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

Yeah right!!!

Don't be such a pessimist! That's my job.

Oh no, not another day of living...

If that idea was possible, I'd flip.

Wow, this new thing I'm into is bigger than I thought it was. Ouch.

Suppose I'd better start making that idea a reality then? Only too willingly .

It is possible!

We could do it today -- stick a GPS uplink in a handset along with some detailes comunity maps with pathways --

And what we could do for 10 000 today -- we can do for 1000 tommorow -- and then next week . . .

~Beeblefish

i like this! {sorry, that's three words}

i've already been here for several hours, so i can quite see myself carrying h2g2 around with me.

Is it really necessary to have a dedicated handset? A Palmtop computer would be better (like a Palm Pilot or something), since the overall aim of protable electronics is to have everything in one device.

Any thoughts?

I think TDV are trying to corner the entire telecommunications / information / world domination market

You missed the bit where they spend a few billion pounds getting people to write in detail about everything and everywhere...

A tiny machine running a cut-down linux and Mozilla would definitely suffice....

So is the Guide to be a physical thing, a device, or a digital thing as it is now?

Will you have to buy a 'Hitchhiker's Guide' to make use of the service (or full use of the service)?

Yet another winner from Cyrius Cybernetics!

I definitely think it would be well worth devoting at least one third of a lifetime's earnings to be able to share and enjoy this ideal.

I mean H2G2 could tell us what to think, and ... knowing our personal requirements, when to take a leak ... and, knowing our habits, behind which bush.

Come On, Guys! Get real !!! If you want to use h2G2 to do marketing research, then you can do it without me ! The thought of a convenient user-friendly device that - knowing my preferences - schedules how I would like to spend my money, has already been invented. It's called the wife. And it doesn't need batteries. And it makes your tea. And it costs a fortune.

Good point. Great idea. Where do I sign up? Perhaps you could create a version incorporating the latest dildonic technology so that - when you really like it - it could really screw you over !

The great thing is that you don't have to marry h2g2 to be able to use it legitimatly.

Or marry it at all, in fact.

I imagine the profit they'd make would simply be on the hand-helds, if they really do make them, and they wouldn't charge for either normal use or on handhelds...

If this is possible, will I see it in my lifetime? If DNA's in charge, I wouldn't bank on it.

Let me test my understanding:

You buy a hand-held device that you switch on when you get up in the morning and it asks you "where would you like to go today?" ... and then takes you to somewhere almost entirely different (that has paid the service provider a fat fee).

I honestly thought that the product was with us : Microsoft Windows !

Perhaps the new product could be called the Billy.... as in Billy No-Mates .... as in rhyming slang for Bill Gates ?

Wow ! Is that spooky, or what ???? This Cockney rhyming slang really kicks ....

BTW: some interesting similarities between novel and real life.
By my recollection, the guide uses a sub-meson system to store data. For those who don't do nuclear physicics, mesons are middle sized sub atomic particles, a bit smaller than a neutron, and a lot bigger than an electron. Guess how all this is flowing about in the world's communications networks...
The guide of HHGTTG fame has hundreds of buttons. At the last count, the full size QWERTY keyboard I have infront of me has 107 keys. Add three on the mouse, two CD, a 3.5" disk eject, reset... , that's a grand total of about 120. Plus two dials and a ball. Complex I think.
It also has DON'T PANIC! on every screen

Erm, can't comment about anything else, but it certainly /does/ have 'Don't panic' on every screen...

I personally think this is both a great idea, and a distinct possibility. It really only seems a combination of a GPS gadget thingy that you can already buy for cars and such that tell you where you are and gives you directions how to get somewhere, a mobile phone WAP thingy like those Nokia Communicators which are similar to a laptop anyway, and the Guide as it stands at the moment, or rather the Guide as it could be if we were all to write in what we know.
The other thing is, it wouldn't be telling us what to do and when to do it, anymore than when we set our preferences on the Windows desktop.
I think it's a great idea, and I could really have done with it a few months ago when I was finding myself in unknown cities with five or six hours to kill.

Pastey

...and do any of those unknown cities have h2g2 entries?