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

I hate this computer more and more with each passing moment

Oh poor you, Sporky

[Amy]

*playing with new A4 graphics pad (a Christmas pressie to myself - sad, eh?)*

What's a graphics pad? A tablet?

Don't feel bad about presents to yourself; take it from one who has done a lot of solo Christmases, they may lack sentimental value, but they are exactly what you wanted!

I got myself a digital camera.

I spent a while surfing for percherons this morning. Is it just me or is there a new fad on for ad windows that need to be killed off separately from the page that sprouted them? Even as I was posting this message I noticed two other windows open and thought maybe I had failed to retrace my steps to the search page. Both turned out to be independent banners.

*floating in*

Hi all

Babel-17, dont' worry, most newcomers I've been 'unofficially' welcoming as a guardian angel haven't responded...

Lil, I don't know how they do it, but every time I see a window pop up, smaller in size than usual, I immediately close it, because it's usually an ad banner... the trouble is that is usually pops up again when you follow one of the links on the original page...

*gets bottle from fridge*

Springie dear, are you awake?

Matina, a Y please...

[WM]

Morning all (Sunday the 31st 8.20am). In shocking news broadcast on the radio at 8am this morning, a Shell oil compamy spokeswomen said that despite the rising NZ dollar they can't reduce fuel prices because of the pressure being put on crude oil prices by the poor weather in Europe and America. Sob.

*The Professor walks in...ah, such perfect timing! Just as someone appeared after an hour...*

Heya Loony! Hi all!

Matina, a of Canfrieda Wine please...

Oh, Loony, I hope you aren't going to blame us Brits for this weather... Believe me, we're not too fond of it...

If all the Poms and Yanks turned their heaters down us Kiwis fuel bil would also go down. C'mon team, world cooperation on the eve of this brand new millennium.

Uh-oh! Don't get me started on which year the new millenium starts/started...
I've got a very good, and perfectly valid, argument for it having started on Jan the 1st 2000...

Chris an easy way to work it out is by counting your fingers. Start with the thumb on your left hand. One, Two, Three all the way up to your thumb on your right hand, Number Ten.

Calendars work the same way

Ah, no no no you see...the first year was in fact '0'. It was counting from 0 to 1. It was year '1' after 1 year had passed. Hence, the beginning of year 2000 means 2000 years have already passed. See, I'm working on official years, not anything religious like Chrimbo...

3BC 2BC, 1BC, 1AD, 2AD, 3AD. There was no 0BC or 0AD

Ah yes, but look:
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 ...eh?
1BC means one year before Christ's supposed birth. 1AD means one year after his birth. So then, where is the year he was born? Which date eh?
It must be 0...

Sorry, Professor, but that's not what AD means. 'BC' means 'Before Christ', as most people know, but 'AD' stands for 'Anno Domini', or something, and that translates to 'In The Year Of Our Lord'. There was no year 0, unfortunately.

But look at it this way: if it doesn't start till 2001, you get the New Millenium Party all over again! So what if only pedantics like myself show up!

Affy, right on. That is the reason the Napier City Council (my home town) is funding an extravaganza for its citizens tonight - just like they did last year - beacuse the councillors couldn't agree which was the correct year they resolved to celebrate twice.

Suits me fine

What!? That's what Anno Domini means??!! Oh hell....
OK, damn, first time I got something like that wrong...

Oh well...

Yeah, I mean, I don't really care, you know, I just liked the parties...

Although, this 'no year 0' business still proves my theory right about the people of the past getting the timing system all skrewed up. You know, it's not very regular, as there should be a year 0. It's like how they got 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute, and so on...
I wish we could have some form of metric time system. We do, lower than seconds that is (i.e. nanoseconds, milliseconds and such), but we should have centiseconds, deciseconds and kiloseconds...it would make it so much easier...

Anyway, must dash - off to watch Taggart, another of my favourite dramas...

Toodlepip!

*teleports out, admitting defeat at last......*

I disagree with you to a certain extent on that one, Professor Tonks. The *first* year should be one. The very word 'first' means one.

Although a metric time system wouldn't be so bad. But no matter what we do, the number system is still messed up. We made a mistake when we invented it, I'm sure of it.

All human inventions are inherently faulty - as are some non-human inventions - look at humans