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

Mala: I'll have to try that.


Pastey: Oh... I see... You're right, that's dumb.

Ph: the electronic voices on children's toys...

very related PH: children's toys that say "I love you"

But to be fair in today's world love can be cheaply bought. There's a massage parlour across the road from here that sells it by the hour.


Apparently.

Allegation, allegation. allegation
We need confirmation, cofirmation, defirmation

Winnoch, I don’t get OpenAthens either… aren’t they the same damned thing? I didn’t know GoogleScholar existed til very recently and it’s BRILLIANT. (what are you using Athens and scholar for, if you don’t mind me asking?)

Oh, I have no idea how to use JSTOR, never mind what it’s FOR.

PH: the reading for the writing of the dissertation. *sobs* I’m going to hate every band that ever existed by the time this is over, I think.

Jstor is brilliant. It lets you access all sorts of interesting academic journals. Although it can be quite annoying to use.

This may be the wishful thinking of a lazy researcher, but I kind of assume that google scholar 'scrapes' all the other resources such as JSTOR, Springerlink, Wiley, etc meaning you don't have to repeat the same search in each one Certainly the same search seems to bring up similar papers across platforms, though many, such as Oxford Journals are exclusive.

Have you picked up the wee cheat though, that when a paper says 'sorry this is not part of your institution's subscription and will cost $30 to download", if you do a google search for the precise paper title in quotation marks, with :PDF afterwards, it quite often brings up free copies the paper posted elsewhere

My degree is in Environmental Protection.

OK, having just posted that, I realise it came across a bit ungrateful for the time and energy-saving wonder that is online research. I realise that just a few years ago anyone studying for a degree had to physically attend libraries and physically look through dead-tree issues of journals

Depending upon your degree, that may still be the case, but in my field the thinking and research changes so rapidly that reading actual books is (whilst helpful and still on reading lists for background info) not essential.

*bounces around* I'll be sure to try that! I'm doing English and writing my dissertation on how literature influences rock and heavy lyrics (see: Rush and Iron Maiden, there's loads with the former and also with the latter if I can be arsed to look further at the minute but I am not). Either way GS is a lifesaver!

PH: life. It needs to go away so I can get this done.

Speaking of life, it could stand to cut you a few breaks sometimes.

Who, me? At the moment, yes- I know this is final year but I and my friends are of the same thinking right now, that far too much is expected of us in too little time. There are too many demands from too many sources and when it overwhelms us, we just STOP, dead and don’t do anything (happens to everyone time and again, I know, but this is particularly nasty right now).

I need inspiration, I probably should take a flight somewhere and forget about Poland or something but it’s very hard to do so when the person who TOLD YOU THEY LOVED YOU before you left the country has shown up on your doorstep… there, I said it. (Not only this giving a bit of trouble)

Oh, Things Can Only Get Better has started to play. How ironic. *giggle* can’t help it!

And to boot, I'm stuck on this chapter, unsure how to move it along… next stop is bed, I think. It’s 2pm in my fictional world but I’m twelve hours behind in this one! Night all.

I meant people in general, actually. And me in particular, of course.

Life needs to cut everyone a break at the minute.

Not-so-Petty Hate: my hips. I suffer from (with?) trochanteric bursitis. On Friday I went for a walk, as I often do. When I got back, I was tired but otherwise OK. Within a short time my hips had started to hurt - a lot! They still hurt on Saturday and Sunday, despite taking a variety of tablets. Today they seemed OK, but a bit of moving around the house has started them off again. My GP and a rheumatologist have nothing to offer except steroid injections into my hips (painful enough to make me scream, but didn't work) or strong NSAIDs if OTC medication doesn't work. Right now it's all I can do to find a chair comfy enough to spend the rest of the day sitting on.

The top of the washing up liquid being left open. It really takes no effort to pop it shut and you don't get the gunky dried mess around the top.

PP.

The way that even a special, bent-at-the-tip, serrated grapefruit knife won't cut right through all the joins, despite rigorous sawing and pulling. So there's always a segment that squirts a drop of juice into your eye when you get it out.

Erm - not when you get your eye out.

you know what I mean.

I've got a grapefruit spoon it's like a teaspoon, but pointy and serrated. Goes into the bits to get the flesh out without having to cut through them.

I've given up on real grapefruits. I buy the little pots of segments in juice instead.

Knee-jerk "Ban This Thing We Don't Like" campaigns. It's a lazy approach that I suspect only exists because changing what acutally needs changing is hard and expensive.