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

I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled...

Yeah, if I had all my IQ points today I would have remembered to move on to 6A instead of jumping to 70. But I am still partly poorly, and I wanted to get the change accomplished before you all became too impatient.

Last time we skipped the ones I missed. How about if we mess about a little bit with time and go back to 6A after this one, continue on with the hex, and then skip 70X?

"What's the use of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?"
So the captain would cry, and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!"

A virtual prize to the person who can tell us what poem that comes from.

I know where it's from, but I had to google for it, so it doesn't really count... especially since I've never read anything in English by that author... only snippets

I don't recognise the poem.

We could start a tech museum here too, H has the orginal Sony Walkman, the orginal Sinclair pocket calculator, in the attic is Dad's ZX Spectrum along with his portable PC, (about the size of mini PC tower but four times the weight) and several generations of mobile phones.

That poem, Lil, is Lewis Carrol's "The Hunting Of The Snark", a poem written in eight fits.

And with that, I'm off to Jazz Band practice. Lata.

Oh, and as for a virtual museum, I own an Odyssey game system. Can anyone say "Pong"?

*Chloe brings Affi a blank map*

http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=CarSnar.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

That may widen the salon a bit, I fear, but it's the best link I can find, since it includes the original illustrations.

Titania, you've never read anything by Carroll all the way through?? If you do, can I recommend the Annotated Alice by Marvin Gardner? He also did an Annotated Snark.

*hears a small bell ringing somewhere very far back in her mind*

*checks her Palm*

Sorry, that was Jerome K Jerome... *adds yet some more items on her to-read-in-the-distant-future-when-I've-got-the-time list*

i have a book that someone gave me as a gift that is a hardbound version of the original lithographs. i cherish it.

[fg]

You really need the annotations to appreciate what's going on in those books, all the social, political, philosophical and mathematical in-jokes of the time...

On a more somber note, back to the automobile. There was a news item in today's online NYT about a multiple hit-and-run that occurred in central Florida. Four children (all siblings), several cars, and all the cars kept on going -- one even turned off its lights so that no-one would make its registration. Two of the children were killed, and just one of the drivers has turned herself in.

The article mentioned that Florida is the second most dangerous state in which to be a pedestrian; the first is New Mexico.

This only makes me more ardent about transponders in cars.

Every little liberty we've given up (let's not talk about Patriot Act-sized liberties) has been do to the malfeasance of a small minority who require ever tighter monitoring. There's a point where the conflict of interest is going to be too great, between those who just like the transponderless sense of being free, and the lives of children. Not a personal dig at you Marv, although you represent the opposition in this debate.

When did it become acceptable that you can do anything you want as long as you don't get caught? It's everywhere, from accidents like this one to violent crime and corporate greed. It disgusts me.

my first ever

[dave]

[Teuchter]

I'm full of Balti, therefore not really up to making a decent contribution to the conversation.

Is Balti a person, place or thing? Animal, vegetable or mineral?

Oooh your poor deprived person who's never had a Balti.

Balti - it's a type of curry, invented in Birmingham, that's served in the dish its cooked in. It's usually quite hot but people make Kormas (mild coconut flavoured curries) in the Balti style. The restruants are usually owned by Asians so they'll make a vegatrian version of evrey dish.

In this case we had it was an industrial amount of popadoms (3 each) with mint sauce.

Ooh and our project, wasn't as complicated as it sounds it was acutally really dull... Still it's being published so it can't be that bad.

On the old kit front

I'm in possession of a Casio FX-1 calculator (rescued it from ending up in the skip at work)
It's mains powered with the vacuum tube displays where each number is a piece of wire so 1 is at the front and 0 is way back in the distance.
hitting the log key results in about 10 seconds of flashing display before it comes up weith the answer.

I've got an adding machine made by Olivetti with a cloth cord!

*head appears around doorframe; portions of shoulder and torso follow*

Hello everyone.

I've just dropped in to let you know that I'm not here. In fact, I'll continue to be absent from the Atelier as a regular contributor, but I might just drop in from time to time.

Basically, the problem is one of limited time and vast backlogs. Having a timezone that is GMT+10 doesn't help; you're all in here while I'm asleep, and then there's over a hundred posts to read before I can say anything - and by the time I've read the backlog I've forgotten what I ws going to say anyway...

(I might also add that the 950-post backlog on the last thread really did my head in. I waded through it, struggled to the top of the heap, and was then too strung out to find anything worth saying.)

Anyway. I'm going back to lurking. I'll leave a calling card from time to time, and I'll make the odd comment here and there, but I'll be abandoning any attempt to keep up with the backlog...

By way of appreciation... Happy chocolate-egg-related festival to you all.

Ivan.

*torso and shoulders retreat behind doorframe, followed by head*

I can't honestly blame my kids for my coming in at the end of the 3rd, possibly the beginning of the 4th LED so, I will have to blame myself for having said kids.

Had parents day at their school basically, I got to go sit in their class and see them in the classroom environment, it was a good experience.

Two days until the kids move in with me!