsense they've got themselves into this time. They arrive, find hex in a crystal ball and track down the rest of the faculty in a local tavern, of course.

Now it's time for meddling. A bit of time travel leads to cultural catastrophe and a bit more time travel with a pause for alter ego death, sorts things more or less out. But just as the wizards relax, the chill returns. What happens next? In this section, which goes from chapter 17 to the end, we're not saving the last chapter for a different episode or anything weird like that. The Queen visits the wizards, laying claimed around world and warning off the wizards. Rid Cully has an idea and sends a clax to Mistress Weatherwax and Lankar. Granny is gathering wood amidst interruptions, a shornog delivers a clax and she sends a single word reply.

The wizards expect the collapse of civilization in the century, but they've got time to read the clax. Granny's advised them to change the story. Librarian digs out some books from different futures. The wizards study a few examples of science, but they're stumped to equine experimentation. Back at D's, they decide to leave well enough alone. Rinsewin and the Librarian watch an awful play in the distant company of Elves. Rincewin suggested that the wizards focus on the arts exacerbating the effect of the elves to end them. Back in time, Rincewin teaches the magic inherent in art throughout history and the queen isn't happy.

When Rincewin's teaching actors in Greece, the queen arrives to question his actions. She plunges the depths of his desire to find potatoes, but claims an as-yet unwritten Shakespeare script from his actions. She plunges the depths of his desire to find potatoes, but claims an as-yet-unwritten Shakespeare script from his hands. Back in D's time, art has developed. In stage 2 of The Plan, Rinse would explain seeing as a lack of believing. There's no God's ear by the look of it, but history is adapted to make Shakespeare happen. The elves are pleased with the play, and don't see the harm in humanity growing questions. The wizards give Will Shakespeare an idea and after a heavy night they're awake to find the play complete.

At the theatre, Rince wins backstage to make sure that the show goes on. The queen attempts to interrupt but the librarian takes her out, with humanity back on track to eventually get off the planet, the wizards head home through El Space. So, helicopter and wing-looths. Any? Well, we meet briefly, divinci, and he learns about that flying machine, what Leonard of Guern belt, which I feel is not obvious helicopter, but I want to give Honorable mention to George Kayley, designing an aircraft that would have flown

if the internal combustion engine had been invented. Yes. We also have our committee's screw, I suppose, good. It turns. It does turn. Yeah, no. Honorey, Heligopter. But I can't. We don't rarely get anything that even slightly resembles what we want to throw in as many as we can. Archimedes screw just sounds a bit dirty though, doesn't it? It will be a great cocktail name. Oh, the Archimony screw. All right, well, I'll let you come up with a bunch of philosophy cocktail names. Yes, and then I'll come up with the cocktails. Yes, and then I'll die.

All right, well, I've got a taste test now. Oh, I see. Sorry, that wasn't like dramatic. That was specific alcohol-based existentialism. Good, good, good. As far as long glots going, I'm going to say sentence. That was a specific alcohol-based existentialist. Good, good, good. As far as long glots going, I'm gonna say burnt stickman definitely has a lean cloth vibe. So he gets that. And we learn the elephants do paintings and sign them. We do, we do.

So last week I talked about the kind of elephant voices website that I've spoken about a few times and I don't think I've ever explained what I mean properly. So I've actually got the description up here. The elephant ethogram is a uniquely detailed catalog or library, like some decent library I'm telling you then, of the behavior and communication of African spam elephants based on decades of behavioral studies, photographs, audio video recordings, lots of professional amateur footage. You can go through it. All of this stuff, it's very very cool. I'll link to the the proper tool and everything.

Also mentioning it because I think the subtitle navigating the elephant ethogram will be a great album name. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll go with that. That's that. Amazing. So quotes, do you want to go first? Yeah, it's quite long. That's what she said. I'm sorry, we already got spin jokes in. Yeah, we didn't do any real spin jokes, we just went straight to the word. That's what she's saying. Oh, God, This is a grown-up sensible podcast, Francine. What's your point of view? Why do you tell me before? That's about 118.

Yeah, I shouldn't have probably mentioned that. Right. What's your point? Great and Teganus is wrong. I proved him wrong, not by thoughtful dispute, but by gross mechanical contrivances. I am ashamed. He is the greatest of all philosophers. He had told us that the sun goes around the world. He had told us how the planets move.

And if he is wrong, what is right? What have I done? I've squandered the wealth of my family. What fame is there for me now? What cursed work should I do next? Should I steal the colors from a flower? Should I say to everyone, what using his right is not right? Should I weigh the stars? Should I plumb the utter depths of the sea? Should I ask the poet to measure the width of love in the direction of pleasure? What have I made of myself?" And he wept. But I just think it's so fucking dramatic. I love it. Right? One day, I'm going to memorize that and look like I'm also coughing it to somebody when I prove them wrong. Amazing. How about you?

I'm going to do it over the most minor thing possible. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Mine is an elf chat. And would you wish to be called Peas Blossom? The eyes of the old Elf were gray, fled with silver. They had seen horrible things under many suns, and in most cases had enjoyed them. Humans were a valuable crop, the old conceded.

There had never been a species like it for depth of all terror and superstition. No other species could create such monsters in its heads, but sometimes it considered. They were not worth the effort. I think not, it said. It's like the idea of yes, these are great and terrible, but I think pee's blossom. Anyway, characters, Granny Weatherwax gets a little... Yeah, a little witchy cameo. Nice to see a bit of Granny.

My favourite. The Luchton Narrative Imperative. I love the bit about the wood gathering. Wood gathering was a task fraught with danger for an old lady, so attractive to narrativeium. Yeah, it was quite hard these days, been gathering firewood to avoid the sons of kings, young swine herds, seeking their destiny,

and others who's unfolding adventure demanded they be kind to an old lady. Fantastic. It's got no second of them when we first heard about Lankara as I'd if there's no omen going on, that's weird, that's an omen. Yeah. And in, I think it's in word sisters as well, where they all play old ladies gathering wood of walks, me feet. Oh, yes, looks.

To get themselves picked up. Look, Steery, me, young children aren't what they used to be. And then we have our favourite Lankar civil servant servant because he's the only one, but I think he'd be able to be able to be able to be anyway. I've had a lot of time for Sean Og. I think he's a fan. He's a hard worker. He's a graphic.

He's a graphic. He handles everything from national defense and tax gathering to mubbing the castle lawns although he's allowed help with the lawns. Yes. I imagine it'd be very difficult to get a lawn in Lanker. Well, yes, all at an angle. Yeah. Is it still a lawn if it's at 70 degrees? Good question. Gardeners. Answer on a face card. How angled are your lawns? Again, asking the big hard-hitting questions here on the true shall-make you for it.

Absolutely. Skimming right over the philosophy and existential crises today. Yep. Big questions, angled lawns. Are the characters? We have. Nicely as the Cretan, Foshen, the Touched, and of course the philosopher and Tigenus. I like this whole bit with the experiment

about the horse's trotting. Hmm. Braged on a bit, but yes. It did drag down a bit and honestly I let some of it kind of wash over me. I'm not going to lie. Um, but I spent a lot of time looking at the gates of horses and how they feed me when they're like walking and running when I was little because, uh, I was, I spent a lot of time drawing and was around horses a lot.

So I spent a lot of time drawing horses and around horses a lot, so I spent a lot of time drawing horses and trying to work out what the fuck their legs were doing. Yeah, the horses are notoriously difficult to draw. Yeah, I mean, I didn't draw horses well. Yeah, I was better at flowers. Yeah, for the, the, the, the horse physiology is like really notorious among artists, just, yeah, it's just, it doesn't make any sense. What the fuck are they doing?

I think, yeah, you need to go right down to the anatomy for it and then build up from there. It's fucking horrible. I can't go to a hospital shit. My mother took me to see lots of famous paintings of horses to help me try and understand what was happening. Because I did a part of a college course on a graphic design and shit like that, I did all like the history of film during that. So the horse, the horse trotting problem, I was very familiar with it already because that was like one of the first uses of high speed photography, which yeah.

Yeah, working out what the horses feet were doing. Yes, I can't remember the answer. It is, I think it I think it's explaining the book it is they are all off the ground at some points. I like to. I don't ask. The whole bit about the voicemail, that was pretty cool. They're... Yeah, the entire... Oh yeah. The whole bit, he sort of keeps inventing technology that could do other really amazing things. Yeah, yeah, and just keep your other sort of problem. Yeah, yeah, and just keep it for the sort of problem. Yeah, yeah. It's like there's this one set of TikToks, I can't remember who it is now,

but it's like some guy saying like, oh, I found this amazing, I found a cure for orphans. And the other guy's like, what? And he's like, yeah, I've made it so like people's parents will never die. So no one will never be an orphan. And he's like, invented immortality.

Yeah, lead with that. There's a whole series of them, it's great. I like that. Yeah, it with that. There's a whole series of them is great. I like that. Yeah, it's quite cool saying the kind of reflection of the the philosopher mentor, student kind of dynamic you get in your ancient Greek history, which I don't think we covered in any of the previous dis-worldly and jaunts to make you free parallels. I also quite like right at the end of that chapter just after you quote the what's his name Nicholas says so there was it's no one comes now this is where the fate struck and the gods laughed at men but I remember how he wept and so I remained to tell the story and there's something about

that and the fact that it's the beach and all these kind of slightly broken falling apart, looted devices has a bit of an Aussie Mandias vibe to it. Oh, yeah, for sure. So as that's my favorite poem, I'm going to find an Aussie Mandias vibe wherever there is one. Well, I don't think I was a man dies was on a beach. You might be thinking of lost. No, there was just a lot of sand around. Yeah. Beaches have sand. I'll see my life. And we got a little reference to things on the edges again. Yes, we do enjoy. We do like the edgey watsas. We've got ponder. Ponder's out of an a rough time. Ponder, with his good speed, he generally does. He does. We have a lot of

poor ponder in this, even though he's a bit of a knob. But yeah, when he gets good, he generally does. He does. We have a lot of poor ponder in this, even though he's a bit of a knob, but yeah, when he gets the play taken away from him, even though he thinks he's got quite a good voice after he got to play part of the third goblin in a school play. It's the power point to all over again. It just doesn't get to finish things, and then when he gets really emotional about being in a world that actually works on logic, and it's a nice sort of reflection back to him at the end of Lords and Ladies, when he's trying to work out how the sort of eye and attractive stones work and he's just sitting there getting quite upset by it. I can imagine it.

And then going right back to, you know, it used to be Rint Swins that little, little quirks, didn't it? It'd be like, I thought that'd be some organized. If only it wasn't magic. Yeah. I'd eat food enough now. You can't be bothered with the ifs and buts and whatever. Speaking of Rint Swins.

Is that good one actually? He's done well. He's done very well. He was the one who came up with the thing and it all worked and he had to do some running away, but not much compared to the amount of running away he usually has to do. Yeah, absolutely. The, um, making use of his extreme talent for potatoes. Which I respect as a deep lover of potatoes and honestly, Rince when thinking about potatoes was some of my favorite bits. a deep lover of potatoes and honestly Rinsewin thinking about potatoes was some of my favourite bits. I agree.

Do you have any particular Rinsewin potato moment that? Well, I like that he points out that no one ever really gets potato croquettes right because he's right there. They don't. They're always a little bit too soggy or slightly too greasy. Yeah. Sure. Do you have a favourite way to eat potatoes?

No. Well, I thought that would open up favorite way to eat potatoes? No. Well, I thought that would open up for more conversation than we had to. We had to be on the podcast. We've gone through like our top three potato things I think. And I literally can't remember what my favorite one was. Today, I'm going to say it would be just good crunchy, crispy fries. I think how do you like that? It's always dope for me.

Yeah. I want to kind of things in cream and gole can bake them. Yeah, that's true. You do do that a lot. For just potatoes. No. That poor seagull. Jesus. I haven't really noted any locations for us. I mean, we do go to that. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever. We just got the beach. What more do they want? We do go that year. We just got the beach. What more do they want? We had a bit of ancient Greece vibes. We had obviously the London. Yeah, with a bit of a globe in it. I do like the globe theater.

Head spikes. Webs. Head spikes. Exeter. I like the globe. Did you know that the satch on the globe. Was done by the same company who did the satch for Robinhood Prince of thieves? I did not know that. That's a delightful fact.

Two biggest contracts unsurprisingly. A Prince of thieves was a bigger one. Well, there was a lot of that in Robinhood Prince of thieves. Yeah, I never really thought about it being like a custom made sat like that, but I guess yeah, what a fucking high budget movie. God, I love that movie. It's awful like that but I guess yeah what a fucking high-budget movie. God I love that movie it's awful. I finally saw it. It's awful isn't it? Yeah I loved it. I like Alan Rickman. Oh yeah I can watch him do anything. But yeah listeners if you ever get to be a London go see something in the globe it's still cheap to be a grounding. Yeah, I've never seen anything like that actually.

I still think, is there a much better? If you're a standinger. Not quite much, but when I saw Amelia there, it was a bit like everyone shouting in feminist uproar, which was quite a nice communal experience. I saw King Lear there and a thunderstorm started during the thunderstorm scene. No, I got soaked, but it was totally worth it.

Absolutely. What do you think the best Shakespeare moment to start a mosh pit would be? Oh, I don't know. Do you want to think about it? Well, we make a coffee. Yeah, that's a week. Romeo and Juliet death scene, perfect time for a mosh pit. Oh, nice.

Yeah, pass. Do you know that really good production of 12th night we went to that was like completely irreferent and then ended up with like the front two rows on stage congregating. A third royal. Yeah. Yes. That was a good one. I like that. I'm not sure I've seen Shakespeare performed outside. I keep saying I'll go to the Abbey for it and I never do. if it formed outside. I keep saying I'll go to the abbey for it and I never do. Don't. Okay. Thank you.

I didn't say that, but don't. Okay. To be honest, I probably wasn't going anyway, but now I have a reason, but did you say no, and I don't even need any explanation? I'm that happy with the answer. So we'll go to the globe at some point. Okay, something that we'll go to the globe. The blue. But it's on at the globe. Sorry. Fuck. Right.

We're making a fucking podcast. It's not even Friday. I keep thinking it's fine. It's Friday. I've got to work tomorrow. Thank you for doing this today. At least I can go out for dinner tomorrow. I don't know.

You're fine. No, I got to run on Friday night. What am I going to do? You're going to read Pastor and watch telearm TV. I'm really going to do that. I do not mean that in a droggatory way. Anyway, right. Sorry. We are making a fucking podcast. Fine. So, little bit of sweet likes. What did you like, Francine? So the history, but what which you mentioned in your summary, for any weather works, managed to have a one word reply to the extremely long question for the wizards. First of all, it's quite fun because the clue was

that changed the story and it was an anagram of the story and as anybody who has spent as much time in the pub while people do cryptic crosswords around us as we have, well, no, there are loads of ways you can indicate an anagram within a cryptic crossword. And I found a list that is so fucking long it completely justifies my annoyance with the entire subject. Like, oh my god Joanna, I'll link it in the thing, but it's incredibly long. Basically, fucking anything you could imagine that might mean mixed apple, like scramble, whatever could mean an anagram. Slightly more interestingly to me was just this stuff about trying to get a clack story short because it's per letter, it's charge per letter as were the telegrams in our

reality. And I'm not going to go into detail about it much because we're going to talk about telegrams at links in a few months, I think, at links, which would be expensive if we were doing it by telegram, but we're not because it's podcast, that's good. Telegram podcast. But I just found some cool articles about how people used to but cool articles about how people used to, especially people who needed to know a lot of stuff about business. Used to kind of make up codes to get a lot of information across them one.

So there's like this 200 page codex with translations from things like, so the word anasis, put mean shall sale brackets or start from New York per. Yeah, it's like, and it's like, I don't think I had a bit of a look through it, and I don't think there's any like rhyme or reason to it. It came to mean certain things. Yeah, so you both need a copy of this codex, and as long as you both do, and you're very, there's a whole bit of the beginning about being very careful to make all the letters very clear as you're writing out your telegram. And I guess it, yeah, it really matters if you accidentally put them wrong word and then tank the stocks in New York.

Amazing. Yeah. Which reminds me of what's really words is a concept actually now, I think about it. Because if you get one of the words, that navigational tool Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you get one of the words wrong, you can end up like hundreds miles from where you went to yeah Yeah, so that's that I do enjoying Both the like thorough explanation of how the wizards are hacking the grand trunk and the Actual explanation of how the round world equivalent of clax works, especially for things like sending pictures because I started Looking at that with monsters regiment, but this was a much clearer explanation of how the round world equivalent of Clax works, especially for things like sending pictures, because I started taking it that with once just a regiment, but this was a much clearer

explanation of how the picture sending's work. Yeah, did this book reference the book, the Victorian Internet? No, I don't think it did. That's meant to be very good. I think I've seen Park Chit recommend that on the forums, so we'll have Frank get us all to copy that before we do the episodes on it. Yes, I think that was one of his big research ones. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Cool and good. What's yours? Uh, scientific defamiliarization. I'd just like the idea of, you know, I get excited when we do the defamiliarization

thing, especially now, I can remember the fucking word. And not that thing where it's kind of like that thing, but not like that thing. So we see that thing differently. Definitely not an allegory. I'll tell thing differently. Definitely not an allegory. I'll tell you that. Probably not an allegory. So yeah, science from the wizard's perspective with this kind of what the fuck is this as a way to push in this?

How does one define what science is was enjoyable to me. I like that as going into a bit of a philosophical concept. I did. I enjoyed the bit where I packed it, explained it. Yes. I actually explained it best. I then didn't so much enjoy the 20 pages of doing the same thing. And I didn't dislike this half of the book as much. I said it's fair stuff. I don't know if it was moved.

I mean, or as I said, I could have got off my chest last week or just the subjects that have been covered with less irritating to me, but again, that was quite a lot of editing could have been done. Yeah, I enjoyed this half more, but I think that's partly because I allowed myself to not get too bogged down in detail. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. One detail I did get really into though is this line about the wine dark sea. Oh yes, what about favourites?

Which gets repeated when they're in multiple times when they're anywhere a bit ancient Greek. Yeah. So I know it's from Homer. It's used in the Iliad and the Odyssey multiple times, but I hadn't looked into sort of anything behind it and it's really, and this could have honestly taken up a lot more in my time and gone down a big rabbit hole, but I was trying to be good. So it's a traditional English translation

of a specific phrase that's used multiple times in the elite and the Odyssey. It's not necessarily exactly what it means, because obviously it's being translated from ancient Greek, the sort of prevailing theories that more properly is something like wine eyed. So there's this guy, William Gladstone, who was a 19th century British politician and scholar who in an analysis. So, he's going to call William Gladstone. Quite famous, might have heard of him.

In an analysis of famous works, he found that there was an absence of any references to the color blue. There was a word that came to mean blue in more modern Greek, but it almost certainly meant dark at the time. And he proposed that her meric use of words describing colors focused on how dark or light colors were, rather than the hue of the colors, which created this massive public misconception that he human ancient Greeks

couldn't see certain colours, which has persisted to Monday. But what was interesting as well in generic usage, this phrase that translates to kind of wine dark, seem to, especially in poetic stuff, refer to drunkenness or in a banement due to alcohol and therefore came to be violent. So a wine dark sea is a violent angrily sea, it's a rough sea. Oh, like somebody's eyes dark and that kind of saying. No, more like someone gets wine dark means that someone is drunk and therefore they're more likely to be aggressive. Okay, okay, okay, okay, right specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then it comes to mean aggressive and therefore a

one-docsies and aggressivity. And yeah, so a whole rabbit hole to go down of linguistic relativity and colour naming and how names of colours develop in different languages. Linguistic relativity and colour naming, I'm going to obsess over that for the next year. Well, I've got many books on Colour Theory if you want that. Excellent. What about you? I've got many books on Colour Theory if you want that. Excellent. What about you? We've got Tame Somais, which I just saw was fun. The idea that Tame Somais and Wild Somais have to be sort of fed it for a bit.

I like that. Similarly, I put down anti-anti, which is a fun bit of etymology, where anti can be close to. And I liked the way they explained it, which is well, if you think about it, the other side of the coins are next to it and we like our opposites not being opposites. And against. No, absence not being absence of, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Against, can mean, against or can mean up against. We get a bit about Wizards giving Shakespeare ideas, which I've used me because you know, like pointing out the little references. You told him about those, which is up in Lancon, how they got the new King on the throne, which is obviously Macbeth, and the elves breaking through. How the Celica and the Venturi families are always fighting, which is great that they took the names of the two families named for Westside Story that was based on Romeo and Juliet. And that put it back down. That's a much more winding reference than I thought. Like a circular reference.

Yeah, I love that. And then getting worried that when they read the, it's the little song that the ferry is saying while they're looking after Titania, Cobbs Webbing, Peace Blossom and Mustard Seed, these spotted snakes with double tones, thorny headjogs, been not seen and they're very worried that someone's sign shakes spear, the headjogs on. Was that the actual lines from that song? I forgot to look it up. Yeah, you see that it's just thanks with double tones, thorny headjogs, been not seen, snakes and blind worms do no wrong, come not near our ferry queen. Cool. So I think we should probably rewrite the head chocolate food bucket in an iambic pentameter. Yeah cool. I rewrite a whole speech from episode

9 of succession in iambic pentameter the other day. We have fun. I did not have time to be fucking doing that. Cool. Information versus meaning then, for instance. Information versus meaning. So I'm not really scientifically minded enough to discuss it in quite the way that the author has discussed this, with the two different types of information and quantification and qualification and all of that. But I think it's an interesting topic anyway. So as the author has put it, is information the same as a story? No, a story does convey information but that's probably the least interesting thing about stories. Most information doesn't constitute a story. So that's nicely tying it back into stories I think. So they use

the example of telephone directory, lots of information, strong cast, a bit weak on the narrative. As a little point that is interesting as we noted last week, how many little technological bits now look outdated already, even though it's 20 years ago, whatever it is, like referencing a telephone directory aspect, you could still do that now, but we're getting to the point where that's an odd thing to reference. I was thinking about that the other day because it used to be, if you were talking about someone having a particularly attractive voice, you'd say something along the lines of oh I'd listen to them read the phone book. Yeah well what would we say now do we think? I'd listen to them read a Wikipedia

ask along the origins of crosshead screwdrivers. Perfect, I was going to say I'd listen to them read a Twitter for you paid back to the I absolutely would not, it doesn't matter. read a Twitter for you paid, that's the I absolutely would not. Doesn't matter. Absolutely unhinged. What are you talking about? Sorry, yeah. What we can't.

In a story is meaning. And that's very different concept from information. And that started me off thinking about, while I also talk about context, and that's what gives information, meaning a lot of the time, kind of a shared context, kind of harkens back to one

of our favorite subjects of nuclear semi-octics, of course, where the pointers to try and account for an unknowable context and therefore turn what wouldn't be a message into a message. But Joanna, is it a message if it has intent, even if you can't split the context? Is it still a message just a failed one? Yeah, I would say it's still a message,

it's still information. I don't think it has to be received to become a message or information. Well, that's it, the point is it is information, but when does it become a message? That was a bit of a mess chapter. And that's the context bit. But I think if it's with intent, it can be a failed message

rather than just a random bit of information. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, good. And then on the other side of that coin, we have the tree rings, as they meant, I liked this algebra actually. We've learned to decode their message about climate and the like,

sit-for-ring indicates good year with lots of growth on the tree. But the sequence of pre-rings only becomes a message, only conveys information when we forget out the rules that link climate to tree growth, the tree didn't send its message to us. And in that case, I'd argue maybe it's not a message at all. No, it's information, but I feel like a message needs intent to be a message. Yeah, I agree. The tree is not trying to tell us anything. But yeah, so the whole complex thing, it's just, it's really interesting to me because it's part of the reason that scientists took so long to recognize intelligence and other animals.

And yeah, so I think if we're going to round ourselves in reality, whether it's the big question that affects a lot of our mental health matters, the fact that we're now barred with information without meaning a lot of the time. And we probably could get meaning, but we don't have time to. That's kind of an interesting one that they didn't have the 20 years ago, I think. I mean, you did to an extent, if you want to file the newspapers, you'd probably have a similar effect, but nobody outside of doing it for their job, but buy all the newspapers and sit there and read them going, oh, no, there are so many things. And that's what we do every day. Like, we'll wake up and scroll through Twitter. And panic at all the things. Yeah. And you know, misinterpret it and you think you have context, but you don't. And in that

case, is it meaningful or is it just information? And I'll give myself a bit of a fucking, it's not even an existential crisis at this point, just a crisis. Yeah, I think you're just doing to spiral downward. Yeah. And then I'd so I bring it back to the comfortable, which is nice things, information without context, like when you're a kid and you are listening to conversation, you don't understand coming from downstairs, that's always nice. Yeah, it's sort of a pleasant, verbal of words.

Yeah. And a semi-writing, a semi-writing, which is like a message, but the message is that it means nothing. So it's that abstract kind of writing. So it looks like it is writing, but it's completely meaningless. Yeah. Didn't you buy a whole book of a semi-growing? A couple of them, yeah. There's the codex that I wanted, I've forgotten the name of it, I wasn't able to get hold of because the copy I found, like the eBay seller cancelled it, but I will get to the top of it one day and I will link to something about it.

I do like in the sort of chapter where this one about what gives information, meaning when they use the jukebox analogy, they mention pointers, which is something I obviously had to learn how they worked when I was studying C++ and that was one of those I absolutely cannot get my head around this concept for weeks until I had to use it in a practical context. Can you explain to me the context you do use one, you do use the min and C++, I think? I'm not great at explaining it, So proper programming listeners don't all write into correct me, but you can.

The idea is if you use a pointer, it's a variable, but instead of it holding a piece of information, it points to a piece of information in memory. It's a very mind that main context of using the members in games and what it meant was that you could call a function and it wouldn't have, rather than

having something say, um, that character, yeah, like a player character, rather than having to load that player character every time say these functions are being called it has a pointer instead of a variable for the player character. So it's not loading it, it's just going to that bit in memory and looking at it. Okay, okay, yeah, I think I know what I mean. Yes. Yes, yeah. So knowing how they work obviously makes it's very handy for making games, but it took a long time for me to get my head around why I was using these things. Is this one you told me where you were like, oh, I see, because otherwise the game would be computer-breakingly big immediately?

Yes, this is really good. They're also kind of scary when you first these things. It's like, oh, you're pointing to this thing in memory and maybe you could accidentally just remove some of your memory, maybe. Oh, no. That's not bad. Yeah, but you don't want to let them dangle. Oh, I would never. Never let your point is dangle. Anyway, going onto the actual book, not my bollocks trainer, remember stuff I'd learned last year. The whole kind of theme of how the Wizards win the day as this idea of knowledge and unbelief and seeing being disbelieving. And I like it because

you have Discworld as such a solid example of this, especially if you look at something like Hogfather, but it's obviously brought us up here, where Rid Cully is arguing with the Queen, and says, yeah, we've got Bogeyman outside where we can get at them. And that's Susan's frustration that, like, yeah, these things are real. Yeah. But now I've got to fight them off

because the children are annoyed at them because they've learned to be scared of them rather than just learning how to hit them. Yes, yeah. And this is, they talk about this idea of, uh, when the Queen's confronting Rentswind and she's saying, why are you doing this? She's saying, isn't it what you want? We can fill them with wild imagination.

And as it goes into the scientific side of it, it builds in these ideas of the difference between seeing and believing and that if you become used to something, you no longer believe in it because you don't need to, you don't have to have faith in it. It's just there. It talks about this idea of ontic dumping, dumping knowledge into a name. And yeah, you can dump knowledge into something, but then you have the etymology of this word and that's what carries the history of it. And the Gossamer is such a great example of it that it, yes, you can hear Gossamer and you know what it means, but you don't necessarily know unless you look at it, the story of Gossamer that it means goose summer. It's such a nice etymology.

Which is one of my very favorite etymologies. An interesting like negative space version of that is what you were telling me fucking ages ago now about bears right, a bear that doesn't mean the word bear it means the word brown. Yes, it's like the brown one because you don't want to say the name of the bear because that'll make the bear turn up. Yes, and that's the same thing as the fairies which would probably be more relevant example. So obviously, yeah. But the, I mentioned the fairies. I mentioned the fairies, but Irish mythology has all that stuff in, which it does. It does.

It was really cool. You're dead to me, episode on medieval Irish folklore the other day, which we were like to do in the show notes. Yeah. I really wanted to excuse you to link that in the show notes. I swear to God that someone involved with your dad to me is listening to this podcast because they just keep being episodes that are relevant to what we're talking about. Absolutely. I could have done with it before I did the fucking vanishing islands thing as well.

Yeah, they did. Like, they're the experts on their casually mentioned a couple of things. I couldn't dig up for the life of me when I was looking into some of the... Anyway, sorry. Yeah, fuck, taking us on a bare detail, the worst kind of detail. Oh, mate, it was a bare detail, you know, no, no. That was the worst thing I've ever done. I'm so sorry. Okay, so memes are also told about this, which is another thing

that really dates the book. And it is talking about memes in exactly the context they were understood in 2002. I remember reading the Richard Dawkins stuff about it, not in 2002, because I was like 10, but a bit later when I was smuggatious philosophy wanker. And it's really interesting, really about it in the original context, this idea of the idea of memes being their ideas that spread effectively. That's being a smugg atheist and philosophy won't care. There were some hints of smugg atheism in this, which you did think so. You told me that before I like Reddit and I was looking out for the real smug bits, which did you think were? It wasn't super smug, but I feel like I'm hyper

alert to it because I know it's what I used to be like and I know I was a bit of a dick with it, which, you know, I became an atheist at Catholic school, I over corrected. I'm not that way. I'm still an atheist, but I'm not like a dickhead. There's sort of the, some of it comes from good ideas, these ideas of, you know, reification can damage your philosophy. If you start to believe in something too much, which is the, the scientist with the horse experiment, that's that example, you know, he's reified this philosopher. And so then when he does disprove it, it becomes this horrible tragic thing.

There's lines like, oh, if you are religious and you want to feel comfortable about what we're saying, you can always assume that we're talking about all the other religions, but not you. Oh, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Which feels a bit like sort of passing stuff on the head. Right, 2002. It is very 2002 atheism. Yeah, to be fair, that chapter was a bit worse. The first one they did around religion, I thought was unusually fair-minded about, I think they said, you know, there were bits about and some people believe this and some people believe this and religions done this good and this bad and, you know, each individual, most individual priest might be good, but as a whole, you know,

the Inquisition happened and that's not new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, no, the later bit in the book, yes, the writings of it, a bit more doorken thee. Yeah, and they talk about altruism and the potential religious origins of it, but obviously altruism comes from more than just religion. We don't need religion to be good, which is very much not the argument of a smug atheist, with the argument of an atheist. I don't need beardy man. And the sky to tell me to be good, which is very much not the argument of a smugg atheist with the argument of an atheist is I don't need Beardy man in the sky to tell me to be good to just be nice. Yeah, because I've learned to do that on my own I mean nice is a strong word for how I am as a person. I'll trust you. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, I can't verify you're always nice to me. Good point. Other people, fuck them. Wait, no, no, that's not right. Other people, important. I know that's not God. And they talk about science overturning belief and they talk about the failings of religion. I do respect talking about the failings of religion, especially as you said, they talk about the

Inquisition and religious conflict. There's this line, the only safe home for one's personal spirituality is oneself, which I don't totally disagree with. But then they come, you compare it to, obviously, the science stuff, and this is a science book. I really like really early on, they talk about the idea of defining science

and they use this example of how do you define a chair? When does a chair become a chair? I really fucking love that they use this example because I don't know if you know about Glynner and the horse thing. No. Oh, this was ages ago, Ryan L item. Yes. And he went on this whole rant about this is the only way you can define a woman and this chromosome and this chromosome, blah, blah, blah. And someone was like, how do you define a chair? And so we gave this really specific definition that also covers horses. So someone sent back a picture of a horse and said, the holder chair. Someone just did dialed in, he on to herself, a goodness sake. This is quite old now, but it gets sent to them a lot.

I like that. I think we should all diogenies a bit more. Every time I cook a chicken at home, I take it out of the packet and wave it around going, beholder man and the joke's gone old. Do it one of my own. Can the joke get old on your own? Yeah, so I still can't not do it. Oh, that's a shame.

So they talk about the story inherent in scientific method. They talk about big changes and the way that we've grown to expect much more and more changes within our lifetimes. So I don't have hover cars and I'm still kind of bugged about that. Yeah. I know we should all be taking the train instead and that's better for the environment, but like hover trains.

Yeah, sure. Whatever, just make sure it hovers. Yeah, just one more shit to hover. We're not hover horse, fine. Yeah, I'll accept hover horse and not. Hover segway, I don't care. Just want a hover, okay? Unicorns, science not made unicorns yet. No, that's a whole other thing.

Thank you. Thank you for the ideas. You've read the Island of Doc tomorrow. Come on out. Anyway, and the kind of conclusion they come to in the science of Discworld collection, bit is this story is beginning to choke the system, but seeing is not believing. And I agree with that. I love this idea. They talk about religion as an idea as a story to help us cope with the size of the universe and they talk about science. It is a similar thing. It's stories we tell ourselves because we can't actually comprehend it all among us because there's a lot and it's too big and it's also too small at the

same time. The thing with science is science is stories we tell ourselves, but as science adjusts with new knowledge, in new testing and new proofs of things that mean that things we thought were fact and no longer fact, because this is fact, modern perception of modern stories don't keep up with it. So actually, you know, transphobes and Gromel and I'm talking about XX chromosome, so these are really fucking good example. It's just fucking science. Yeah, we're talking in like, I don't know, middle school biology or whatever, that one has XX chromosome and one has XY chromosome and that's how it works and that's man and

that's women. And then science is very much proven that it's all a lot more complicated than that and also, you know, gender and sex are two different things. But the Transphobes will come back to that middle school biology from the 90s and say, no, but it's fucking science, isn't it? Same goes with fat phobia. Calories and calories out. Oh, yeah. How about the incredibly complicated humor, but no, it's sight. Okay, you don't want to do actual science, fine. A fucking BMI, which is accepted as science,

not just like by Dickhead's on Twitter, but by the medical community, it still uses a metric by the NHS. It's still used to find obesity, which is used to be medically fat phobic in all sorts of ways, including denying people health care, denying people health insurance based on their BMI,

which has been thoroughly proven by science to be based on some really junk studies. Yeah, and even if it wasn't, was never meant to be used on an individual level? No, it's a population-wide statistic on my hands. Yeah. Anyway, my point is, is the... Sorry, accidentally shook us off on it. No, no, I was very much in that round. Seeing is absolutely not believing, but there is a limit to how much faith can be put in science if you're not willing to stop believing and only see. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. The things like, there are some science things, I think about this sometimes, about how much dreadfully no. When I think I don't have faith, I can't believe in God forever.

Yeah, but I think, you know, I have enough faith in the kind of framework of science that's nevelest, is that might be in my head, to tell me that we go around the sun. head to tell me that we go around the sun. Yeah, these are real basic example. I was like, yeah, sure, I believe you. I think, right, I'll never see it with my eyes, probably. I was not checked. That might be a bad example because you know, whatever you can see, certain amount of stuff from telescopes, whatever. But there are definite things that I would never be able to see and check myself and anything that I just take on faith, I suppose,

or trust, take on trust, I suppose. Yeah, and I think it's absolutely fine to have faith and trust in science, obviously. I'm not recommending that we burn all the scientists and give up vaccines. No, exactly, yeah. It's just interesting to think about trusting other people to see for you, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And how much of it is really faith, we're not seeing it, we are believing it more than we're seeing it. Yeah.

Which comes back slightly to our theme last week of talking about this critical thinking idea, especially when it comes to statistics that are somewhat and scientific studies. There's, you know, looking at, ah, science has proven this and you're missing sort of giant brackets that say in mice. Yes. Oh, my God. I can, yeah. I can either start it on science, drunk, reporting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a giant over actually point. I like the book and I like that as a theme, but if this is not being my favorite. No, I can't even say I like the book to be honest, but I really found some interesting guts in it. Yeah, I liked the story and it did make me think I enjoyed reading

the bits that are. And I like sherry frat fractured bits unsurprisingly. Weirdly on this disc we quite like. There were parts of the science bit that I found interesting and illuminating and others that I found not. Have you got an obscure reference for you or for me for an, François? I do. Amazing. Winking the glove's stitcher and Costa the Apple seller discusses the play on the way home. Costa is short for Costa Munga, which is a street seller of fruit and vegetables in

British towns. That's that. Costa the Apple seller. And Winking, I'm tiny bit of a stretch here, but I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track. Winkin's spelled within E instead of an I, second I, so W-I-N-K-E-N, means wave in German, he's the glove-stitcher. Oh, yeah.

I reckon. Also, I'm pretty sure Shakespeare's father made gloves. Did he know? Yeah. Ooh, I like that. I didn't think that. That's cool. Cool. Things. Not very in depth. I'm scared of reference because my... No, it's fine. As last time we did science and disc world most of the references are explained in depth in the next chapter. Sorry, sorry, hard to find something that goes on. Okay well, I think that's everything that we are going to say about the science of disc world volume to the globe. As previously mentioned in a bonus episode, we are going on our summer holidays and taking

a slightly longer break than we usually do because life, and I've got to finish writing a book. Yep, that's happening. So we will be back as soon as we can after the 28th of July to talk about good moments. Yeah. Season two. There might be some bonus stuff from us in the meantime. Keep night on the feed. If you really miss this, you can always join the Patreon. We will still be doing episodes on the Patreon rabbit holes are bound. But until if you are just a abandon us until we come back and talk about Codoman season two, which seems bad to be honest. Yeah, that's fine.

In the meantime, do listen now. Please write and review us wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people find us say nice things about us because we really like praise. You can also follow us on Instagram, the Tusha Mickey Freit on Twitter at Mickey Freitbot on Facebook, at the Tusha Mickey Freit join our subreddit community, our slash TTSMYF, email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and angled lawns, the Tusha Mickey Freitbot at gmail.com. As we said, if you want to support us financially and get some fun bonus nonsense, go to patreon.com, forward slash the Tusha Mickey Freret and give us some money.

Yay! And until next time, dear listener, if we shadows have offended think but this and all is mended that you have but slumbered here whilst these visions did appear and this weakened idol theme no more yielding but a dream, genders do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. And as I am an honest puck, if we have an erneed luck, now to escape the second tongue, we will make amends earlong, else the puck a liar call. So good night and you all. Give me your hands if we be friends and Robin shall restore amends. What's that the end of this book? That's the end of Mid-Summer Night's Dream.