One of the features I have planned for Tic-tac-toe Collection is a player rating system.

One such common rating system is the Elo rating system, most famously used in chess. There is a lot of discussion about how good it is, but for my purposes it seems fine - at least as a starting point.

There are two fundamental restrictions on Elo that I would have to overcome though:

It is limited to two players.
It assumes each player has an equal chance of winning if they have equal skill.

Elo

First an introduction into how Elo rating works. There are two parts:

Given two player ratings, calculate an expected result.

The expected result is essentially the chance of winning, given as a decimal between 0 and 1, in which 0 represents a guaranteed loss and 1 a guaranteed win.

Given a player rating, an expected result, and an actual result, calculate how much the rating should change.

If you do better than expected then your score will go up. If you do worse then your score will go down. With a bigger difference there will be a bigger change.

Multiplayer

Simple Multiplayer Elo

I found an existing implementation of Elo for more than two players by Tom Kerrigan called Simple Multiplayer Elo.

In SME, players are ordered by performance, and then a simulated match is played between pairs of consecutive players, with the players’ ratings updated using the normal Elo method for two players.

This is certainly acceptable, and Tom includes some tests to show it works well. One oddity is if you get a victory over someone with a much higher rating than you, but also beat them by more than one place, you essentially don’t get the benefit for it. For example, consider the following result:

Position	Player	Initial rating	vs player above	vs player below	Total
1st	A	1000		+24	+24
2nd	B	1200	−24	+27	+3
3rd	C	1500	−27		−27

Here, Player A with a rating of 1000 has beaten Player C with a rating of 1500, but essentially hasn’t gotten the credit for it.

My unnamed Elo

My solution is to conceptually run the algorithm on every pair of players (in this case there would be A v B, B v C and A v C). There is a straightforward optimization so that the estimating part of the operation does not directly depend on the other players, just the difference between a single player’s expected and actual scores. So the algorithm is actually:

Calculate the expected scores for each pair of players.
Sum the expected score for each player.
Divide each score by the number of players to normalize back to the range 0 to 1.
Calculate the rating change for each player using their actual score and the combined expected score.

The details

With the same data as above, the results are as follows:

Player	Initial rating	Expected score
A	1000	0.097
B	1200	0.304
C	1500	0.599

Which is made up of the following score pairs:

Pair	A	B	C
A v B	0.24	0.26
B v C		0.15	0.85
A v C	0.05		0.95

This results in rating changes of:

Position	Player	Initial rating	Change
1st	A	1000	+29
2nd	B	1200	−9
3rd	C	1500	−19

Player A has gained more which is good. That was basically the goal of the change.
Player B has now changed a small gain into a moderate loss. That’s a little odd and probably not desired, after all the victory against C should be more significant than the loss against A
Player C has changed a big loss into a slightly smaller (but still big) loss. After some thought, that is probably reasonable. Although C is expected to win just having more players should generally reduce your expectation of winning and therefore how much you are penalized for failing.

Improvements

So why did these results happen? It might be better to look at a table also including expected and actual results, which reveals a choice that has to be made that I have not yet mentioned:

Position	Player	Initial rating	Expected score	Actual score	Change
1st	A	1000	0.097	1	+29
2nd	B	1200	0.304	0	−9
3rd	C	1500	0.599	0	−19

Notice the actual scores used. Player A has a score of 1 indicating a win. Players B and C have a score of 0, which indicates a loss, but an equal loss.

If we instead use different values for the actual score we get a more sensible result

Position	Player	Initial rating	Actual score	Change
1st	A	1000	0.67	+18
2nd	B	1200	0.33	+1
3rd	C	1500	0	−19

In this case, the “actual score” for a player placed Nth out of C is:

\frac{2 N}{C \times (C - 1)}

Explain this formula

This formula is conceptually simple, but a bit opaque when simplified.

Think of it as each player getting a number of shares of the total score. The person in last gets 0 shares, the person second from last gets 1 share, then next player gets 2 shares, and so on. The person in first place gets C−1 shares.

That means each player gets N shares and the total number of shares is equal to the C−1th Triangular number.

The formula for a triangular number is:

T (x) = x \times \frac{(x + 1)}{2}

Substituting C-1:

T (C - 1) = (C - 1) \times \frac{(C - 1 + 1)}{2}

This simplifies to: $T (C - 1) = \frac{C \times (C - 1)}{2}$

Therefore each player gets:

N / \frac{C \times (C - 1)}{2}

which simplifies to:

\frac{2 N}{C \times (C - 1)}

Handling ties

To be as general as possible (and because it actually happens in some of my multiplayer Tic-tac-toe variants) we need to handle arbitrary ties.

The simplest way is to evenly distribute the score to all the players that are tied. So if the top two players in a three-player game tie, their scores of 0.67 and 0.33 are summed and split between them (0.5 each).

As a more complex example, consider:

Position	“Raw” score	Actual score
1st	0.286	0.262
1st	0.238	0.262
3rd	0.190	0.143
3rd	0.143	0.143
3rd	0.095	0.143
6th	0.048	0.048
7th	0	0

Final thoughts

I’ve addressed the first restriction of Elo, only supporting two players. As for unfair games, that will have to wait as this post is long enough as it is.

I wrote a post about calendar reuse that included an offhand comment about Easter. The common definition of when Easter is, is:

the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox

That isn’t quite right, and I made a vague mention of the correct definition.

Since then, someone has made a video explaining the the correct definition in depth with details about the history and why it is this way.

Interacting with this video is done so under the Terms of Service of YouTube

View this video directly on YouTube

Existing work

Firstly, after doing this much work, I have discovered someone already has done a similar investigation: How long is a Star Trek title? by Bruce Bennett, so check that out. One thing it does have that I don’t, is charts.

Improving workflow

The analysis so far has been done using a Google Docs spreadsheet. I then manually wrote the Markdown for the blog posts, which involved some tedious and error prone tables.

I was originally not going to include the giant list of every single-word episode title, since creating that table did not look like fun.

But… I also started working a little program to do more sophisticated processing, and realised I could also make the program generate the Markdown for me.

The program is a .NET 7 console application writen in C#, and writing it was probably quicker than the manipulation I had to do with the spreadsheet in the first place. It was definitely quicker than producing the Markdown tables in the first post manually.

The end result is I can generate tables of all sorts of random episode lists with different properties of varying levels of interest with very little effort.

After starting my previous post with this question but not answering it, I’ll get straight to the point. There is a tie for first place, with two episode titles that are two characters long:

Shortest episode titles

Title	Length	Series	Episode
Q2	2 letters	Voyager	7x19
E²	2 letters	Enterprise	3x21

The shortest title per series is:

Title	Length	Series	Episode
Miri	4 letters	The Original Series	1x11
Bem	3 letters	The Animated Series	2x02
Qpid	4 letters	The Next Generation	4x20
Dax	3 letters	Deep Space Nine	1x08
Q2	2 letters	Voyager	7x19
E²	2 letters	Enterprise	3x21

Every series has several single word episode titles.

See them all

Title	Length	Series	Episode
Miri	4 letters	TOS	1x11
Arena	5 letters	TOS	1x19
Catspaw	7 letters	TOS	1x01
Metamorphosis	13 letters	TOS	1x02
Obsession	9 letters	TOS	2x18
Yesteryear	10 letters	TAS	1x02
Bem	3 letters	TAS	2x02
Albatross	9 letters	TAS	2x04
Haven	5 letters	TNG	1x05
Justice	7 letters	TNG	1x09
Battle	6 letters	TNG	1x10
Datalore	8 letters	TNG	1x14
11001001	8 letters	TNG	1x16
Symbiosis	9 letters	TNG	1x22
Conspiracy	10 letters	TNG	1x25
Contagion	9 letters	TNG	2x11
Manhunt	7 letters	TNG	2x19
Evolution	9 letters	TNG	3x01
Allegiance	10 letters	TNG	3x18
Sarek	5 letters	TNG	3x23
Transfigurations	16 letters	TNG	3x25
Family	6 letters	TNG	4x02
Brothers	8 letters	TNG	4x03
Legacy	6 letters	TNG	4x06
Reunion	7 letters	TNG	4x07
Clues	5 letters	TNG	4x14
Qpid	4 letters	TNG	4x20
Redemption	10 letters	TNG	4x26
Darmok	6 letters	TNG	5x02
Disaster	8 letters	TNG	5x05
Unification	11 letters	TNG	5x07
Violations	10 letters	TNG	5x12
Conundrum	9 letters	TNG	5x14
Ethics	6 letters	TNG	5x16
Relics	6 letters	TNG	6x04
Schisms	7 letters	TNG	6x05
Rascals	7 letters	TNG	6x07
Aquiel	6 letters	TNG	6x13
Tapestry	8 letters	TNG	6x15
Birthright	10 letters	TNG	6x16
Lessons	7 letters	TNG	6x19
Suspicions	10 letters	TNG	6x22
Timescape	9 letters	TNG	6x25
Descent	7 letters	TNG	6x26
Liaisons	8 letters	TNG	7x02
Interface	9 letters	TNG	7x03
Gambit	6 letters	TNG	7x04
Phantasms	9 letters	TNG	7x06
Attached	8 letters	TNG	7x08
Inheritance	11 letters	TNG	7x10
Parallels	9 letters	TNG	7x11
Homeward	8 letters	TNG	7x13
Masks	5 letters	TNG	7x17
Genesis	7 letters	TNG	7x19
Firstborn	9 letters	TNG	7x21
Bloodlines	10 letters	TNG	7x22
Emergence	9 letters	TNG	7x23
Emissary	8 letters	DS9	1x01
Babel	5 letters	DS9	1x05
Q-Less	6 letters	DS9	1x07
Dax	3 letters	DS9	1x08
Vortex	6 letters	DS9	1x12
Storyteller	11 letters	DS9	1x14
Progress	8 letters	DS9	1x15
Forsaken	8 letters	DS9	1x17
Duet	4 letters	DS9	1x19
Cardassians	11 letters	DS9	2x05
Melora	6 letters	DS9	2x06
Sanctuary	9 letters	DS9	2x10
Rivals	6 letters	DS9	2x11
Whispers	8 letters	DS9	2x13
Paradise	8 letters	DS9	2x14
Shadowplay	10 letters	DS9	2x15
Crossover	9 letters	DS9	2x23
Tribunal	8 letters	DS9	2x25
Equilibrium	11 letters	DS9	3x04
Meridian	8 letters	DS9	3x08
Defiant	7 letters	DS9	3x09
Fascination	11 letters	DS9	3x10
Destiny	7 letters	DS9	3x15
Visionary	9 letters	DS9	3x17
Explorers	9 letters	DS9	3x22
Shakaar	7 letters	DS9	3x24
Facets	6 letters	DS9	3x25
Indiscretion	12 letters	DS9	4x05
Rejoined	8 letters	DS9	4x06
Homefront	9 letters	DS9	4x11
Crossfire	9 letters	DS9	4x13
Accession	9 letters	DS9	4x17
Rapture	7 letters	DS9	5x10
Resurrection	12 letters	DS9	6x08
Waltz	5 letters	DS9	6x11
Inquisition	11 letters	DS9	6x18
Valiant	7 letters	DS9	6x22
Afterimage	10 letters	DS9	7x03
Chrysalis	9 letters	DS9	7x05
Covenant	8 letters	DS9	7x09
Chimera	7 letters	DS9	7x14
Penumbra	8 letters	DS9	7x17
Caretaker	9 letters	VOY	1x01
Parallax	8 letters	VOY	1x03
Phage	5 letters	VOY	1x05
Emanations	10 letters	VOY	1x09
Cathexis	8 letters	VOY	1x13
Faces	5 letters	VOY	1x14
Jetrel	6 letters	VOY	1x15
Initiations	11 letters	VOY	2x02
Projections	11 letters	VOY	2x03
Elogium	7 letters	VOY	2x04
Twisted	7 letters	VOY	2x06
Parturition	11 letters	VOY	2x07
Tattoo	6 letters	VOY	2x09
Maneuvers	9 letters	VOY	2x11
Resistance	10 letters	VOY	2x12
Prototype	9 letters	VOY	2x13
Alliances	9 letters	VOY	2x14
Threshold	9 letters	VOY	2x15
Meld	4 letters	VOY	2x16
Dreadnought	11 letters	VOY	2x17
Lifesigns	9 letters	VOY	2x19
Investigations	14 letters	VOY	2x20
Deadlock	8 letters	VOY	2x21
Innocence	9 letters	VOY	2x22
Tuvix	5 letters	VOY	2x24
Resolutions	11 letters	VOY	2x25
Basics	6 letters	VOY	2x26
Flashback	9 letters	VOY	3x02
Remember	8 letters	VOY	3x06
Warlord	7 letters	VOY	3x10
Macrocosm	9 letters	VOY	3x12
Coda	4 letters	VOY	3x15
Unity	5 letters	VOY	3x17
Darkling	8 letters	VOY	3x18
Rise	4 letters	VOY	3x19
Displaced	9 letters	VOY	3x24
Scorpion	8 letters	VOY	3x26
Nemesis	7 letters	VOY	4x04
Revulsion	9 letters	VOY	4x05
Hunters	7 letters	VOY	4x15
Prey	4 letters	VOY	4x16
Retrospect	10 letters	VOY	4x17
Unforgettable	13 letters	VOY	4x22
Demon	5 letters	VOY	4x24
One	3 letters	VOY	4x25
Night	5 letters	VOY	5x01
Drone	5 letters	VOY	5x02
Timeless	8 letters	VOY	5x06
Counterpoint	12 letters	VOY	5x10
Gravity	7 letters	VOY	5x13
Bliss	5 letters	VOY	5x14
Juggernaut	10 letters	VOY	5x21
11:59	5 letters	VOY	5x23
Relativity	10 letters	VOY	5x24
Warhead	7 letters	VOY	5x25
Equinox	7 letters	VOY	5x26
Alice	5 letters	VOY	6x05
Riddles	7 letters	VOY	6x06
Pathfinder	10 letters	VOY	6x10
Virtuoso	8 letters	VOY	6x13
Memorial	8 letters	VOY	6x14
Tsunkatse	9 letters	VOY	6x15
Collective	10 letters	VOY	6x16
Muse	4 letters	VOY	6x22
Fury	4 letters	VOY	6x23
Imperfection	12 letters	VOY	7x02
Drive	5 letters	VOY	7x03
Repression	10 letters	VOY	7x04
Nightingale	11 letters	VOY	7x08
Shattered	9 letters	VOY	7x11
Lineage	7 letters	VOY	7x12
Repentance	10 letters	VOY	7x13
Prophecy	8 letters	VOY	7x14
Workforce	9 letters	VOY	7x16
Q2	2 letters	VOY	7x19
Homestead	9 letters	VOY	7x23
Endgame	7 letters	VOY	7x25
Unexpected	10 letters	ENT	1x05
Civilization	12 letters	ENT	1x09
Fusion	6 letters	ENT	1x17
Acquisition	11 letters	ENT	1x19
Oasis	5 letters	ENT	1x20
Detained	8 letters	ENT	1x21
Shockwave	9 letters	ENT	1x26
Minefield	9 letters	ENT	2x03
Marauders	9 letters	ENT	2x06
Singularity	11 letters	ENT	2x09
Dawn	4 letters	ENT	2x13
Stigma	6 letters	ENT	2x14
Canamar	7 letters	ENT	2x17
Judgment	8 letters	ENT	2x19
Horizon	7 letters	ENT	2x20
Cogenitor	9 letters	ENT	2x22
Regeneration	12 letters	ENT	2x23
Bounty	6 letters	ENT	2x25
Anomaly	7 letters	ENT	3x02
Extinction	10 letters	ENT	3x03
Rajiin	6 letters	ENT	3x04
Impulse	7 letters	ENT	3x05
Exile	5 letters	ENT	3x06
Twilight	8 letters	ENT	3x08
Similitude	10 letters	ENT	3x10
Stratagem	9 letters	ENT	3x14
Harbinger	9 letters	ENT	3x15
Hatchery	8 letters	ENT	3x17
Damage	6 letters	ENT	3x19
E²	2 letters	ENT	3x21
Countdown	9 letters	ENT	3x23
Home	4 letters	ENT	4x03
Borderland	10 letters	ENT	4x04
Forge	5 letters	ENT	4x07
Awakening	9 letters	ENT	4x08
Kir’Shara	9 letters	ENT	4x09
Daedalus	8 letters	ENT	4x10
United	6 letters	ENT	4x13
Affliction	10 letters	ENT	4x15
Divergence	10 letters	ENT	4x16
Bound	5 letters	ENT	4x17
Demons	6 letters	ENT	4x20

Longest episode titles

Unlike with the shortest episode title, I had a good idea what the longest one was. At least, I had two candidates, but without sitting down and counting, picking one would have been a guess. I can confirm they are the longest two, and I present them both since they are such outliers compared to the rest.

Title	Length	Series	Episode
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky	50 letters	The Original Series	3x10
Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places	44 letters	Deep Space Nine	5x03

And the longest per series:

Title	Length	Series	Episode
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky	50 letters	The Original Series	3x10
How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth	34 letters	The Animated Series	2x05
Where No One Has Gone Before	28 letters	The Next Generation	1x06
Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places	44 letters	Deep Space Nine	5x03
The Haunting of Deck Twelve	27 letters	Voyager	6x25
Two Days and Two Nights	23 letters	Enterprise	1x25

This brings us our first controversial result. I decided that ellipses should be treated as a single letter (if only for a sense of typographical superiority). In this case, treating it as three letters would produce a different result:

Title	Length	Series	Episode
These Are the Voyages…	24 letters	Enterprise	4x22

The titles so far have been longest by letter-count. Longest by word-count can also be determined. This gives identical results, except Voyager and the Animated Series now have ties:

Title	Length	Series	Episode
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky	11 words	The Original Series	3x10
One of Our Planets is Missing	6 words	The Animated Series	1x03
How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth	6 words	The Animated Series	2x05
Where No One Has Gone Before	6 words	The Next Generation	1x06
Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places	8 words	Deep Space Nine	5x03
The Q and the Grey	5 words	Voyager	3x11
Someone to Watch Over Me	5 words	Voyager	6x25
The Haunting of Deck Twelve	5 words	Voyager	5x22
Two Days and Two Nights	5 words	Enterprise	1x25

It is often necessary in computer systems to get the current date and time. .NET has had a straightforward way to do that since its inception. What it hasn’t had is a built-in way to customize the behavior, particularly for mocking during automated tests.

Quite why this situation has persisted for so long is a bit of mystery. The importance of automated tests has only risen over time and questions about how to deal with this crop up quite frequently. The general solution is to provide an abstraction that you can inject and mock easily.

The popular date and time library Noda Time includes IClock, and any developers are often directed to use Noda Time for anything making use of anything but the simplest of time-based logic. But it is still odd there is nothing built-in, especially considering there is an existing private implementation in .NET, as well as several in ASP.NET.

Well .NET 8 will finally be getting System.TimeProvider:

namespace System
{
    /// <summary>Provides an abstraction for time. </summary>
    public abstract class TimeProvider
    {
        protected TimeProvider();
        public static TimeProvider System { get; }
        public static TimeProvider FromLocalTimeZone(TimeZoneInfo timeZone);
        public abstract DateTimeOffset UtcNow { get; }
        public DateTimeOffset LocalNow { get; }
        public abstract TimeZoneInfo LocalTimeZone { get; }
        public abstract long GetTimestamp();
        public abstract long TimestampFrequency { get; }
        public TimeSpan GetElapsedTime(long startingTimestamp, long endingTimestamp);
        public abstract ITimer CreateTimer(TimerCallback callback, object? state, TimeSpan dueTime, TimeSpan period);
    }
}

Here is the original GitHub issue and the pull request implementing it.

As well as providing a mockable abstraction to get the current time (including a default implementation providing the system time), it also adds supports to a bunch of other APIs to use a specified instance instead including Task and Timer.

And, best of all, despite my earlier claim that this is a .NET 8 feature, this will also be made available as a package targeting .NET Standard 2.0, so it can be used on .NET Framework and other targets.

I recently found myself idly wondering what the shortest Star Trek episode title was. The first to come to mind was the Original Series episode “Arena” (the one which Captain Kirk fights a humanoid lizard in one of the most striking examples of 1960 “makeup”).

I guessed there were probably shorter ones, but was rather disappointed I didn’t know the answer for sure. So I decided to find out.

While investigating, I also started wondering other things, like: what is the longest episode title? Which series has the shortest or longest titles on average? How many episodes begin with “the”?

I have decided to gather the answers to these questions and more together into a series of blog posts.

Some ground rules

I quickly realised even for “shortest episode title” there were some decisions I would have to make about what would count.

What counts as a letter?

Any character is a letter. So including (but not necessarily limited to):

The letters A-Z (regardless of case or accents).
The digits 0-9.
Any punctuation symbol.
A space.
An ellipsis (so three dots … is a single character).

What counts as a word?

Spaces separate words, nothing else does. 37's is one word, as is 11001001.

Which series/episodes are included?

I decided to include all episodes from The Original Series (including “The Cage”), The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. This is for the simple practical reason that no more episodes are being produced for these (with the recent annocunement that season 5 of Discovery will be its last, I may redo this including Discovery in the near future).

What about two-part episodes?

For two part episodes (that don’t have completely different titles), I’m just using the “base name”.

About those two-part episodes

The first two-part episode of Star Trek was called “The Menagerie”. In the episode title sequence it is styled as "THE MENAGERIE" PART I and "THE MENAGERIE" PART II, with the part information clearly outside the quotation marks used to identify the title. This suggests the title is in fact “The Menagerie”.

“The Menagerie” (as far as I am aware) was never produced as a single feature length episode. Many other two-part episodes were either broadcast originally as a single episode, or later made available as one (often with additional footage included). This means an episode could potentially have three different names (one for each part individually and one for the whole) and using the “base name” seems most sensible in this case.

It should also be noted, there is little consistency in how the two-part episode titles are handled. Some of them give the first part the “base name” and add “Part II” after whereas others include the part information in both titles. Whether the part information is inside the quotes varies, and even whether the word “part” is included.

So overall, I feel justified in in using the “base name”, just as a way of establishing some kind of order. Although I can already tell I’m going to have to write a detailed blog post covering all of this (especially if I get to including Discovery, since that messes everything up by having an episode titled as if it is the third part of a three-part episode, the first two parts of which are from another series).

Image copyright © Paramount Global and used under fair use.

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New audio versions of all* of the Discworld books are being produced. They aren’t being released in order though and as far as I can tell there is no convenient page listing all the release dates.

So here are the release dates currently listed on Audible as of 15th March, 2023. There are a few different ways Discworld books get grouped. “Series” below is how Audible have grouped them (and I assume matches the narrator).

Release date

2021 December 21st

Title	Series	№
Hogfather	Death	20

2022 April 28th

Title	Series	№
Equal Rites	Witches	3
Wyrd Sisters	Witches	6
Witches Abroad	Witches	12
Lords and Ladies	Witches	14
Maskerade	Witches	18
Carpe Jugulum	Witches	23
Small Gods	Standalone	13

2022 July 7th

Title	Series	№
The Colour of Magic	Rincewind	1
The Light Fantastic	Rincewind	2
Sourcery	Rincewind	5
Eric	Rincewind	9
Interesting Times	Rincewind	17
The Lat Continent	Rincewind	22
Unseen Academicals	Rincewind	37

2022 October 6th

Title	Series	№
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents	Standalone	28

2022 October 27th

Title	Series	№
Mort	Death	4
Reaper Man	Death	11
Soul Music	Death	16
Thief of Time	Death	26

2023 February 23rd

Title	Series	№
The Truth	Industrial Revolution	25
Monstrous Regiment	Industrial Revolution	31
Going Postal	Industrial Revolution	33
Making Money	Industrial Revolution	36
Raising Steam	Industrial Revolution	40

2023 March 30th

Title	Series	№
Pyramids	Standalone	7

2023 May 18th

Title	Series	№
Moving Pictures	Industrial Revolution	10

2023 May 25th

Title	Series	№
Guards! Guards!	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	8
Men at Arms	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	15
Feet of Clay	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	19
Jingo	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	21
The Fifth Elephant	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	24
Night Watch	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	29
Thud!	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	34
Snuff	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	39

2023 June 15th

Title	Series	№
The Wee Free Men	Tiffany Aching	30
A Hat Full of Sky	Tiffany Aching	32
Wintersmith	Tiffany Aching	35
I Shall Wear Midnight	Tiffany Aching	38
The Sheperd's Crown	Tiffany Aching	41

Reading order

Title	Series	№	Release date
The Colour of Magic	Rincewind	1	2022 July 7th
The Light Fantastic	Rincewind	2	2022 July 7th
Equal Rites	Witches	3	2022 April 28th
Mort	Death	4	2022 October 27th
Sourcery	Rincewind	5	2022 July 7th
Wyrd Sisters	Witches	6	2022 April 28th
Pyramids	Standalone	7	2023 March 30th
Guards! Guards!	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	8	2023 May 25th
Eric	Rincewind	9	2022 July 7th
Moving Pictures	Industrial Revolution	10	2023 May 18th
Reaper Man	Death	11	2022 October 27th
Witches Abroad	Witches	12	2022 April 28th
Small Gods	Standalone	13	2022 April 28th
Lords and Ladies	Witches	14	2022 April 28th
Men at Arms	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	15	2023 May 25th
Soul Music	Death	16	2022 October 27th
Maskerade	Witches	18	2022 April 28th
Interesting Times	Rincewind	17	2022 July 7th
Feet of Clay	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	19	2023 May 25th
Hogfather	Death	20	2021 December 21st
Jingo	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	21	2023 May 25th
The Lat Continent	Rincewind	22	2022 July 7th
Carpe Jugulum	Witches	23	2022 April 28th
The Fifth Elephant	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	24	2023 May 25th
The Truth	Industrial Revolution	25	2023 February 23rd
Thief of Time	Death	26	2022 October 27th
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents	Standalone	28	2022 October 6th
Night Watch	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	29	2023 May 25th
The Wee Free Men	Tiffany Aching	30	2023 June 15th
Monstrous Regiment	Industrial Revolution	31	2023 February 23rd
A Hat Full of Sky	Tiffany Aching	32	2023 June 15th
Going Postal	Industrial Revolution	33	2023 February 23rd
Thud!	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	34	2023 May 25th
Wintersmith	Tiffany Aching	35	2023 June 15th
Making Money	Industrial Revolution	36	2023 February 23rd
Unseen Academicals	Rincewind	37	2022 July 7th
I Shall Wear Midnight	Tiffany Aching	38	2023 June 15th
Snuff	Ankh-Morpork City Watch	39	2023 May 25th
Raising Steam	Industrial Revolution	40	2023 February 23rd
The Sheperd's Crown	Tiffany Aching	41	2023 June 15th

* There are 41 Discworld books. The website says “40 magnificent new recordings”. The one that seems to be missing is “The Last Hero”.

Over the weekend I was playing around with Blazor and created a little number game based on part of a popular British TV show.

In the future this may expand in functionality as part of my exploration into Blazor.

You can try the number game full screen.

Just to avoid any confusion, everything in this post is based on how things work in the UK and is for things available in the UK.

So far I have operated various business ventures off my personal bank account. Since I’ve been doing this as a sole trader, this is allowed. It does however make tax returns take more effort than necessary.

FreeAgent

I recently had reason to interact with FreeAgent, which is some pretty cool accounting software that makes a lot of things simpler. Unfortunately to really use it to its potential, you need to link it to a bank account used solely for your business.

Conveniently, they offer a free account to anyone who has a Mettle account. I had seen Mettle before, and it is described as “the free mobile business account with no hidden fees or charges”, and is operated by NatWest, one of the big UK high street banks.

E-money accounts

After a quick investigation, it seems one of the reasons it is free (which is the norm for personal accounts in the UK but not business accounts) is that it is not actually a bank account, but an “e-money account”. You get an account number as well as a debit card, but it is not subject to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (a scheme in the UK in which the government guarantees bank balances up to a certain amount if a bank goes under).

That limitation seemed fine to me since I did not intend to keep a large balance, so I created an account. Sadly, I found out there are other limitations which basically rendered it useless to me.

Prepaid cards

Firstly, it does not come with an IBAN (international bank account number). This means I cannot receive payments from Apple. Secondly, the card is a prepaid card. Since it is tied to the e-money account they give you, it feels like a debit card to use, except some things just don’t accept payments using them. Crucially for me, Microsoft Azure and Google Ads.

Conclusion

In the end, I opened a business account with Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS and NatWest business accounts also get free FreeAgent accounts. The application was more involved (for Mettle, besides verifying your ID you just have to declare you aren’t in one of their list of prohibited business) but in the end was fine.