h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To take a podcast subscription, you sign up for the download. Why is the web deemed to be in some way above us, such that we get a podcast down from it? And where is the 'up' that you have to go to sign for it? Also, in cookery you hear about a sauce being reduced down*...and yet effectively the sauce is drying up. Why doesn't it dry down? Or reduce up?

*and many hate the term.

...I guess 'up' is the place one is constantly pulling things down from, while 'down' is the place one is constantly dragging people to along with one...

My wireless modem is on the shelf above my disputer - isn't everyone's?

"Beam me up, Scotty" is a famous line from the original "Star Trek" series. This despite the fact that in space there is no up or down.

In computers there is a client/server dichotomy. There is one server which services multiple clients [or home computers]. Being hierarchical, the arrangement takes on up and down dimensions in terms of directions within the hierarchy.

I have often downloaded an update, but I've never been allowed to upload a downdate.

In Star Trek, weren't they on a planet whenever the 'Beam us up' command was given?

Upload a downdate - I like it

Going 'up' to the capital has always bothered me slightly. I live north of London, so find myself going down south to go up to the capital.

PP.

That has always bothered me, too, PP. As has going "up" to university, and coming back down again in the holidays. Although, students in my day....

"Going 'up' to the capital has always bothered me slightly. I live north of London, so find myself going down south to go up to the capital." [Pink Paisley]

I like to amuse myself by imagining how the Earth would be perceived if North was not up, and South were not down. If you saw a replica of the globe with South America and Africa pointed left or right rather than down, would you recognize the place?

Also, there's another way of looking at up and down. If you are at a higher elevation than London, then of course you would be going down if you went to London.

I thought that London being 'Up' was from the 1840s, when all railway lines heading towards London are 'Up', and all heading away are 'down'. Even on the Isle of Wight where the train ends at the end of Ryde Pier (unless you are extremely unlucky and find yourself suddenly getting very damp). But at least on the Island London is North, and so 'Up' makes sense.

How come I was born ON the Isle of Wight, but my wife was born IN Nottingham, eh?

<BB<

I assume that going up to, and down from, London is more in a figurative than a compass sense.

It's obviously not universal. Remember the Canned Heat song "going up country" (was that a euphemism?)

If you don't want to upload or download on your computer, try using a torrent service, then you will be doing both at the same time. You can lord it up(down) with a peer-to-peer connection.

No need to be downset or uphearted.

I suppose one can be more generalized on the use age.

'Up' is the direction things fall from.

'Down' is the direction things fall toward.

Then under the current accelerating model for cosmological expansion, rate of cosmological expansion increasing with passing time, just as with a more commonplace kind of fall, speed at which something on a free infall steadily increases with passing time, the moment of the big bang becomes the ultimate 'up' direction and there is so far as can be determined nothing 'down', the 'big bang' becomes 'the great outfall', actually commencing at the terminus of the inflationary epoch.

Back to computer language, information moving toward one's system becomes a 'down' flow' or 'in' flow, information moving away from one's system becomes an 'up' flow' or 'out' flow, a rather egocentric interpretation I suppose.

gdi. Textmess. 'usage'

Down town
Really, with cable, uploads are going down & downloads are coming up

People get tied up in the office, but they get tied down elsewhere.

Soccer and baseball games are sometimes just tied.