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

The anniversary of DNA's death back in 2002 and a link on another site for me. What about you?

A link from the BBC homepage and the Improbability Drive

I was bored during uni during computer science tutorial one day back then in 2002. As I had fairly recently discovered THHGTTG and nothing better to do I browsed the web to find out about DNA, so I inevitably stumbled upon h2g2, which seemed a Very Special Place.

A few days later (another CS tutorial... Basics of word processors, the slowest students were finishing the assignments an hour before the official end!) and hop! Toy Box was born

In February 2003 I was in a bookshop and picked up a copy of The Salmon of Doubt thinking "oooh, a new Douglas Adams book!" and was shocked and saddened to read that he had died (living in Spain I was, and still am, out of touch a lot of the time). So I bought the book and was intrigued by the many mentions of this h2g2 thing...

Changed my life.

az

I'd say it changed mine as well. I learn things, meet people and get to let off steam (not to mention getting to inflict my humour on others).
Not bad for a site thousands of miles away full of once-strangers.

My brother found the site somewhere, and spent months persuading me to join.

He's been here in various guises since but he's never stuck around!

Salmon of Doubt for me, too.I'd be interested to know where people joinging post-2005 or so came from.

I did a couple of the old BBC Cult Hitchhiker's quizzes that used to be up there, and then clicked the link to h2g2. Been here ever since.

I became from aware of the site from reading the Salmon of Doubt, which I am surprised to discover was 2002. However, I didn't have a computer till the end of 2007. (I'm considering getting a mobile phone sometime in the next fifteen years or so). I joined h2g2 middle of 2008 and spent a few weeks looking at people (a) arguing in circles and (b) chucking things at 2legs. So I jumped ship. For some reason, I was tempted to rejoin just under a year ago, and even though I very much float around the peripheries, and people are still arguing in circles and stealing 2legs bacon, I find something oddly comforting about the place, like a pair of slippers that have been warmed under the backside of an ageing and slightly confused family dog.

"I became from aware of the site..."?? What the hell kind of typo is that? And 'a pair of slippers' is singular, not plural. That's it. I'm never coming back, ever.

just go ahead and blame 2legs, it's part of the contractual arrangements. But do stay. . .

Also The Salmon of Doubt. By the looks of it, there's a distinct generation dating from then - though I'm afraid I waited for the cheapo mass-market paberback and didn't sign up until 2003.

I can remember hootoo-wide anxiety about what would happen when the film came out, when we'd all be swamped by gum-chewin' newbies who wouldn't respect the ways of the elders. Didn't happen. Or at least I don't think it did.

Yeah, nothing happened off the back of the film. I was looking forward to a new generation, but it never seemed to happen. I'm sure a few floated in, but not many more than usual.