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

*pokes screen*

Yep, though I should've been in bed a couple hours ago...

*pops to PS*

Heya Kam!

Whoop! Welcome home!

Hey!

Hope y'all are in fine fettle.

Muchly so.

Now, what have you been up to, in secrecy, these last months?

I did do a couple positive things. One of which was to go Brentford for a pirate themed boat trip and talking toot in a pub session.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99296&id=672353393&l=df36c2a871

I also saw Blue October live, which I don't have good pictures of.


Anything else must have been so secret I didn't even tell myself about it, to paraphrase Zaphod.

Wow! Some of those photos are real art! And lots of people, I'm glad! Was it the great Robert Rankin as Captain of the ship?

Have to admit I'm clueless about Blue October...

Ouch!

How are you m'dear?

I think Robert was Admiral of the Fleet.
I'm glad you liked some of the photos. I was pleased to a get a couple of Battersea Power Station from the river. It's a beautiful derelict. That sadly may never see justice done to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/28/battersea-power-station-real-estate-debt



Oops.

I don't rightly know how I am. I feel different than did some months ago. By some measures I guess you might think I was worse than I was. The way I put it the other day was that I'm in transition from melancholia to anhedonia. The positive here is that I have a bit more momentum relative to whatever the inertia is... or I've suddenly recalled how to doggy-paddle against the swirl of water carrying me down the plughole.

Ah, it was the Battersea station I was admiring, then! It is really beautiful, and your photos really look good.

Going from melancholia to anhedonia... (had to look anhedonia up) Sounds like a strange place to be. I wish you can find a way to enjoy things again.

I can recognise the feeling of not enjoying things. For me it was a sign of what I think were depressions. Empty like. *looks at wiki entry* Sexual anhedonia may be caused by use (or previous use) of SSRI medication. Now that's interesting...

But I'm glad you seem to be working with it, not giving up. That's really good, I think! Keep talking to us, just in case it helps...

If I were rich man, I have Battersea restored into my own Art Deco palace on the Thames.


Tis a strange place to be, it's more emotionally difficult, but still better than where I was.


I am going to http://tamlondon.org/itinerary/
I hope to enjoy it. But I am no more sure that I will than I was when it was announced at the beginning of the year or when I booked in May.

I need to make decision very soon about where I plan to stay for it.

I am thinking of here: http://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/madhatterhotel.html
It's smaller than most of the alternatives, it has comfy looking rooms and good looking pub with real ale and pub grub. But it's not inexpensive.

There's a hostel I've stayed at before: http://www.dovercastlehostel.com/index.asp
Last time stayed there it wasn't too bad, certainly not for the price, a tenner, at the time.
I'm not quite the same lad I was then, so I don't expect it to be quite as friendly as before. Though if I'm lucky there might be still be some migrants sharing herbage.


To be honest I'm leaning toward the first, it has comfort, privacy and greater proximity to the venue - but I'll hate myself for spending so much when the Dover is there and I know it's not a bad place.

Any thoughts, gratefully received.

A pub crawl? IN London? in September? where's my invitation places to stay.... I know one very cheap place... where is Roymondo anyhow?

That mad hatter place sounds very nice. Do you know people in that TAM society? I would be too shy to join... Are they a charity or what? Sounds like an amazing bunch of speakers at least!
Have fun, and don't let 2legs bite the friendly people.

Aye, The Mad Hatter does sound nice. I should quit worrying and get on with sorting out a booking and better enjoy TAM for the comfort of a good hotel that serves good beer!

I think I mentioned TAM London here, on sproutlore and facebook, but only Tim and Loz booked to go. So, I will know at least two fellow delegates. I have met some of the speakers before: Tim Minchin, Prof. Richard Wiseman, Jon Ronson and Ben Goldacre. But I wouldn't expect them to remember me.
The Amaz!ng Meeting is a "celebration of critical thinking and skepticism". This will be the first one outside the USA. It's sponsored by and proceeds will go to the JREF - there's lots of info here: http://www.randi.org/site/
on who they are and what they're about.
I'm not a JREF member, but you don't need to be to support TAM or attend. Even though Dawkins pulled out because he was double-booked and Randi is too ill to be there in person it is still a great line-up and should be AMAZ!NG.

I hope not to be too shy, anxious or anhedonic to get to something out the event, it may be a challenge given how I have been so far this year, but I will and try anyway.

Apparently A55409088 is "meant to be a Guide Entry, not an encyclopedia on everything Bird-of-Prey."

This is good, because Klingons don't use phasers they use disruptors. The films, TNG and DS9 featured 3 different classes of Bird of Prey. The D12 which was in the films had a maximum speed of warp 7, but Scotty managed to pull off a miracle to get 9.8 for the sling shot effect.
The B'rel was based on the K'vort model, but scaled down. The B'rel was 158 meter long, not the 50 meter in the entry. The D12 was retired because it had a recurring fault in the "plasma coils" that effecting the reliability of it's cloak. As revealed an episode of TNG where a Ferengi used salvaged D12s to take over the Enterprise D.

Yadda-yadda... I could go on.

I resisted the urge to point out all the flaws in this entry so as not to seem rude to the author and restricted my suggestion to just correcting the phasers thing and trying hint that making the distinction between D12 and B'rel clear, as it stands a reader might think that Birds of Prey and the D12 are the same thing and that D12s rather than B'rel featured in the Dominion Wars...

*IIRC* I was lead to believe when I was considering entries on the Star Trek universe that such things wouldn't fit with the style/point of the guide and that there were legal issues. I had no idea that if intended to write badly, something boring and inaccurate I could have got a 200 entries badge!

hum.

Do write on something start trek related. It seems you have the knowledge, and there are other people interested, so you should get an interesting PR thread.

I don't know how to handle the mischmasch of facts that you talk about, but, if the pr is meant to help find faults, perhaps you could mention it all. And/or post links to where the data is presented...

Perhaps time I took that advice.

Yeah, why not?