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

I came to it through altavista's Babel Fish translator.

it was mentioned in an article about Douglas Adams just after he died. i'm fairly new here

Well, I found it from the Babel Fish, but I didn't bother looking at it because the Alabaster was too ugly. Then a friend told me about it, I looked through it, decided to register despite the page layout, found the Goo, and was happy.

I honestly cannot remember.
It was nearly two years ago - perhaps someone sent me a link to one of the articles on it and I got hooked?

This has been covered at an earlier date. Most mass recruitments coincide with appearances on Tomorrow's World, of which there have been two or three. The German launch was in May 2000, which is when most of the German members appeared. Don't know about the Danes, though.

AltaVista's babelfish when I was working in Germany last year. It took a while for it to seduce me, but now the forums are a part of my life....

agcB

There was a short article in .net magazine in the UK announcing the launch of the WAP service in December '99 - that's how I found out about the main site as well.

NQAH (nostalgic)

same as for Robin : I didn't find out about its existence before Douglas Adams died... One of the articles mentioned this sit, I came to have a look and... the rest can be guessed!

It was on the linkpage for a Danish homepage for science. That´s how I found it. But first I really had no idea what this place was.

I found this a while back while I was playing with the babel fish on AltaVista, just writing stuff in French and seeing what came out in English (most of it was wrong) and I thought, "Hmmm. this is a wierd site", and I didn't think twice about it. Then I got here a month or so ago while doing a book report on THHGTTG and looking for book reviews. I thought it was the coolest site so I became a researcher.

I brought DNA's the deeper meaning of Liff and inside was a link to the old TDV website. I had brought my copy of starship titanic and furnished with my brand new PC with internet (at last!!!) I was interested to see what this website was like. Once I got there the site itself wasn't too inspiring but there was a link...a little gif or something that just said H2G2. what a find! This plae was just soooo The GUIDE on THE NET! Genius!
I arrived well before Alabaster was the default skin, dove straight into the goo, loved it and stayed! I don't think a day has passed by since without me checking in with h2g2 at least once (N2G2/Interregnum notwithstanding)

Clive

i heard about a website for fans of battlestar galactica based on the name of one of the actors and was visiting it to laugh at the fawning messages in the guestbook - it occurred to me that some authors i liked might have websites with addresses composed out of their names, so i put in douglasadams dot com and it came up with the guide! this was just before they shifted it to a seperate url, so i was mightily lucky

Ooohhh.. that's a hard one.
I recall running into TDV before the launch of Starship Titanic while looking for some info about what DNA was up to. They had some kind of a message bord in connection to Starship Titanic and I posted some stuff there. And thus I got a notice of them starting a Guide. When I surfed to that page it was full of animations and took ages!! to load (we're talking about a connection via the university's backbone at my end...). And the animations didn't tell me anything and I never grasped the concept of what was about to happen here. Maybe due to the fact that I couldn't be bothered to sit through all the loading time
And then I came back a coupla months later and the silly anims had died down somewhat and I could suddenly figure what this was all about and so I joined...


Tube

*gets misty-eyed*

About two years ago, my best friend let me borrow the compilation of the h2g2 books (the one labeled the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe), and I read through them in a week... don't try that at home, folks. Thought they were the greatest thing since, well... just about anything. A few weeks later, my friend sends me this link via AOL IM to this odd, little upstart site known as "h2g2.com", and I started poking around for a few days. Next thing I knew I had joined and the rest of the story you know... or can figure out.

i came thru babel fish too... i can't recall what the connection is. can someone jog my memory?

The Babel fish is a thing from the hitchhiker books. You slip it into your ear and can then understand all languages. I suppose since it has started a computer program is should be in the "phrases" department.

Ok, that was an interesting question and got me started to look into it. As I said, I ran into the Starship Titanic page at some point and signed up some time later stating that:

22.09.1997
Thank you! Thank you SO VERY MUCH for registering your initial interest in the Maiden Voyage of the Starship Titanic, Mr/Ms/Other
(...).

We just know in our bones that, sooner or later, a thrusting, successful, individualistic individual like yourself will wish to avail yourself of the unique leisure cruise opportunities offered by this, the most revolutionary Starship in the long history of Intergalactic Leisure Cruising.

Imagine the envy on the faces of your colleagues, Mr/Ms/Other Yer Basic Small Cute Green Frog, Frogga mundanis, when you return from your cruise, bronzed, relaxed, and laden with precious memories, such as a full-colour hologram of your favourite Terrestrial Frog, the rare and colourful (...).

We would like to assure you that the Starship Titanic is at your disposal.
And remember - this is the Starship on which nothing whatever can POSSIBLY go wrong.

With sincere and humble best wishes, we remain,

Yours truly,
STARLIGHT TRAVEL BUREAU
"WE UNRAVEL TRAVEL...FOR YOU(TM)"

P.S. If you are too busy being successful to experience Titanic Luxury this time around, remember! The Living Virtuality(TM) Albumorial(R) CD/VR of the Maiden Voyage will soon be available from hand-picked dealers in YOUR planetary system.


Some days later this came through:

(...)
SUBJECT: Confidential Titanic Project Area Access
TO: All Star-Struct Staff
DATE: Welday, 12th Voedio, 122 R.E. (25:06)

Following repeated requests from members of the Starship Titanic construction team, it has been decided to offer access to the restricted Titanic Project Intranet Website (www.starlightlines.com) from the public-access site maintained by our agents Starlight Travel. The restricted internal site can with immediate effect be accessed from Starlight Travel's site (www.starshiptitanic.com) without needing to go through the secure intranet system.
(...)

Which was like their BBS or something but really didn't do any good.

And years later I received this:

Subject:
moan, moan, moan
Date:
Fri, 26 Mar 1999 11:57 +0000
From:
Ford Prefect
To:
[email protected]


First, COMPLAINTS. Needless to say, all your complaints will be dealt with. Eventually.

Leopold - I'm sorry your accommodation is not up to scratch. You are wrong to suggest this is in any way connected with our little argument over your last expense claim. (Incidentally, what exactly are zoot-inhalers and why do they cost so much?)

On the subject of expenses:

Amelia B - A reminder. You are working for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, not Vogue Galactica. So, go easy on the budget.

Jack - I don't mind paying for all these burgers but remember, you are a dolphin and they may be damaging your health. (By the way, tell Sideswipe to avoid cress - this is probably causing the wind problem.)

Toobitz - in answer to your questions:

1. No.
2. Ha ha.
3. Yes.

I know Earth is not very comfortable but that is not my fault. In my experience life here can be tolerable enough if you just make an effort to fit in. As soon as you get the job done I promise - we'll go somewhere more civilised.

In the meantime: DON'T FORGET! WE HAVE AN UPLOAD AREA ON http://fordprefect.h2g2.com - USE IT!

Byee

Ford


That message left me rather confused esp. with all the silly animations on the h2g2 page.

So much for my history...
Tube

I'm not here yet.
I'm still searching for a Red Dwarf site for grown-ups.
Such is the improbability of some search engines.
Smoke me a kipper Mister Fribble.

I also came here through the Babble Fish Translator, but this was after I had read the "trilogy" and knew what the babble fish was. And here I am, getting more and more people to come everyday (trying at least).

I found h2g2 through the 'blank page' site - that's in Germany or Switzerland. Don't know where for sure but it is partly in German.

Has anyone noticed that at this time every night there are nearly always 42 researchers on line?

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