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

Here you go, bubster...

That was really well done and quite extensive! I know you don't want to hear a lot of praise, but this was really good. My grandmother and great-aunt both have/had from IDDM and I never really understood what it was all about. Thanks for doing such a great job of it!

One point, however, is the large number of footnotes. I think Mark or somebody said they only wanted 5-6 per entry. Maybe you could put some of the footnotes as parenthetical phrases in the main text?

Otherwise, really good job!

- X

Thanks Jimi!

I agree with the footnotes problem, I'll have to work on that a bit, I think.

Otherwise, I'm pleased that you were able to get something out of it. I have a feeling others might like to see something more of a 'personal' perspective on the condition, and I do, indeed, have a fund of stories which I could contribute to such a discussion, but I'm not sure how much to make of this idea. I haven't really provided much of a prescription for dealing with the problems, either, although I could almost certainly do that as well. Any suggestions?

Regards,

H.

Really really good job done Hypoman. Brilliant..

Having had a diabetic lodger come tumbling down the stairs in the dead of night a couple of times, I can empathize with the condition.

I only have two grammatical quibbles: I couldn't find a main verb for the first sentence, and, in the second paragraph I would use "affects" instead of "effects". Otherwise it is an excellent, albeit inevitably depressing, read.
Lil

In line with your consultative editing style, Lil, I'll say two things.

First, I think the first paragraph reads better than prefacing the first sentence with "This is" or something similar would allow. Obviously, any editor who thought as you do would change it, and it would certainly do the content of the article no harm, so no real quibble there.

Second, "effect" - when used as a transitive verb, as here - implies "bring about or accomplish" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Ed., 1995), whereas "affect", used in the same way, implies "produce an effect on". The first meaning is the one I was trying to capture here. If you can think of another word, though, let me know!

Good to see you're on the job! Thanks also for the reading - it's not actually finished yet, and there are still several things I need to add about (as you pointed out) hypos, as well as some more stuff about how it is to live with the condition generally, although I am more vague about how to go about this...

Thanks again, muchly!

All points taken! This is what consultative editing is all about, she said subversively.

When I compose, I write rather complicated "portmanteau" sentences in early drafts, and part of my subsequent work consists of simplifying constructions, hacking out the grammatical underbrush, as it were. In an earlier time I would not have done this, but now IRL I have a copy editor of my own (who's been teaching me the trade) and the first thing she always says is, "Simplify." Quite simply put, I think your style in this article is somewhat recondite. It will be over a number of heads. Whether you do anything about that is purely elective, because the entry is sure to be adopted even as it stands.
Lil

*writes down 'portmanteau' for future reference*

I'm going to get to this any day now, Hyp!

Hey all!

Bubster, I'm pleased that you know it's here, anyway!

Lil, I agree entirely with the "simplify" bit, and it's a perennial bugbear of my writing: I can't let the simplest explanation suffice if it doesn't give all the information required. I will try to water the actual expression down a little in response to your comments, though. This will require a bit of tinkering...

I know exactly what you mean. Brenda, my editor, calls it my "Germanic" mode, referring to the worst that tuetonic technical writing has to offer... I call it the ability to manipulate complex information in a small space .

If we both have this same predilection in normal prose, I wonder if you might have suffered a similar malady in exams: My essays were always shorter than anyone else's. I would find an efficient way to say what I had to say (albeit in complicated sentences), and I refused to waffle (my major was philosophy). It would make me feel very nervous to be finished before everytone else. I always wondered if I could have gotten a first instead of an upper second if only I could have found a more pillowy way to express myself.

I like the concept of a 'Germanic' mode, but I suspect that the Germans are the least bad of the technical writers: they certainly have the best language for technical writing! English doesn't adapt quite as well to that style, so translation is a bit of a bummer.

In exams my essays weren't always shorter than others', but they were as concise as I could make them. I majored in philosophy, too, and I can guarantee you as a result that 'pillowy' writing is not the problem in that field of study: it's finding something original to say!

Unfortunately, though, I wasn't prone to being of even your self-belittled standard! I was much more interested in exploring the topics than really analysing them, on the basis that I did not think I understood enough of anything until I had considered it all. In terms of achieving results, this meant that my career as a philosopher was a bit of a hit and miss affair. That's also why I labour to write so that whoever reads my work will know as much about the topic as I do, rather than just what they 'need' to know.

It's closet proselytization, that's what it is.

But at least, as a philosophy student, you probably had tutors who played gotcha with your papers, jumping on vagueness or self-contradiction in the course of developing an argument and suchlike.

I have met more philosophy majors here at h2g2 than I ever have IRL. I'm sure this has nothing to do with living in the Green Swamp, central Florida, home of some of Creationism's finest defenders... But I wonder if it would be interesting in itself to survey the denizens of this site for academic achievement (without prejudice). Certainly when I was in Mensa there were as many truck drivers as PhD students. I suspect that, among the younger ones, not all have read Adams, let alone listened to him; I'm aware of one subadult who has gotten several of his friends to join just because this is a "cool place." But of the adults it probably can safely be said that we are the set of people who have read Adams, have internet access, and know about this site. What are the demographics of that set, beyond where they come from?

I need to find somebody with XML chops who could set up such a poll. I really want to know how many of us actually studied formal philosophy courses...

The big problem with this idea is not the XML thing, but getting people to respond. With the people who are already here, you might be calling for submissions for a couple of years before you covered even 70% of the list. I'm pretty sure that the PTB don't have THAT much demographic data hidden away! On top of that, though, it probably doesn't mean that much. As you implied with your Mensa truck drivers: the smartest people could be anyone at all, and the best philosophers may never have studied philosophy.

If you asked how many people had come to the site out of an interest in the site, or an interest in the 'Guide, or both, you'd probably only get a marginally better response. Some people (such as myself) would have got access to the internet specifically so they could access the site. Those who are willing to discuss the books are the ones who have read them - or who want to read them: the forum in which they do so, however, could be any one of the thousands that are out there now.

We have an intriguing discussion underway now at the Irving Washington Book Nook (Book Club 10). The forum has been very quiet of late what with the proprietor being too busy to log in.. there is also, I think, another forum dedicated to book discussion, but I don't know where. And as you say, books and concepts are discussed freely and spontaneously all over the site.

Hypo, I'm impressed that you almost managed to use more footnotes than I used in my article about the Simpsons (19!). I pity the sub-ed who ends up with that one

If I had left the number of footnotes unedited, I'd have seventeen there, which is getting up there, I must admit! As it is, I think that the footnotes which are there all serve some purpose...

How've you been, anyway, Frink?

Very well, but on h2g2 less and less as time goes by...........

*ducks out again*