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

*returns to table looking disgruntled* What a waste of a day so far! As the weather is closing in seriously and we were to go to Alamogordo tomorrow I decided to get him a new set of tires for his Silverado today. It seemed as if we had one delay of misunderstanding after another! He flooded the engine, killed the battery, had to wait for a jump start, then discovered that he was nearly out of gas, petrol. "I'm going to the gas station on the way to WalMart," he then said. "See you there." By there, I thought he meant WalMart. By there, he actually meant the petrol station.

So I was extremely worried when I arrived at WalMart and he wasn't there, and the snow was beginning to intensify.

He finally did show up and then we had to wait nearly 40 minutes while some young mouthbreather crawled around the stockroom, only to tell us they were out of the ones he needed. Finally we found a place that had tires and I was able to get him set up and head for home with the groceries.

And now I have to break my afternoon up to relieve the postmistress for an hour. So there's no point starting any project until after dinner, now!

Oh, and we ~were~ going to Alamogordo to get Brother to the Veterans Administration Clinic but they called and re-scheduled him -- for the third time.

*sighs and looks around for the teapot*

The "him" referred to in the first paragraph of that unscheduled rant is my brother.

I was going to say that but I guess you beat me to it.

3rd of December and I'm already feeling mulfy.

Hi Hypatia - nice to see you!

That's Sol going to Estonia, although I've met Hati when she's been passing through... and I understand some Estonian, since both Estonian and Finnish have the same origin - Finnish-Ugrian or something like that *gets a feeling of déjà vu*

What's 'mulfy'?

*also waves to Hypatia*

[Amy] - doesn't know what mulfy means either

I don't believe it - any which way I turn I end up lurking in conversations with or about Justin the Preacher U195767!

What really mystifies me is the researcher 'Steve, programmer of "Justin the Preacher"' U197974... in a way, it makes sense, because some of Justin's postings are very stereotypical...

Okay, that's just frightening.

No, really.

And just for the fun of it, I just engaged it in an actual theological question, throwing back bible verses, etc. I want to see what it comes up with.

I don't think that most folk understand that Justin may very well not be a real person.

Or maybe Justin IS a real person, which, in that case, is frightening beyond belief.

Well, after reading some of Justin's postings I feel that those are conversations I'll stay well away from - wouldn't be caught dead posting myself... for my own sake...

I agree that it'd be scary if Justin really is like that for real... although Ste posted something that I found rather amusing...


h2g2 is becoming more and more like a microcosm, we even have a Loony Preacher standing on a virtual street corner bellowing at everyone that they will burn for their sins. It's great really.


...and, as far as I know, Justin hasn't actually attacted/flamed anyone by bursting into a conversation uninvited, so to speak - the ones I've seen have all been taking place on his user page

If Justin keeps to himself then fine, I won't go near the page anyway.

I got as far as the paragraph about most British people don't believe in God and nearly choked. If you total up all the Muslim, Hindu, Seikh and Jewish congregations with the Christian as well as the many Asian religions, I think it would prove otherwise. But I won't go down that road as my own ideas are distinctly fuzzy and it was bad manners to discuss religion in polite society.

Frosty conditions with easterly winds are predicted for here over the weekend and I'm rather looking forward to the change from damp greyness.

mulfy - having the quality of mulf, but not as much as mulfolocious. Or in other words, I think Sporky made it up.

Just read up on Justin and his puppet master. That is just too . How did a program teach itself how to set up its Space and write new guide entries? Does anyone else think that's suspicious? I demand to know if Justin read the T&Cs.

Sporky.net answers the mulfy query. I thought the word was 'mufty' when I first read it, mufty days for charity are quite popular at scholls round here, where they all were uniforms.

Talking of which, H said to No2 son that walking around at working with his hands in his pockets makes No2 look like he is back in year 8. He soon stopped.

I've just been browsing it too. I don't believe Justin is a computer program, based on this thread F92252?thread=226860 especially starting with post #5 where he starts asking about how this place works. I don't know a thing about AI, but I would guess a computer program would have a difficult time asking targeted questions about it's surroundings unless it was specifically written to work on h2g2.

But that's not what "Steve" says - he says Justin is programmed to work in general on discussion sites, and just happened to create an account on h2g2. So I did a google and altavista search on "Justin the Preacher" and "Justin Hughes", and guess what? The only appropriate links I found point right back here to h2g2. I think Steve may be lying.

Well, I've my doubts about Steve - but it seemed easier - or rather, more comfortable - to believe in him that believing that Justin is for real!

For a moment there, Caer, I thought you wrote "mufti". I think mufti is some sort of fabric. Sporky's mulfy might be close to my snarky.

Lil, a little birdie told me that you have or had one of those combination DVD/VHS players. Is this true and how do you like it? Any performance problems? I would like to get one--I don't want the clutter of two machines--but from reading the reviews on amazon.com of the different brands everyone has mentioned that if one feature works well (say the picture of the DVD) then the other won't (wavy lines on the VHS picture).

*off to snoop about on the Justin matter*

Okay. If any of the editors are lurking here, is what Steve, Justin the Preacher's programmer, doing allowable under the h2g2 T & C? Is a website community really a community when a computer program and not a person "engaging" in debate and discussion. I found this excerpt on Steve's page somewhat disturbing:



Conducting a study of human behavior is always an interesting thing, but should it be done in a volunteer community? I'd be interested to hear what other researchers think.

My Masters degree course in Learning System Design had a big AI component and I can reassure you that Justin is not a computer program. He really isn't.

Amy