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

Sorry upon rereading that I wish to stress that a lot of the 'you's there were not directed at agcB personally just to anyone who happens to be reading the post

Oh, and I was just about to get so offended and all.

Damn!

(We simulposted by the way, and I'd hate for you to miss some of my pearls of wisdom).

***B

Yeah I read your homepage when you returned. A very interesting read and admirably put I must say

h2g2 would be poorer without you



Euuuurghhh, was that too sycophanic?

Not really. Not quite sycophantic enough? Oh you were taking the piss?

And I fell for it! D'oh!

(I'm getting bored of my home page too).

MUST GO.

stuff like that

B

Not sycophantic enough

OK.



Actually I was taking the piss out of myself. A good thing I find in life, if you can't laugh at yourself then you're probably taking life too seriously.

I think it's understood Orcus. agcBen has been one of the most reasoned and measured people in this whole brouhaha lately.

Wow, that post took a while to go through. I'm going to go off before I embarrass myself any further.

I was an Ace, once. I handed in my banner for a Scout's badge, not solely but largely due to my discomfort with the behavior of certain of my Ace peers. Long before I knew the origin, I understood the the meaning of LeKZ's "ace****s" term.

It happened time and time again. Some little bit of unhappiness showed up in the community. Peta or another Ace would point it out in the egroup, saying "check this out", or something along those lines. Then an ace**** or ten would pop into the conversation and start shouting all this garbage about "the community is this" and "the community is that" and "the entire community is quite disgusted with the behavior of Researcher X." The only thing I could get disgusted by was the behavior of the ace****. I'm not saying they all did it, but there was a very vocal minority who made me ashamed to bear the badge.

LeKZ received the attention of some ace****s. You can see the evidence on her home space. And when volunteers are shouting and waving their little banners, a new researcher has no way to know that they're not *really* speaking for the Guide, but just making jerks of themselves. How could we expect a researcher who had been here for only a few weeks to see anything *but* an official campaign, sanctioned by the Towers, to drive her out?

I have two small comments to make:
To the person who called me a gent and genius: thank you. I'll stand up to the former, but the latter? Mensa let me in, but what do they know? If they're so smart, how come they ain't rich? etc.

On the subject of the word "ace****" - this looks like it could be a reasonable translation of a word printed as aXXhole or whatever. I won't be mentioning that to my independent interpreter, on the grounds that if he either (a) fails to translate the word or (b) translates it as beginning with "ass" then everyone can draw their own conclusions. From my own point of view, I find the argument for "ace****" compelling, but I'm sure everyone interested will have their own opinion. No results yet btw. Will keep you posted.

'ACE****' fills the gap {'XXXXole'} - but then the 'translation' is to the effect that LeKZ is accusing Mark and Peta of being ACE****s, and since they aren't ACEs that would seem odd, no? Unless she's referring to a couple of ACEs that fill the "XXXk and XXXa" pattern...

And from the 'me too' dept, I'll agree with the Colonel - I'm not entirely convinced of the therapeutic value of such behaviour. Can't blame people for being over-keen I guess. Much.

There is a link to the 'FoLKZ' mailing list on my space, which may be of interest to those here.
-myre

soXe XeoXXe aXe saXiXX XeXe XXaX iX's XiXXiXuXX Xo XXeaXe a XosX XXiXX is aXXiXuos eXouXX XXaX iX is XaXX Xo 'XXaXsXaXe', XuX sXiXX XaX, XusX, Xe 'XXaXsXaXeX'. I XeeX XXaX iX is XXeXXX easX, XoX eXaXXXe XX XXossiXX ouX aXX oX XXe XoXsoXaXXs eXXeXX XoX 's'. XXaX Xo Xou aXX XXiXX?

just curious,
MyRedDice

I think you're probably right and that it's exceptionally hard to come up with something that can have two entirely fluent but utterly different 'translations'.

I came up with this (in a less than rigorous fashion):

Some people are saying here that it's difficult to create a post which is ambiguo(u)s enough that it is hard to 'translate', but still can, just, be 'translated'. I feel that it is pretty easy, for example by crossing out all of the consonants except for 's'. What do you all think?

More tinkering...

regarding HVL's comment about the ethnicity of Kurtis - a couple things. They've mentioned on h2g2 {veggie soc} that they keep to jewish rules on eating, for example, and I believe that by birth they are half-jewish {memory dodgy}.

They've spoken out on a few occasions on h2g2 against bigotry and perceived bigotry publically on h2g2, so an ethnic slur would be unusual. Basic feelings on important issues are seemingly fairly consistent across all of LeKZ - which is perhaps how they get along without having raging arguments amongst themselves every ten seconds.

The other problem with both 'JAP' and 'WtS' is that they appear to be shorthand names for researchers - yet I have never heard LeKZ refer to Wonko as WtS, and never heard here refer to anyone as 'JAP'. Could be that they were both created for this one post, and never mentioned again. That contrasts fairly sharply with the typical usage of such renamings - 'Mark Moron' springs to mind.

Just minor discrepancies, of course. But worth highlighting, I feel.

> "it's exceptionally hard to come up with something that can have two entirely fluent but utterly different 'translations'"

Oh, I agree entirely - but I don't think that anyone here is suggesting that the X-post was deliberately designed to have two such 'translations'. Those who feel that the banning was justified appear to think that it was designed to have one, and those who do not appear to think that it was designed to have none. So that's not entirely relevant, perhaps?

ambiguous has two 'u's?

I'm not suggesting that the text was designed to have two possible meanings, or even that two or more meanings are possible, but there were plenty of posts implying that any number of coherent meanings could be made to fit the original text. If that's not true, then as you (and I) say, the only remaining considerations are whether it was consciously or subconsciously intentional or whether it was chance.

There's a parallel with some of DNA's work here: Dirk Gently managed to come up with an exact copy of Cambridge exam questions by chance and got jailed because it was the outcome that mattered, not the sequence of events that led to it.

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This post has been removed.

Wow! Yay Mycroft! I was wondering when somebody would notice and mention that! The fact that you did corroborates my own impression that it was relevant here! Ha ha!

Wow! Yay Mycroft! I was wondering when somebody would notice and mention that! The fact that you did corroborates my own impression that it was relevant here! Ha ha!