Snippets of insight from Terry Pratchett

I've been rereading some of Terry Pratchett's book as a form of escapism. Some of his passages slap you in the face with insight.

Jingo
"But at a certain dark level, where the daylight seldom penetrated, he thought: of course. At a time like this men like Rust rise to the top. It's like stirring a swamp with a stick. Really big bubbles are suddenly on the surface and there's a bad smell about everything."

Guards! Guards! 
"They're hooked. Ye gods, I'm good at this, thought the Supreme Grand Master. I can play on their horrible little minds like a xylophone. It's amazing, the sheer power of mundanity. Who'd have thought weakness could be a greater force than strength? But you have to know how to direct it. And I do."

"The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe. It was amazing, this mystic business. You told them a lie, and when you don't need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing."

“In a world where we all move in curves he proceeds in a straight line. And going straight in a world of curves makes things happen.”
– Night Watch

“You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless, and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.”
– Guards! Guards!

“Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.”
– Feet of Clay

there's a war brewing between Ankh Morpork and Klatch and the Commander of the Nightwatch, Sam Vines, is investigating:

"Someone’s behind this. Someone wants to see a war. Someone paid to have Ossie and Snowy killed. Someone wanted the Prince dead. I’ve got to remember that. This isn’t a war. This is a crime.
And then he realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriff’s shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy.
And then he realized why he was thinking like this.
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things."
-Jingo

Global Warming Worse than Previously Thought

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html

Procedural Rock Modeling and Texturing - 3ds Max

This is a great blog! I'll be following it.
http://saschahenrichs.blogspot.com/2010/03/3dsmax-environment-modeling-1.html

Bioshock texture remastering
https://80.lv/articles/the-remastering-of-textures-in-bioshock-the-collection/

Great tool for artists - Figure drawing tool
http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

Unity blog - Viking example scene
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/02/18/working-with-physically-based-shading-a-practical-approach/