The concept of lies-to-children, referring to a simplified explanation of a complex topic that the explainer knows isn't strictly true but intends to augment later on, i. e. an intentional untruth intended to help with the learning process, is often said to have coined by the Science of Discworld authors - Wikipedia certainly makes this claim, ( Read more... )

Imagine that all fantasy novels take place in the same country - Fantasyland -, and imagine further that the protagonists are not really heroes as such but rather tourists who booked, well, a tour orchestrated by the management of Fantasyland (or three, if the novel's a trilogy, or several more).

If you happen to be such a Tourist yourself, you' ( Read more... )

I've finally (finally!) started reading Robert Dean Frisbie's (Ropati's) Book of Puka-Puka, which was published bvy Eland in a new edition earlier this year. And even though I've only just started I can already recommend it; it's fascinating, and written in a captivating, evocative style that draws you in and really brings those southern seas ( Read more... )

While idly browsing through older TUGboat issues (pdfgrep sure is useful!), I came across an interesting article in TUGboat 26 (1989) - Lexicography with TeX, by Jörgen L. Pind. The author is (was?) affiliated with the Institute of Lexicography at the University of Iceland, and describes how TeX was employed to typeset an Icelandic etymological ( Read more... )

The following is from Marcus Baynes-Rock's Among the Bone-Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar, pp. 27-29. The author describes how he observes (for the second time) a butcher feeding hyenas, and speaks to the man about this:

Waking up in the middle of the night, I left the hotel and went to the playing field where I'd seen the food being ( Read more... )

I never learned about this until now, but Paul Wühr, one of the more interesting contemporary German experimental authors, died on July 12th this year.

I've only read a few of his books - notably Das falsche Buch, as well as the poetry collections Rede and Sage, plus the audio play (Hörspiel) So spricht unsereiner and Hagestedt's Paul Wühr. ( Read more... )

Well, that didn't take so long; I actually finished the Journal of the Two Sisters today, so I might as well write about it.

Unlike The Elements of Harmony, which it shares its overall design with, this is an in-universe book, written from an in-universe perspective. You won't find anything about the show here; you'll find material from the show, ( Read more... )

Just to let y'all know, the Newgrounds store will be closing on March 6th - so if there's anything you want to buy (say, a plush Penicorn), act now.

Myself, I would perhaps have been tempted by the Newgrounds Writing Anthology - but I'm not sure I'd actually have read it, and I don't want to collect obscure books just for the sake of it. But then ( Read more... )

This is why PayPal needs to die:

This project stumbled upon one problem after another on each and every step it took forward. Up until now we managed to solve every single one, but at this point there is nothing that we can do.

All of You deserve an explanation of what has happened.

We were hoping to print out “Past Sins” in exactly the same ( Read more... )

This is just far, FAR too good not to share: 50 Shades of Gottfried & Kermit: A Dramatic Reading.



It's a dramatic reading of a section of "50 Shades of Grey", and it's literally one of the most riotously funny things I've seen in a long time. The voices are so completely antithetical to the contents of the section read, and the two folks in ( Read more... )