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

Lil, what a dilemma, indeed. The Atelier has evolved from your original vision, but the Salonistas love it anyway.

I'm in the same camp with Marv, Loony, Titania and just about everyone else. This is my favorite haunt on hootoo. But I know what you mean. In my opinion, we lost something major when pictures and off-site links became verboten. We have to bend over backwards and sideways to communicate that type of information now. Anyone else remember the old days when you could just post "Take a look at this." and a link? I think it was much easier to get a discussion going. I wish you could have hung your latest canvases (which blew me away, by the way) in the gallery where I could have wandered over and admired them. Instead, we have to endure the cyber-equivilent of getting in the car, taking out the map and driving to the museum.

d'E, I tried to find the F-16 story on the bbc to post a link on that crash, but I couldn't find one. The Asbury Park Press search engine is down. However, you can find it at the NY Times by searching on "F-16".

We lost some of the 'oldies' among the researchers during Rupert...

...if there was to be another long down-time, how many would be staying after that?

Would there be as many frantic and dedicated efforts to create h2g2 refugee camps as last time?

Are researchers who joined h2g2 post-Rupert, and who never saw what it was like back then, as devoted and dedicated as those of the 'oldies' that have stayed?

Am I just being sentimental thinking it was better back then? :'-)

With a 6-digit user number, who am I to talk about old times anyway? It makes me (green with envy) whenever I encounter researchers with 5-digit user numbers...

Well, that's just , T!

*shoves her user number between the sofa cusions*

*first goes then swoons in sofa*

I remember how hard it was to find a camp I recognized, finally landing at e-z, joyfully finding Looney's tour of Napier, the A.Cafe, and The Atelier. Lately I haven't been around much. But thank you, T, for stopping by my page and checking on me. It's nice to be thought of.

*feels nostalgic*
In pre-Rupert times I used to lurk around here. I always thought it's the place where "real" researchers were spending their time. Now it's one of the last places where most of people remember how things were in "good old days".

*trounces through fifteen pages of backlog, victorious!*

I will try to address thing in order...

d'E: TVC was, as you might have guessed, just a referral to the television (tvc15)

Sea: I have always found that I tend to cope with things on less sleep. I used to sleep every other day for four hours, and I tell you that it was the best schedule I ever came up with. I was always awake, alert, and I didn't get that gnawing feeling that I was wasting time by sleeping

Lil: I had to leave at the start of the last party involving phlog I really wish you wouldn't horde it away- it is quite hard to find nowadays

And no, I am not firefly (though who wouldn't want to be ?

I hate driving. Hate it. There's nothing about the experience that I find enjoyable. If I could walk to work I would. And flying? I was in a helicopter crash when I was twelve. Not a nice thing to go through, and definitely not an inducer of more air travel.

Finally, on the Atelier: I pretty much camped down here in the first thread of the Atelier, glad to finally come to a place where people could talk about art technique, comics, architecture, computer programs, computer programing, and just about any other odd thing that came up. Post Ripley, I was hit pretty hard. I can't say that I like the way this site has changed, and how most of the conversations have degenerated into excess, trivialistic banter, but that is neither here nor there. I simply limit my time on the site (I am currently only participating in three conversations, this one here and two with Fraulien Graffy) and hope that the place doesn't implode around me. As long as their is an Atelier I will continue to visit h2g2.

Love the museum metophor. It is one of the reasons why I don't go off and look at the links people mention they are putting up at the Other Place, though. That and a shonky connection.

Have I told you my 'first time I ever flew' story? Was 18 and going to Paris from Manchester (takes about half an hour?). Was seated inamongst a rugby team from America, which was... interesting. The airline staff were determined to throw food and drink down us, but I didn't know if the food was free, or if I was getting fed as a hanger on of said rugby team (I kept thinking people were going to demand money from me). And taking off was a blast.

But since then I've developed a bit of a phobia. Which gives me an excuse to get blasted, so there's always an upside...

Oh yes. And can anyone come up with a truly ikky 'mission statement' they know of in the next hour? I can't remember any for companies I've worked for and I don't think I have the right mindset to just think of something suitably glib as an example for my students.

Helecopter crash?

Ikky? How about vauge?

"We shall offer many people the highest
value for money when staying in hotels,
during work and leisure."

Heavens! I arrive at the latest Atelier thread only to find its hostess in a state of some uncertainty as to the continuation and regeneration of the forum.
Lil, the Atelier is virtually the only place on h2g2 I visit anymore - not because the rest of h2g2 has lost its charn, oh no, but because of time constraints. Conversations and people here are far more interesting than a lot of the stuff out there.
Plus, this is the only place where anyone is at all interested in my book and website projects.
This is a great place, Lil, and I am sure it will continue to flourish(sp?). Put your mind at rest - we're not deserting it.

Oh, and Firefly: I'm terribly sorry for not recognising you, especially since I had seen you only the day before on AIM!

You guys are the greatest! You like me! You really really like me!
I love you all! I want to thank everybody I ever met for existing at the same time as me!



No seriously, I'm actually taken aback at your compliments to the atelier. We took such a serious hit when the art and the floor plans went away. The floor plans were only a tiny bit self-indulgent; they gave us a real context in which to multi-thread. These days, you can see whole series of LEDs go by without a single reference to the virtual environment, and I get the feeling that we could be just anywhere.

But you've informed me of something I didn't realise, which is how much the Atelier differs from other threads and fora on site. I suppose I have to accept that things can't be quite what they were, because the host is not what it was...

*Matina brings Lil a first-to-the-forum mug of tea*

Sometime starting tomorrow I am going to rearrange the hootoo art stuff and give highest precedence to the floor plans and maps, because there's another place where I will try and spend some time. Bluebottle has just resurrected a thread from a place I deleted after the Foop, the equestrian center. Since I've moved west, I'm going to convert it to a ranch and merge it with the farm. The horses and stuff have been there all the time of course -- that's where Amos appeared from with the wagon -- but I bet a lot of you didn't know there was a herd of gnus to the east of here! Bluebottle is chief gnu-wrangler.

Anyhow, it will be a forum to wear a cowboy hat, ride a horse, AND, as befits my sort of place, have a serious chat in the farmhouse kitchen or the tack room or however we set it up.

The idea is to see if we can't tame the backlog by cleaving it somewhat. If it doesn't work, we can try something else. All we ask is that y'all pay sufficient attention not to attempt to lasso a gnu when you're in the kitchen.

Firefly, I see you're keeping up with backlog so far -- welcome and sorry I didn't recognise you as a distinct entity before!

Of course we really really like you, Lil!

Ah, I fully see one of the problem now. OK then, everytime I have something to read, I'm not going to call it from my Watch's inventory. Instead, I'll pop into the library and get it.

Dancer (Not Here)

Sorry to change the subject, but I'm terrible with rhymes in English...

What rhymes with 'home' that would fit into an encourageing(sp?) song I'm currently singing trying to cheer up a cactus?

[caer] not managing to avoid the accountant

T, try Rhymezone with the appropriate dot ending on it.

Got it! Garden gnome!

Well, you could try telling it that if it is a very lucky cactus it can go and live in Godzone with Loony, but I'm intregued about how references to a gnome are actually going to chher it up

And thanks for the statement whoosit. Definitely up to par!

*makes mental note to do more than lie on the sofa throwing out comments. Afterall, I'm not at home *small voice counters with "yeah cos then you'd be potatoeing in front of an incomprehensible tv" but is instantly shushed*