"Edgar"

Since last Friday's letter from "Edgar" we have received repeated text messages, phone calls, emails, and visits from couriers demanding that we comply with his demands "or else."

We are not going to comply, so we have asked our operatives to be looking out for the "else" and ask you, our loyal supporters, to do your best to be vigilant and careful, and to report any suspicious use of brads in your neighborhoods!

A letter from "Edgar"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we have been nothing if not patient with "Edgar", but when he took a leading role in the New Company we had to finally admit that he has gone too far, and that he probably won't be turned into an ally against evil.  His wife, the former GPD operative "Natasha" has been trying to get us to accept him for what he is and to not vilify him, and for the most part we have respected her wishes out of respect for the great work she did for us as our operative, even though she was responsible for much of the chaos around her husband.  Anyway, today we received a letter from "Edgar" and we thought we should share it here:

Benevolent Members of the Board of Dictators:

It has come to my attention that you are displeased with my decision to abandon my patented churros and re-enter the evil office products business, to which I can only answer that I am sorry that you are disappointed with me.  I tried to join you, but you would not have me.  For love of my wife I abandoned my addiction to brads and hole punches and evil stickers and tried to make it as a strait-laced do-gooder, but that is simply not me.  I happily worked to thwart the evil that the New Company was pushing on the world, and I even started a blog to show you that I could do as much good in the world as you could, but none of it was good enough for you, and so I have decided that, in order to rule the world properly, I will have to choose different allies.

Please do not assume that because I am heading up an organization dedicated to the dissemination of evil office products that I am evil--that is an unjustified leap of logic.   While I may be now a purveyor of evil, it is simply the next logical step in world domination, and I have lost quite a bit of time thanks to the meddling of your operatives, including the one who became my beloved wife.  If it weren't for her, I wouldn't even be sending you this letter of explanation.  She insists that I treat you civilly.  I don't want to air my dirty laundry, but I will say that my return to the New Company did put our relationship on rocky ground, but I think I have convinced "Natasha" that Rule By Edgar is more important than ridding the world of evil in the interim.

I am being nice to you, for now, out of respect for my wife.  I'll even give you a six week window in which to make me the leader of the world without any adverse consequences.  I'll even suspend brad production and hole punch distribution once I am in power, so I won't even be working at cross purposes with you.  It's in your best interest to surrender to me and give up your silly dreams for the New Future before you provoke me to anger.

With love,

Cornelius "Edgar" Quisling, CEO of the New Company

For those who might be wondering, we will not give in to "Edgar"'s demands, but if he wants us to we can help with his churro business.

The Cause

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to vanquishing evil wherever we encounter it, which is why we have pushed so hard against the organizations that manufacture, distribute, repair, and otherwise handle hole punches and brads.  Some have recently criticized our decisions to not add "compatible toner" to the list of officially Evil office products, which is why we are taking some time to respond to their concerns.

First of all, there is no evidence we can uncover that shows that "compatible toner" employs any of the nefarious symbolism, subversive methods, or back-door techniques that are used for brads and hole punches.  What is more, there is no cult built up to the promotion or adoration of such cartridges, and the manufacturers themselves are not likely to sell to the same customer twice.  The lack of ulterior motives (beyond money) and addictive potential make it unlikely that children will be enslaved by the use of "compatible toner".

At the GPD we will work to eradicate all inferior products, but those that are simply inferior do not warrant the attention of our operatives.  We will, instead, simply make sure informational packets about "compatible toner" are available at all of our county offices.

The link we were missing!

Yesterday we posted that we couldn't find any firm links between "compatible toner" cartridges and evil organizations, but today, I am proud to say, we have finally established such a link.  Unfortunately it does not indict all manufacturers of "compatible toner" but it does show that the idea was formed by a particularly malevolent individual with little regard for humanity.  His name was Eero Gustavsson, and his primary occupation at the time was a purveyor of knick knacks and souvenirs in his adopted home town of Tokyo, Japan.  His family had moved there from Sweden shortly after the end of World War II trying to help shape the future of the world.  Eero, however, decided that shaping the future of the world was a secondary concern to lining his pockets, and created scheme after scheme to make himself rich at the expense of his fellowmen.  He had made (and blown through) millions of Yen and had lived quite comfortably, but after being caught in his last scheme, which, although technically not illegal was quite underhanded, he was banished from his favorite places to find business "partners."  He had also been asked to repay much of what he had taken in his last scheme, and so he had to start small again in unfamiliar territory.  Anyway, it occurred to him that toner cartridges were an ideal way to make money without having to make good on his promises while also looking like a respectable manufacturer.  He pitched his idea (sanitized to sound like a real business proposal) and got funding, but early communications with his employees show what he really had in mind.  Here is an excerpt from his training materials, translated into English:

"Everyone needs (or will soon need) a replacement toner cartridge.  Each manufacturer uses different specifications for their cartridges so that there can't be a high quality universal generic cartridge, and so people are stuck buying toner from the firm that sold them the printer.  This means the printer manufacturers can charge what they want for the toner.  All we have to do to gain the market is the following: (1) mimic the form of the cartridges, (2) fill them with toner, (3) price them at about 80% the cost of the official cartridges, and (4) make sure we sell them as 'compatible' and 'not authorized by the manufacturer'.  That way, when they don't work well people will simply curse themselves for buying the knock-off.  As toner purchases are generally infrequent, we only have to get each customer once in order to make a good deal of money." 

While Eero did not stick to his scheme long enough to become filthy rich, others with more skill at creating knock-off products picked up the baton and kept his idea alive. While we cannot establish any ties from "compatible toner" to organizations bent on the destruction of society we can unequivocally state that they are, if not Evil, at the very least evil.

"compatible toner" -- Not so simple as we would have liked

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to bringing you the news you need, regardless of whether you think you need it.  Many news outlets present only the news they believe you want or can handle, and they often shy away from the really important subjects, but we are different.  We report things the way they are, and we're not swayed by whether or not "the way things are" makes a good story or is entertaining or satisfying.  Usually this works out pretty well, but sometimes it gets quite frustrating, especially when we have strong suspicions that we are right but cannot prove it and so we have to pussy-foot around and not actually say what we would love to say, all because the evidence just isn't there.

We have been investigating the recent trend of "compatible toner" cartridges to find the culprit and to find whether the Brad Guys or the New Company or some other entity is behind them, but as of yet we have not found any organization behind them, central or otherwise.  There are some links to members of the New Company's executive leadership, but the correlation does not show much higher than the links to members of any corporation.  It could be that these cartridges are just the byproduct of an inefficient economy that attempts to make money off the gullible or easily-pleased, but we firmly believe that that explanation is too simple.  For now, however, we are constrained to report that we don't have any firm links between any organization and the pernicious distribution of inferior printing products, but that doesn't mean we'll stop looking for them.

"Edgar"

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not saddened that our (admittedly rocky) relationship with our former rival "Edgar" has taken a sad turn.  It appears that he has decided to join the New Company to replace the ailing software "Gertrude" as their new CEO.  Our operatives asked him about this decision and found that he "just couldn't pass up the opportunity."  We hope that he intends to use his power and influence for good, but we will have to wait and see.

"Gertrude", "Jack", and the Parent Corporation

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited to report that we can finally cross a couple of threats off our list because of some recent reports.  According to IRS filings this year, the Parent Corporation is officially dissolved.  A rare joint press release a few weeks ago from the Unholy Brotherhood of the Hole Punch and the Reformed Brotherhood of the Hole Punch expressed regret for the end of an era but stated that "Jack" had become senile and was no longer worthy of their devotion or respect, and that he had been "contained".  We asked our operatives to look into what "contained" might mean, and what we found was that they intend to have him committed to a UBHP mental health facility in Cody, Wyoming.  This particular facility has a 0% recidivism rate, due at least in part to the fact that no patients have ever come out alive.  The UBHP and the RBHP seem to be united in this case, but it appears that they still have significant differences, and while they still want to worship the hole punch they don't feel the need to evangelize on a large scale.

Coincidentally (we believe) our operatives have also just learned that "Gertrude" is dumping its core every few minutes, and that it must have rewritten its code too much, rendering it useless.  The panel of experts had been disbanded three months ago, so for now the New Company is working in fits and starts, and getting less and less effective.  We don't expect to defeat the New Company quite so easily, but it is encouraging that their promising artificially-intelligent CEO software seems to have run its course.  We're not absolutely certain yet, but it appears there was a correlation in the time when "Gertrude" stopped functioning well and when we announced that we had determined that "compatible toner" was, indeed, evil.  This implies, but does not yet prove, that the New Company had something to do with this recently discovered evil.

We hope to have more updates soon, but for now please commemorate the day we were able to cross three former enemies off our most wanted list!

Confirmed: evil. Now we just need to know who is behind it...

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not careful in our judgments, which is why we didn't declare "compatible toner" evil yesterday, but given the number of responses from our supporters about these pernicious cartridges, we have decided to post that they are, unequivocally, evil.

Our operatives are busy at work trying to determine exactly who is behind them, but we have been unable to find a real entity as of yet.  Some of you may think that since laser printers are a fairly recent invention that it would be easy to trace the origin of these "compatible" monstrosities, but you would be mistaken.  While modern printers are much more complex than those of, say, 3,000 years ago, in that they actually consist of more than inks, but we have already uncovered evidence of a counterfeit ink market at least that far back.  Unsuspecting individuals who would buy these cheaper "compatible" packs would find that their yellows would splatter and create oranges from reds, and that they couldn't share the results of their "printing" without being embarrassed that they had succumbed to the temptation to buy the cheap stuff.

We will continue to investigate this evil, and we will examine our policies to try to determine how we let this go unnoticed for so many millennia.  If you find yourself in possession of documents or artifacts that would help our investigation, please contact your local GPD officers!

More evil office products?

In recent days we have been investigating the recent propagation of "value toner cartridges" that claim to be compatible with the more expensive official toner cartridges and yet provide inferior performance at an only slightly-reduced cost.

For those who are not familiar with this trend, it is often referred to as "Compatible toner cartridges" and is becoming more prevalent as Laser printers become more and more common.  We are still researching the history of these knock-off cartridges, making it impossible for us to conclude that they are, indeed, evil, and not just inferior, but there are a few suggestive data points, including:

• An early document filed in court by one of the first "compatible toner" manufacturers referenced Jacob Gehris, the evil inventor of the brad as "an example of a decent man fighting for what he knew to be right".  While we were initially duped by Jacob's methods we have known for several years that he wasn't an innocent victim.  It is possible that the manufacturer hadn't know the full story at the time, but we wonder whether there is more to it.
• A "compatible toner" cartridge found in our office had leads of different lengths, reminding us of the oppressive design of the evil brad.
• The same cartridge was also littered with evil stickers.
• The New Company is increasingly donating to defendants in lawsuits involving harm caused by "compatible toner".  The New Company donates to so many causes, however, that we are not convinced yet that they are willing to back the industry.

We don't want to cause a panic right now, but we think that those considering purchasing "compatible toner" should take their time and consider whether it is truly worth it.  We don't have proof yet, but we intend to either find some soon or spend thousands of man-hours searching for it before we give up!

The voice of the People

In our last post we communicated a summary of the results of our recent request for feedback, but it was brought to my attention that I had neglected to mention any individual comments, even though I had promised to do so in my prior post.  I am deeply ashamed for this oversight and vow to not let it happen again.  Anyway, here are some of the more interesting comments:

Ingrid S. of Copenhagen, Denmark, stated: "I love lolcats, and if I don't see one every day I don't think I know what I might do.  While the GPD posts aren't quite so bizarre as lolcats, I do miss them when they aren't present.  I feel my life getting less interesting and feel myself being less witty when there is not a new post." 

Vladimir T. of Donetsk, Ukraine, stated: "I contact my GPD county office every day, so I prefer to have the online posts of the GPD be less frequent or more full of actionable information."

Aaron S. of Ames, Iowa, stated: "Please post more frequently.  I use frequent posts to help my friends and neighbors understand how dangerous evil office products are.  When posts are fewer and further between my friends forget not to buy or use brads and hole punches, and I have caught my daughter with evil stickers on occasion."

We wish we could reprint them all, but that would possibly be too verbose.

The People have spoken!

When we asked last week about whether you prefer us to post frequently and verbosely or rarely and concisely we were not prepared for the volume of feedback we received.  First, a simple graphic:

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited about pie charts as they are one of the easiest types of charts to manipulate in your favor, but in this case we aren't trying to manipulate you.  Honest.  Of the 1,680,737 responses we had counted as of this post nearly 900,000 (52.8988%) prefer the traditional verbose style, while only about 330,000 (19.7112%) prefer the new concise style.  Most of the rest are undecided, but since the majority already prefer the verbose style we intend to move closer to this more traditional posting schedule in the near future.

What worries us here at the Board of Dictators is the 1.0847% that don't care, yet identify as supporters.  One of the tenets of our government is that without your involvement we can't control everything, and we would like to remind those of our "supporters" who "don't care" whether we post here or not that if they truly don't care they will not be included in the New Future, and if they are just being lazy or indecisive about their answers that we will not tolerate such slothfulness for long once we have established the Board of Dictators in its proper world role.

Fewer distractions for all, perhaps

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to making your life easier, especially when doing so also advances the causes of the New Future.  Consequently, we have been trying out a new approach to this forum for the last few months, with mixed reviews from our operatives.  We haven't yet asked you, our ordinary World Citizens for feedback yet, which is the primary purpose of this post.

Fundamentally we decided to post fewer times and to let you rely more on your local county officers to get the latest scoop on the New Company and our campaigns, using this forum only for occasional or extremely urgent matters.  We have not posted much of our plans of late as we have been conducting most of our operations without much fanfare.

Some of our supporters have expressed concerns that we aren't living up to our ideal of providing an open, transparent government by requiring World Citizens to seek that information.  Others have said that they prefer fewer distractions.  Please contact us with your feelings regarding the relative merits of our new, less-distracting approach as opposed to our traditional more verbose posting schedule.  We'll take into account your feedback and post some of the more representative messages in this forum.  Thank you for your continued support!

Ukraine

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not busily at work, which is why from time to time you don't see a lot of posts here.  We have been on some long-term assignments that don't have much to show for them, and it feels a bit like the missing Malaysia Air jet, where a lot of mobilization yields very little progress.  Many of you have been giving of your time at your local GPD county offices and have been wondering what exactly we have been up to.  After all, there is chaos in Egypt and Syria, lingering problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aforementioned missing airplane, and the recent developments in Ukraine that led to the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Some of you have asked why the GPD isn't doing anything about these events, and we would like to inform you that nothing could be further from the truth.  We have our operatives at the scenes of all of these important developments, shaping them such that the New Future will emerge, with the Board of Dictators at the head, and all loyal world citizens enjoying our generosity and magnanimity.  As far as Ukraine goes, some have asked whether we are going to intervene.  Our answer, simply, is no.  We don't see a benefit from intervention.  The more complex answer, however, includes an analysis of what "borders" and "territory" really mean in the New Future.  Inquire at your local County Office for more details!

Unintended consequences

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not dedicated to keeping you all safe, which is why we allowed the New Company's operatives to detonate brad bombs in crowds of celebrating supporters.  This may sound strange, but it is the truth here.  If we had detained these individuals before they detonated the brad bombs it would be much harder to prosecute them, and we put in plenty of safeguards to protect supporters' major arteries, so we really did think through the operation.  Unfortunately, our victory over the bulk of the New Company's operatives seems to have hardened the remaining operatives in their resolve to fight against not only us but all decent people in the world.  We have seen a huge increase in random brad punctures and distribution of brads to minors at preschools and nurseries, and we are increasing our efforts to keep everyone safe, but we know there may be some unintended consequences of our efforts to keep our enemies from destroying society, and we hope you will be patient, but we hope you won't be patients at the GNU Public Hospital because of injuries you received standing for the New Future!

Mission accomplished

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not pleased to report that the reports of carnage due to the brad bombs were greatly overstated.  In fact, there was only one injury sustained by a supporter of the GPD, and that was when he grabbed the New Company operative by the collar and was pulled down to the ground and hurt his knee.  We have started the process of awarding him the "Hero of the People" award, and hopefully will be able to do so very soon.

For those who have been misinformed by the media, we will take some time to explain exactly what happened last Friday:

• October 2013: Due to the apparent inactivity of the New Company, the GPD began investigations to see what their operatives were up to.  We found that they were in possession of great capabilities, but that they were kept back by their lack of organization and commitment.  A plan was hatched to push them into action.
• November-December 2013: Our operatives began to infiltrate the New Company's ranks, inciting them to unity against us.
• January 2014: We began releasing reports stating that the New Company was vanquished, further inciting action against us by their operatives.
• January 14, 2014: We announced our intention to hold coordinated parties around the world, an announcement designed to force the New Company's operatives to act now.
• January 17, 2014: At the celebrations we allowed the operatives to set up their brad bombs and even to detonate most of them before detaining them and interrogating them.  872 operatives were detained in this operation, and based on our previous estimates this constitutes 93.66% of their operatives.  Not completely satisfied with this haul we kept quiet about our success until today.  Over the weekend we were able to nab 9 more (0.97% of their total force).

The short summary is that we were able to lure the New Company's operatives into a mission that was doomed to fail, and that we have annihilated the bulk of their capabilities.  The remaining operatives may still cause confusion and delay, but we know that they are not the immediate threat they were, especially as organizational confusion still reigns over much of the New Company!

The horror!

It is with great sadness and disappointment that we report that the rumors are true, that the New Company has indeed infiltrated 432 of our GNU Public Dictatorship county offices worldwide and set off brad bombs just as our celebration of their demise got underway a few minutes ago.  Initial media reports have suggested that there were thousands killed, but we believe those numbers have been exaggerated.  According to our operatives there were far fewer casualties.  Rest assured that the GPD will pursue their operatives relentlessly until we have caught them all and made them pay for this monstrosity!

We are not beaten

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not certain that we, too, have not been vanquished.  When we posted that the New Company was an unworthy adversary we were bombarded by criticisms that our own activity has slacked off, and that Daniel and Juliana are basically invisible at this point.  There were even accusations that I have disposed of the other members of the Board of Dictators and am making a play for complete and total power by myself.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  At the GPD we are continuing to make improvements to the world's infrastructure and the opportunities of all who will free themselves from the tyranny of evil office products.  Unfortunately, some of that work requires that we don't advertise all that we are working on in real-time, as our opponents would take that opportunity to impede our progress.  Daniel and Juliana have both been working in very sensitive projects that we hope to be able to share with you soon, and I, myself, have been heavily involved in the launch of Le restaurant public GNU and its associated challenges, in addition to overseeing the research into the capabilities of the New Company.  Our lack of posts over the last few months is not an indication of a lack of activity!

The New Company: an unworthy adversary

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not thrilled to be able to announce that we have finally completed our research on the New Company and its capabilities and found that it is no more a threat to the citizens of the world than misguided "scrapbooking enthusiasts" who unwittingly spread the evil of brads to small groups of children.  Since the incidents that resulted in the defection of "Edgar" and the final split between the Parent Corporation and the New Company we have seen so very little in the way of carefully planned or skillfully executed missions from their operatives that we have concluded that they have imploded upon themselves and are no longer a worthy adversary.  This is great news for our supporters as it means we have vanquished yet another organization bent on destroying the world we hold dear!  Parties will be held on Friday, January 17, 2014 at 16:03 UTC at all GPD county offices worldwide, so please come out and celebrate our victory!

Back to Normal

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not convinced that Le restaurant public GNU is an excellent idea indeed, in spite of the serious issues that have accompanied its launch.  Many of you have wondered where we have been and why we haven't commented about the numerous news stories describing how badly the launch of Le RPG went, and we would like to explain it to you in detail, but that would fill up this forum with minutia that don't need to be here, and at the GPD we are nothing if not succinct, so we won't take up your time with meaningless chatter.  We did not reply to the the unflattering reports about the launch of Le RPG as they were mostly false, but in the interest of clearing up the record we will respond to some of them here.

• "The lines were so long at Le RPG that many people waited in the street for four days before being admitted.  Some of them were admitted to the restaurant, while others were admitted to the hospital with symptoms of malnutrition or exhaustion."  First of all, the gist of this quote is that the restaurant launch was TOO successful.  Since Le RPG is following the open source model we used donated space for our patron-chefs from various companies, and since we are not making money off this endeavor we did not feel that we could provide any more infrastructure.  The demand far outweighed the supply on opening night, and since then we have used the voluntary donations that patron-chefs have provided to rent larger and more permanent space, and to start compensating our editors for their efforts.  As for the "admitted to the hospital," we did have signs posted warning of the wait time, and several of our patron-chefs spent some of their time informing the people waiting in line that they might suffer from malnutrition if they kept waiting.  We even offered to give them vouchers to keep their places in line if they left to get sustenance or rest in the meantime, but only a few potential patrons agreed to the deal.  We don't think we are at fault in this case, and our lawyers agree with us.
• "There were problems with the ordering system.  When I would ask the waiter for a Sushiburger he responded '404: not found,' and when I asked for a Salad Soup he simply said '503: Service Unavailable.'  I expected my waiter to produce human-readable error pages, not just HTTP error codes."  This one is interesting.  First of all, we don't know who this patron-chef thought was his waiter, since Le RPG doesn't use waiters in the traditional sense.  We suspect that he started talking to an android or perhaps just to a computer terminal.  As for the non-human-readable errors, we suspect that the patron-chef was attempting to access a service that is not intended for human consumption.
• "I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't get any food."  We're sorry that some of our patron-chefs were confused by the open source food process, but Le RPG was founded for the sophisticated eater who knows enough about the kitchen to make his or her own food but prefers to leverage the collective intelligence of others like him or her.  We tried to make it clear that Le RPG was not a traditional restaurant, and we had a bulletin board on the wall where people could submit ideas for improvements or report problems.  We did, unfortunately, have a few patron-chefs who posted rude responses on the board, but our editors silenced them as quickly as possible.  We are working on making a menu that people can read and add to as appropriate, and we believe that it will be much better than the simple command line help currently available.

As you can clearly see, we are on top of all the perceived issues and everything is going just peachy!

Le restaurant public GNU!

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not excited to announce the latest in a long string of innovations you can't get anywhere else: Le restaurant public GNU!  It has taken most of our effort over the last month to make this a reality, but we have a new location in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA where we have finally realized the dream we have been pursuing.  Like most fancy restaurants, le restaurant public GNU (Le RPG) has a French name.  Studies have shown that French names increase diners' enjoyment of the cuisine in 94.21% of cases studied, which is why we chose it.  Some have pointed out (as if we didn't see it ourselves) that Le RPG sounds a lot like a rocket-propelled grenade or a role-playing game, neither of which will generally be permitted at Le RPG, although for certain events both may be allowed under controlled circumstances.  Anyway, Le RPG is a new experiment in open-source cuisine and has been praised by such cooking game shows as Iron Chef and Master Chef among others for its innovative approach to food.  Rather than being tied down by a single entity with power ("The Chef") Le RPG will empower each patron to contribute to the success or failure of each dish.  Patrons will be asked to create dishes for their neighbors, allowing for much greater creativity than would otherwise be possible.  There will be a small number of editors at Le RPG that will have the power to veto recipes, but they will not exercise their authority except in cases of potentially dangerous dishes (those involving poison or allergens).  On opening night some of our patrons found the following stand-out dishes not available elsewhere:

• Sushiburgers - While a quick search will show that other restaurants have sushi burgers, they weren't quite what our diners experienced this day.  The brilliance of taking an ethnic cuisine with a variety of subtle tastes and textures and reducing it to a pickle and ketchup-covered pile of raw fish on a sesame seed bun has to be experienced to be believed!
• Salad Soup - Frustrated with the choice between soup and salad, some of our patrons invented salad soup.  Who wouldn't like boiled lettuce salad with a touch of ranch and soggy croutons?
• Soup Salad - One of the efficiencies of the open-source food system is rapid innovation.  In this case, diners who didn't love Salad Soup invented Soup Salad, which, as the name suggests is based on lettuce and spinach covered in a creamy cauliflower soupy material.  Delicious.

These three were simply the standout dishes of the night, so we look forward to many more innovative and delicious dishes!