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

Just popped in to introduce myself, seeing as we seem to share a few habits

I can't tell you how many bruises I get from walking into things while reading. Specially those sodding windows that flip inwards. What kind of things do you read? I like mainly weird things, like science fantasy, or comics, or really depressing social commentary, or...ah, who am I kidding, I'm omnivourous.


what sort of thing will you be writing here?

Hullo.
Sorry it took me ages to reply, I've had many things going on, and I completely neglected this little site.

I also read a lot of Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff, and a friend has been recently getting me more into comics. What I'm reading right now is anything and everything that Isaac Asimov has ever written.. as well as a lot of classics that I've yet to read for various reasons. However, if you give me a book I will probably read it.. I like a huge variety of different types of books.. and music as well come to think of it.
can't say that I've had too much trouble with those windows.. my special trick is falling up stairs.. it's a skill that can't be taught.

Really depressing social commentary, eh? Can you give me an example?

I'm not really sure what I'll be writing here yet.. I suppose whatever tickles my fancy.

Sorry right back, been out of it for a week.

Wish I could fall up stairs. I just fall down *whatever*. Recently finished "I, Robot" so I'm with you there. Wonderfully subtle, puzzling stuff, kinda like old murder mysteries.

If I have to recomend just one book, it would be "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Heinlein. As for the deppressing stuff *shuffles downstairs to look at bookshelf*

I never found anything that made me want to kick the bucket, more along the lines of "what the..."

Chuck Palahniuk is a favourite here, although his books are hardly what you'd call relistic. Its more about what happens if some ekstreme is manisfested in the real world, or about seing what happens if you tear the world apart. My favorite is "Lullaby", where the question is "what happens if killing where easy?"
The plot senters around a man who finds a so-called 'culling song', a rhyme that kills whoever hears it. He then has to try to destroy every copy of the book the poem came from, without killing every insensitive jerk who jostles him in a crowd. Very...you never know what goes on with these. They made me think, relly. And turn the car radio off. Each of his books is more about the world around the characters then the story itself.

The thing about me is, I get my philosophy through SF. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick is about humans, what makes a human being.

"Girl, interuped" by Susanna Kaysen is about mental institutions in the sixties.

"Hey, Nostradamus" by Dougas Coupland is the only realistic one I can think of, although it's strangely life-affirming, despite the bleakness.

And If you want comics, I wrote an article about comics on the web. *smirk*

I try keeping up with classics, but they're so damded hard to find. (odd country). Which ones do you have in mind?

Your nick, BTW...is that a respelling of Lizzard, or is there more to it? I love seeing why people choose their net-names.

Ah.. just got back from a research cruise.. so many things to catch up on..
ok. first things.. my name is, well the story is very complicated, and actually doesn't make any sense.. i suppose it was just that i liked it, and has some relation to my middle name (elizabeth). my name's Katrina, and i usually go by the nickname kat.. but that's usually taken when i sign up for things, as it's kind of common.
anywho.. Chuck Palahniuk is great.. i have a friend who has all his books and i'm getting loaned them one at a time.. i like them a lot. I haven't read "Lullaby" yet, but i like the sound of it.

Douglas Coupland! fabulous.. is that the only book of his you've read? i really like "Hey Nostradamus", but i think i preferred "All Families are Psychotic" (how can you not read it with a name like that?), and i also just finished reading "Generation X" by him. I believe he's from Vancouver, so a bunch of his books are set around here, which is cool to read about.

I have to say "I, Robot" is an Asimov book that i have yet to read, i haven't found it in any of the used bookstores i've been in.
The only Heinlein book that i've read is "Stranger in a Strange Land" and that was many years ago, so i should re-read it.. but i shall definatley read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" *writes a note to remember*.

In terms of classics, I just finished "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte, and I'm currently reading "Emma" by Jane Austen, and really enjoying it, it's quite a frivolous book. The others that i have sitting here to read are "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, and "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. I also have a couple of Tolstoy books in the pile. heh, like i said, anything and everything.

I love meeting other people who have similar reading tastes and can recommend books.. thanks for the recommendations.. :D, my list just keeps growing!

I *did* read "All families are psychotic", and it is lovely. I love stories that sorta just spin out into whatever tangent comes their way, if you follow me.

My own nick is borrowed from a book. How mundane can you get? It's sorta obscure, really. The main character of "The book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe is called Severian, and someone comments that if he had a twin sister, her name would be Severa. So, thats me

I cannot believe you've read Palahniuk. I fell totally in love with his books and read all of them exept the last one. But whenever I mention him I get this blank look. *sigh*

I still haven't found any Jane Austen, but I have read some of Tolstoy's short stories, in Russian class. Right now, I'm reading Decameron, which is as old as you get, really, barring religious texts and Eddas and so forth. People tend to view the past as prudish, but some of these tall-tales are harldy fit for children. Bit odd, reading a description of the Plague by someone who was there.*shudder*

Whats a research cruise, BTW?

Nah, I've borrowed nicknames from a book before.. the password that i use for everything is from a book.. that's what happens when you read so much, i guess.
I didn't know that Palahniuk was so obscure.. those books are so great!
As to the research cruise, I'm working for the Canadian Government, (eep!).. at a place called the Institue of Ocean Sciences, I got hired as an oceanography student here, and thus some time must be spent on a ship gathering data and all that fun stuff, and they call them research cruises. They're so much fun.
Hmm.. I should find some of Tolstoy's short stories, that would be odd reading about the plague.. gory i'm sure.

Wups! That's what I get for skipping around topics. "Decameron" is not by Tolstoy, It's by a guy named Boccacio (sp?) and the plague reffered to is the one way back in the 13-somethings. Reading over what I wrote again, I realise my meaning got a bit muddled. Sorry!

The Tolstoy short stories I've read are partly little moralistic fables that he wrote in order to teach his farmers to read, (and which, incidentally, are also great for learning russian ) and also a longer story called "the prisoner of Kaukasus", I'm planning to pick up a translation of one of his books, since my russion really wouldn't be up to that kind of standard.

You know, I just realised that I'm not quite sure what Oceanography is. My first thought was that it was something like Marine-biology, but then it occured to me that it sounded more like "geography" 'cept at sea? I'm sure you get questions like this a lot...do you map fault lines and the ocean floor and that sort of thing? Would love to know.

Myself, I'll be starting on History studies in a few weeks. No Idea why.

History is something that I've never taken the time to learn, and something that I constantly feel bad about not learning.. I've always been too focused on this whole science thing, and thinking about my ignorance when it comes to history makes me feel guilty and kind of embarrassed. :D i suppose this is why i'm taking a history course in the fall!

So, Oceanography is the study of the ocean... as completely unhelpful as that is. Oceanography can be any discipling you'd like it to be, there is Biological Oceanography, Geological Oceanography, Physical Oceanography and Chemical Oceanography.
So, let's start with Biological Oceanography. It's very similar to marine biology, except biological oceanography is generally more focused on the overall food chain of the ocean and the interactions between all the organisms that live there, whereas marine biology is often more focused on the organisms individually.
Now, Geological Oceanography (which, incidentally is what i am majoring in) looks at the sediments on the ocean floor, which tells us about the climate of past years and fun things like that. The other thing that geological oceanography looks at is indeed the fault lines in the ocean floor, spreading centres, hot vents all that fun stuff.
Physical Oceanography looks at the currents and the tides and the waves and how they are all related and what causes them.
Chemical Oceanography looks at well, the different chemicals in the ocean.
As you may be able to imagine, most of these disciplines are relatively useless without the others, so Oceanography tends to be a fairly interdisciplinary subject, which is one of the reasons i like it.

I hope that explanation was relatively coherent.. please let me know if i made absolutely no sense and i'll try and explain it better.

Are you just going to study general history? or do you have a specific period or place that you're especially interested? What do you want to do afterwards? Archeaology? Teaching? something completely different?

"Those who forget history...are perfectly welcome, unless they become dictators. In which case, of course, they can bloody well do as they please."

At first, It'll probably be general stuff, like source critique and such things. You know, judging between first hand and second hand information, deciding if the view of the source may be coloured in some way..."technical" stuff.

Later, I'll probably have to specialise. Although I don't have a specific period in mind as yet, I never really could focus on recent history. I can describe in detail the state of the egyptian empire at the time of Akhnaton, but the details as to who attacked whom in WWI never seem to stay in my head for long. For some reason, It seems less relevant, although even I can see that this is ridiculous.
The only explenation I can think of is that something that happened within the lifetime of people alive today seems more like a police investigation than science. I'm a romantic (as much as I try to hide it), and what attracts me to history is that while it is indeed based on fact, so much of it depends on your own POW. "History is written by the winners", but also by everybody else, apparantly. Truth is relative, and the idea of trying to make sense of all that is...rerribly atractive to me, really. In many languages, the word for "history" and "story" is the same. Guess that sums it up, really.

Gee, now I have to appologise for ranting

As for what I want to do later, there are several posibilities, but what I'm actually trying to get is "a broad huminastical bachelor", which is what you need to study Journalism at Columbia University, which has been somewhat of a dream of mine, Failing that, I'll study somewhere else, but I'ts journalist I want to be. Seeing as history can be combined with nearly everything, I'm going to take minor courses in something like sociology, and other things that might be usefull. I can see that there would be other combinations that would make more "sense", but I'm letting my interests choose.

Oh, and thanks for the explanation. It made perfect sense, and saved me some research. Sounds terribly interesting...the ocean is the last "terra incognita" on this planet, after all. Well, not Terra, but you get my point.