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

Mmmm, fair point I suppose. I don't know about Canada but I'm not entirely sure the people I meet here are mostly good.



B

*Gets his swotty hat and diploma in hand*
Actually, in a later book ('Mostly Harmless' I think) All of Ford's Earlier Entries on earth were added, which sent him on another amazing adventure through the galaxy!
And I don't understand what all the fuss is about. What did you expect? Well maybe the population, distance from the sun etc...

I think it was So Long...., actually. Can we have the diploma back?

B

It was definitely Mostly Harmless - damn, my mind fails me all of a sudden, on the chronology, but it goes something like this:
After getting out of the pub in whichever desolate hole he is in by offering a write up for the guide (I think ), whilst he is talking to the girl who tells people its alright to be rich, he says he is owed a lot of back pay for writing two words in 15 years, and goes on to explain that it was the first word that took the longest, with the second one falling shortly after, just after lunch..
Then the guide updates, and it was the fact that all his copy on the Earth made it into the new version of the Guide that made him decide what was going on at the Towers - Ford thought something like "there must be something very strange indeed going on, and I want it to be happening to me", so he steals a police helicopter, flies it to the starport and trades it for a first class ticket out the system, and then I think the next we hear of him is probalby when he jumps out of an airvent, and hits the ground running, before trapping Colin and going on to meet the new editor of the Guide and being forced to jump out of windows a lot, courtesy of Infinidim Enterprises....

This is terrible - I think everything I wrote is in the correct order, but I am not SURE... what has happened to me, where has the knowledge gone???

Oh, and I think the entry that this thread is below is indeed a fitting tribute to the founder of this site.

vp

sorry, in the guide updates bit, it should say :
decide *to investigate* what was going on at the towers...

vp

To all those who lost their sense of humour:

This is a joke - a bit of mostly harmless fun. All the information you need is in the Entry entitled 'Mostly Harmless' and so this was a logical thing to do - linkthrough. Amazing, however, that two words could provoke such a fountain of irritation and outrage! It's like the intergalactic war. Some of you havemade a miscalculation of scale, and now it would seem appropriate if all of these postings got accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

Whoami?

It's MOSTLY harmless... with the emphasis on MOSTLY.

Now if only the Researcher who had posted this was named Ford Prefect. That would seem fishy... (of a very particular variety...)

If the entry was put under, the universe, and under our planets heading, then yes it would be un-original. BUT it's under humour, hey it's a joke, gettit? i can't believe we are all getting uptight about one entry that's 'mostly harmless'!

It's a joke that lives on as a tribute to Douglas Adams.
Honestly, this is a sad community if people can not take this as a joke!

I would give this entry a new lease on life at the expense of erasing all my contributions (past, present, and future) to the Guide, even though I'm kinda new.

This is the second greatest entry in the entire Guide. The greatest would have to be... the ANSWER! (which is 42.)

Gandark.

Just thought I'd say 42 - (A846434)

"...you must remember that this is NOT the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy. This is the EARTH BASED FORM of the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy. There's a difference there."
_____________

Perhaps we can reorient our thinking as to this site's name.

While the Guide is available only on this planet, its mission is to serve as a repository for all fields of knowledge - everything from baking cupcakes to the political situation in Nepal to theories about space travel and the MIlky Way.

To put it another way, this is the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, its just that the hitcher is currently restricted to travel on earth. (Not the Galaxy's Guide to Hitch Hiking, you see.)

I sypmathise completely. (not meaning to get on the nerves of the head honchos) But the human based runners of the guide want to use the name to sell this "product". However in an effort to sell it to a wider audience they have decided (or so I have been told) that they don't want anything to do with the story other than the name. I have seen other articles about other TV shows in the guide, with as much information about the series as my article up there on the number 42. However the people in charge do seem to be (ironically) a little predjudiced against articles refering to the series from which they take their name. As I understand it the original people who started this site where a little over obsessed with HHGTTG, so now the people who run it have done a complete reversal, in an effort to stop the stream. Its sad, but thats business .

Though the signs are the tide is changing very slightly (can't say anothing other that really).

anothing = anything

Earth is far from mostly harmless. Ive written an entry to that effect here A849260. Earth is far from Mostly harmless, its very dangerous!

I think in the overall galaxy, Earth is mostly harmless compared to other worlds and civilisations. 'Mostly Harmless' is the only THHGTTG book I own. I borrowed the rest from a friend.

I got the whole series in one big volume at Barnes & Noble for $15.00. They might have been on sale though... then I downloaded EBooks of them too. It was "Mostly Illegal" but I couldn't find them being sold on EBook anywhere.

This probably voids anything else I have to say, but OhWell. I think joke articles like this one are well worth while, because other researchers who find this article will be glad they did. I'm linking to it from my Personal Space now too. I think ALL articles by Douglas Adams that were in the book series should be included in the Edited Guide, because THE REST OF US, might want to be able to access them quickly in an electronic search, instead of thumbing through the low-tech analog PAPER PAGES thinking "i know that entry was in here somewhere! aw, rats..."

Nerd42

Personally, I find it worrying. If we can be doing the best we can to blow each other up, and the planet itself doing it's best to shake us all off it, we can have wars looming, semi-dictatorships even in the countries considered "advanced", we can have hugely increasing rates of burglary, mugging, rape, murder and other violence, if we can have all this and STILL be considered "Mostly Harmless", the the universe is a pretty worrying place.

Naah, the Earth isn't so bad. It would be considered "Mostly Harmless" in a Galaxy that was teeming with races like the Vogons, Cricketters, and Slastic Armselfiends. (please excuse any spelling errors, don't want to offend anyone, even if they are aliens)

Nerd42