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

I've been here nearly 5 years and I'm buggered if I know what that means.

<whoopee know what this means hallo sef

It is something which quite a lot of people but (obviously) not everyone knows about. The servers for the dna sites are called NARTHUR (Arthur Dent from hitch-hikers). There used to be 4 of them. Now there are 7. Software people like numbering things from 0. Hence NARTHUR0 to NARTHUR7. It is possible to ask the servers how they are. It used to be possible to pick which one to ask because they were linked to fixed external routes. Now they are set to reply randomly, that particular question has to be asked in more of a Monte Carlo sort of way - ie ask a few times and spot which ones don't reply at all.

"Now there are 7. Software people like numbering things from 0. Hence NARTHUR0 to NARTHUR7."

Doesn't that make 8?

Thanks, SEF. But I agree that 0-7 should be 8. I've noticed that some threads (like this one) give more errors than others. I don't know what that means.

e^(¶i) = -1

I was about to point out that exact point, but I got distracted into reading the backlog...

Out of interest, any idea why NARTHUR and not just ARTHUR?

"Now there are 7."

Oops - that was a typo. I was trying to type "Now there are 8". Though of course it is also a pertinent slip because it was looking as though there were only 7 of them working.

"Out of interest, any idea why NARTHUR and not just ARTHUR?"

Because the NARTHUR machines replaced older machines, which were called ARTHUR. Hence, New Arthur.

For similar reasons, the current database server is called GUIDE3.

They've had their brains sliced and diced but they've been programmed not to notice. With all these clones, there ought to be a set of RUHTRANs out there somewhere... Is that what got number 6.

...not to mention all the extra trouble for reincarnated petunias - oh no, not another narthur...

Meanwhile, I've stopped getting BBCi errors and can see NARTHUR6 again.

The problems seem to be gone for me, too.

SEF--How can you see the servers or which one you're one? Are you a closet Italic?

Jim Lynn--What do you mean by clones?

The second one should have been to SEF, too. And what's a RHUTAN?

My suggestion also includes a mechanism to prevent the vital message dropping off the screen before it is read. That can easily happen if one is subscribed to several busy conversations. When one of those happens to be an old downtime warning, it is very easy indeed to overlook the new downtime warning when trying to cope with a backlog. This nearly happened to me, and I only spotted the problem when the two similar messages appeared together.

Let me make an observation about the various inexplicable errors which are the bane of the h2g2 site. There appear to be various system times. If the servers whose clocks are slow cannot adequately deal with future times, they are a prime suspect for the large number of errors.

On the other hand, if servers can cope adequately with future time, then post-dating downtime time warnings would be a very easy way to keep them at the top of conversation lists for the relevant period of time. This would suit the many users who, like me, tend to remain subscribed to conversations which they have found relevant. Note that the old downtime message that I referred to suddenly came back to life recently, after having been quiet for a while. It too refers to the synchronisation of various clocks in the h2g2 system, and remains of interest to me.

It may very well be the case that some, or even the majority, of users adopt the read then unsubscribe policy in respect of messages. There are still some users who do not operate such a policy, and I am sure I could find threads referring to users being subscribed to several thousand conversations. In time, I could become one of them, even though I am quick to unsubscribe from most threads which appear in my PS, due to the number of forums in which I participate. I remain subscribed to threads I have posted to, except in unusual cases. Thus, your 'accepted order of things' does not apply to everyone, and certainly not to me. If your view prevailed, conversations would not grow from these messages, would they?

There are several ways of seeing the servers. I don't see which all the time. One of the funniest ways is when the site is crashing and the pages don't get sent out properly, so I receive partially translated commands or pages in their underwear.

I'm not an italic whether in or out of a closet.

It was me with the clones, ie lots of NARTHURs allegedly all running the same code although sometimes it doesn't seem like it. The rest of the reference was to the hitch-hikers series again.

What are the other ways of seeing the servers?
Just curious

Dark Master

*has to assume that the person that asked if SEF is an Italic has *not* run across him much if at all*

I think the only time I've ever unsubscribed from a thread was if it was getting to be a very big cuddle fest...

Old Hairy, re: "If your view prevailed, conversations would not grow from these messages, would they?"

I said that people who require no further information from that thread unsubscribe. Sometimes questions get asked which are at a tangent to the original thread title, and people remain subscribed to see what the answer is, like the NARTHUR debate above. That's how conversations grow.

I too am interested in how one can see the servers intentionally (as opposed to getting a page you weren't looking for).

"*has to assume that the person that asked if SEF is an Italic has *not* run across him much if at all *"

No, actually I was joking. I guess noone realized it.


"I think the only time I've ever unsubscribed from a thread was if it was getting to be a very big cuddle fest..."

I and my alter ego R. Daneel Olivaw also virtually never unsubscribe.

Fair enough--I can be quite dense