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

But, we're all so friendly and have free for everyone plus the s and < s, of course

Does this mean that you put little chunks of and in your ?

I find this site friendly and interesting. Why just went looking for things to do and tried to contribute to the site and the Post.

The result I am talking to more people and using the site, and not just sitting at a keyboard and saying "ENTERTAIN ME!".
I am not getting at anyone as everyone uses the site in the way it suits them, that's good they are are "using" the site and every publication needs readers.

The site is not in a bad way but H2G2 needs to retain the members somehow, and for that, I do not have an answer, it needs some media savvy ideas, people! And the Ed's need our support and a few grassroots ideas.

Carry on chaps!

The roots of most grasses are dormant this time of year.

I joined in 14 years ago tomorrow. There were a lot of really good and fun people. Conversations of every nature, most in the best of flow. Word games, virtual parties laden with sheer silliness, it was mostly fun.

Some were seriously nasty and rude - actually cruel - to some, because of opinions posted. Some were just nasty for no obvious reasons. SO a lot of those are gone. But in the process, it turned off a lot of the gentle folks.

Today, the site is trying to find a footing, a gathering that can again be a community. Every new face, attitude and nature is always welcome.

Well said
The thing we are all good at is keeping the site in good order. And we do seem to get a decent number of visitors

Hang in there, researchers. We have quality. Quantity is something we can hope for, but let's not be despondent if it's a slow process.

Quantity isn't everything...

Yes thats right but the advertising revenue will be more substantial if it is

And if the Isle of Wight gains 8.63 people, it will be as populous as London.

Advertising revenue, while welcome, is hard for websites to come by. I can think of only one site (The Huffington Post) that does it really well, though there might be others. Do we (or can we) find the energy to follow suit?

Ok Have the entries a value to the owners of the subject of the article/entry, can we not try and get a fee or two.
We must be less expensive than copywriters!

Sarld:
Here is an H2G2 experience from last night in real life (despite Marvin's disgust).
I live in Austin, TX where a number of bombings happened as recently as a week ago. A "trip-wire" bomb exploded at the edge of an older housing division called Travis Country located in south west Austin. 2 blocks from there live friends. They moved to Austin 10 years ago or so from France where the wife was employed by FreeScale, maker of smartphone chips. FreeScale was closing the plant and offered employees transfer to their plant here in Austin. She accepted and her hiTech husband followed. My wife met them through being a teacher of English as a 2nd language. Engaging couple who love playing games of all sorts. So it was they joined our small group of card players meeting Friday or Saturday nights.
My claim is that we evolved to eating out *somewhere* before playing cards at the rather fixed home of our most gracious host so that were sure to know there would be enough for a card game.
Saturday afternoon our trip-wire survivors declared, "We won't come to supper, but please come play here afterward". We agreed and chose a new restaurant in that same part of Austin, the Italian cuisine of "Milano Cafe". Kinda ironic that we pick a place only 4 blocks from them because they are hosting the card game and *for once* they don't have to face cross town traffic with 2 kids in the car and ... they stay at home.
I parked facing toward the Southwest Parkway. It occurred to me that we were directly across the street from where the trip-wire bomb exploded. When we 3 "groups" sat down in Milano (a $$ place, but nicely appointed) I pointed this out. S allowed as how last Saturday he had taken a birthday gift of clothes in a package to THE FedEx store where the psychopathic bomber had mailed his next bomb the following morning. Someone suggested that the 500 FBI agents still running around in Austin likely *know everything* there is to know about S and his wife! They retorted that this no doubt includes all their close friends! That was when we all tumbled to the curious confluence of "bomber", foreign nationals hosting, people who had been *THERE*, and now conspiring across the road from the most dramatic of the explosions less than a week later.

All the above is a red herring, but a decent procrastination (which is why I am here) from facing US IRS tax forms due to be postmarked oh so soon.

The meal approached the end and our waitress (appropriately of Italian descent) asked how to prepare the tab. "Just the total" we told her .. that we would sort out the details among us. And so the bill came. We were dawdling but enjoying a travelogue of a camping trip just completed the day before. The trip was to Goose Island State Park (in which no goose has ever been seen) and sported the sighting of over 20 different bird species, 4 10+ foot American Alligators, 2 large feral pigs, and miscellaneous turtles and butterflies, ok, and caterpillars and mosquitoes. Our waitress returned for the $100+ (includes taxes).
From the other end of the table I piped up that we hadn't finished arguing about the bill. Seeing that she suddenly looked concerned, I improvised, "Have you ever read Douglas Adams?". She indicated no. "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?". Still no recognition. I continued, "One form of spaceship is an Italian Cafe where the pilots argue over the bill. The math isn't working out. If math doesn't work, then the rules are wrong .. anything is possible. Galactic travel need not be impossible!" Clearly, she was at a loss for what to say. I finished with "Our arguing will be finished as soon as his (pointing at F) travelogue brings us home". F resumed, others talked, and the waitress turned away.
Well, I hope we will be welcomed back.. we did leave a nice tip (most didn't have exact change and rounded up).

I'm serious. I don't play cards anymore, but as I drove through Austin's gathering dusk and back through the gathering Saturday night celebrants, I enjoyed that laid back Austin feeling.

Hello
That was a nice story an interesting insite into US culture.
The wild life sounds somewhat un-friendly, but regardless of that is sounds a nice place to live.

Not intrested in cards never have been no particular reason I always seem run out of conversation.
Sounds that it is a good place to live though easy going. The UK is odd, they like to hold a grudge there. Inlaws, the gouvernment, immigrants (the Scots and Irish) but it is recipical so its now a social ritual. Hey some brits are holing a grudge anainst Oliver Comwell.

Holding grudges is a blood sport in some neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Someone from anywhere else would have no idea which end was which there.

I like cards. A game or two of solitaire calms me down (or peps me up) until I feel like jumping back into whatever I was doing.

For me, one of the kicks from card games is figuring the odds.

I'm a touch more refined and rigorous than Hoyle and Hoyle covers only group theory, not game theory.

Why wouldn't you hold a grudge against Oliver Cromwell? He's led to centuries of resentment in both Ireland and Scotland, he disbanded parliament, his Iconoclasm destroyed centuries of Church art and iconography, he slighted and destroyed castles nationwide. He also was a pretty terrible father. He is a tyrannical vandal whose achievement was making an efficient army and using it to seize power.

The Cromwell tank that was named after him was fairly effective and agile, though.

<BB<

I distrust anyone from that century - especially those guys with buckles on their hats.

Cromwell even attempted to seize the charter of the Massachusetts Colony, but at a critical moment the lights went out and the documents disappeared.

His revolution might have succeeded only if he'd backed parliamentary democracy and invented the office of an elected chief executive.

His career marked a belated end to the periodic popular uprisings that punctuated the Wars of the Roses and was the last of them.

Oh, great, he even tried to screw Massachusetts?

A bad descendant of Thomas Cromwell.

Cromwell is OK... well, Cromwell is...