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

Hm...

I believe I can sense a little bit negativism here...
(do your wife agree in what you say )

But hey!
I'm the one who used to be the paranoid one.
I actually think that you're overreacting a little bit.
("Don't panic." <- remember?)

You don't have to use the H2G2 device if you don't want to, right?

hm...

Have a nice day!
/samPe

Strictly technically.

You don't need a GPS to tell where your phone is.
(How do you think the police track GSM-phones?)
I've done it several times in the army.

I don't think there will be a problem

(Hey Ford! Great message.)
You don't happened to have a TI-92?

Anyway... they works as you explained.
I wrote a lab report (with graphs and images) on it once...
And then I printed it with an ordinary computer...
NO PROBLEMA!
And, as you said, if we connect it to a WAP phone...

I dont see the problem!

Ericsson has a hand-computer named MC 218...
(check out http://mobile.ericsson.com/mc218/light/kit/ )
It's a great step in the right direction.

Impossible... *bah*

Wow, I -love- the idea!

I don't like alphabetical keyboards though, but at least its better than holding down 7-P-Q-R-S

Your Damn right! "Impossible"! Hah! Bah Humbug to all doomsayers! Idiots with nothing better to do than complain about everything cannot stand in the way of progress! (INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE...not my fault.)
Oh, BTW, if any of you have any tips on using GuideML, I'd appreciate a line at my researcher page.

One definate problem I see is keyboards. I need the feel of a full size keyboard to be properly creative and fast. I can't use a dinky little wap phone to write entries or even search for them. That's just wrong. And there is no way you could use the little screen to write anything coherently.

Also, currently in Australia, WAP is very expensive. It costs 20c each SECOND!

I thought WAP was pay-by-the-byte?
What we really need is a speech recognition program.

Oh, and has everyone heard the latest about GPS? The US Gov. realised that the civilian methods of GPS unfiddling (to get more accuracy) were impinging on the militaries, so they unhooked the fiddling - therefore GPS is now accurate within 10m/30m

A portable guide is a definate possibility. The way I see it, it's basically a palm top computer where everything is touch screen. All the information for the guide isnt located in the handheld device itself, but in a big server at h2g2. You remotely access the server using the specialized antenna in the palm top, and if you want to find your location, you use the nifty built in GPS. As for the ability for it to give you options and maps and so forth, also extremely possible. Hey, if you program your handheld to what you like and don't like, then it filters the information coming from the server so you get what best suits your needs.
-Matteus (108477)

Okay, here's my little spin on things.

1. You will access this website (or the WAP or whatever version of it) with your mobile phone.

2. You'll be able to write Guide entries. There'll be several ways of doing this - handwriting recognition, portable keypad, whatever. You will have a choice.

3. h2g2 could become a travel guide, and a great one, because of the huge following that it's got. It needs to do some clever advertising in 'cult' publications though to get more of us on board before it can appeal to the more skeptical, demanding masses.

4. If h2g2 doesn't do this soon, then somebody else bloody well will do, and in an unfortunately more 'populist' way, and it'll hit the headlines and get the users, and h2g2 will miss the boat. that'll be sad, 'cos if h2g2 does it first it'll be a whole lot better, as it's more or less a truly open community.

5. To do this, h2g2 needs a bit of a make-over. How long's the site been up? It looks a couple of years old, and it is quite 'techie' in navigation. It needs a bit more focus and it'll happen.

I'm prepared to have a think and put my ideas in if any h2g2 staff are prepared to listen.

I mean, where's the use of Flash? I see this site as a prime candidate for that technology... it brings sites to life, it could really bring the h2g2 vision to life in a way that is very close to how the reader (certainly in my case) imagines the guide in the books.. personally it came across to me as almost an organic, living entity..

Server space is cheap, 56k modems are prominent, let's have some flash and some colour - pastel and matte shades though, no gloss... just enough to set off the content and the great ideas here

Hey! Nobody told me you were all here! Now I feel like I missed the party...

Way back: those h2g2 Don't Panic stickers do exist, but unfortunately they don't stick too well... and that was *my* phone on Tomorrow's World

Yep, you don't need GPS to find someone with a mobile phone - the best solution would be cross-technology: GPS for wide open spaces with few cells and GSM location for the city where GPS doesn't work in the concrete canyons.

As for Flash, well we have the ability to change skins and add new ones now, but I've yet to see a Flash site that added anything other than download time - please correct me!

One problem with Flash is that currently the content of the Guide is text-based with a few pictures by our incredibly talented but hugely overworked art team. Other than having a standard Flash skin with navigation controls it would be hard to get any extra graphics (especially animated ones) for each Entry...

Thoughts anyone? I'm listening

Okay, I'm a techie, and have done some web design, but am only just getting into Flash. I have though, seen some positive uses of it, that aid navigation without adding noticeably to download times.

Flash is pretty 'light' if you don't go including huge animations and pictures, just use its basic functionality to aid the look and feel of sites.

One hole in my knowledge as far as Flash is concerned is that I'm not sure if you can pull in data from a database into it - does anyone know if this is possible??

If so, you could have, for instance, little notes within articles as flash 'pop-ups' - items that when hovered over bring up a box with some information, maybe a picture, and disappear when the user moves the mouse away.

That could be used for the little subscripted numbers that we see in articles, and is way better than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find out what a reference meant. That methodology is just a remnant of traditional paper publishing.

As you can see, I'm thinking in terms of usability here, not merely adding unnecessary, for want of a better word, 'flashy' content!

So you'd change the Guide entry screen to have a box where you'd enter a subscripted explanation. That would then add a default Flash pop-up into the article. To enter another, you just fill in the box again, and h2g2 counts the references.

This could also be done when hovering over ANY link or user name.. hovering over the link would provide a brief description, hovering over a user name would provide a brief profile.

Saves unnecessary clicking.

I'll get the thinking cap on again soon. (that's a promise, not a threat.... )

Okay, I'm a techie, and have done some web design, but am only just getting into Flash. I have though, seen some positive uses of it, that aid navigation without adding noticeably to download times.

Flash is pretty 'light' if you don't go including huge animations and pictures, just use its basic functionality to aid the look and feel of sites.

One hole in my knowledge as far as Flash is concerned is that I'm not sure if you can pull in data from a database into it - does anyone know if this is possible??

If so, you could have, for instance, little notes within articles as flash 'pop-ups' - items that when hovered over bring up a box with some information, maybe a picture, and disappear when the user moves the mouse away.

That could be used for the little subscripted numbers that we see in articles, and is way better than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find out what a reference meant. That methodology is just a remnant of traditional paper publishing.

As you can see, I'm thinking in terms of usability here, not merely adding unnecessary, for want of a better word, 'flashy' content!

So you'd change the Guide entry screen to have a box where you'd enter a subscripted explanation. That would then add a default Flash pop-up into the article. To enter another, you just fill in the box again, and h2g2 counts the references.

This could also be done when hovering over ANY link or user name.. hovering over the link would provide a brief description, hovering over a user name would provide a brief profile.

Saves unnecessary clicking.

I'll get the thinking cap on again soon. (that's a promise, not a threat.... )

addendum:

from this method of adding references in articles, you change the way the h2g2 database is structured, obviously, to pull these notes out of 'reference fields' tagged on to the article masterfile table.

You can then very easily figure out what the most popular articles in the database are, now both in terms of references AND hits, and into what category these articles fall.

Come up with a references vs hits scoring system and you can figure out what is the best of h2g2 without much pain.

Hmm... I guess then I'm saying that links in the body of an article would have to be placed in a 'links box' much like I suggested entering a reference. You'd then need a GuideML tag that would pull out these links into the required position in the body of the article.

Hmm. Or could it work the other way around? If there is a GuideML tage for a link (which without looking I can hopefully safely assume there is).... hmm... you have this sussed already with GuideML I bet?!!

So get pulling that data into some Flash

Hey it already does that! Well, some of that...

If you hover your cursor over a Footnote number (at least in IE5 on the PC), you get a tooltip that pops up containing the text of the footnote. I agree that that's no good for all those people out there who don't use IE5 on the PC (hey, I have a Mac here!) but there is an important difference: using Flash means that anyone who wants to see the site has to download the plugin, without which they see junk on the screen. Our current method looks good (and works, if not so well) on all browsers without plugins.

However, now that we have the ability to create new skins, a Flash skin could be a good start. But then we run into the problem of manpower - the art team (who actually use Flash to make their graphics anyway!) is just totally busy. If you'd like to offer your services...

I like your idea of being able to add arbitrary references to an existing entry. In a way that's what the Forums are meant to do, but you can never tell which part of the Entry anyone is talking about. I'm not sure how we can add that to the database, though. How do you know that a reference is attached to a particular section of the text, without altering the text. And what if the text is changed? This reminds me of Xanadu (look up Ted Nelson) - the ultimate hypertext system. If you have any ideas for this, please tell me!

Isn't that what the 'documented but with no use' references tag is supposed to be for?

And where are we meant to be searching? h2g2 or www?

Hey why all the negative hubba bubba? Some here in this convo sound like Marvin It would be great to have access to this kind of information just when you arent sitting behind your computer and you would like to know what other people are recommending about the place you are at. Not words from a tourist sales brochure but actual coverage from others who wish to share their experiences or lack thereof.

Concerns about privacy are well understood: use a cell phone and you'll end up like Pablo Escobar who also used his phone to his detriment. (In case the reference escapes you - he was a drugs lord who was shot after the signal from his cell phone was triangulated).

Unknown cities are by definition of course unknown to the Guide, not necessarily to its inhabitants although with some you never can tell.

So if any roving researcher comes across an unknown city and feels inclined to write about it - le voila, it is now a known city with an entry and I guess thats the whole point behind facilitating access over wireless.

You don't actually /need/ a GPS to do most of what's in The Vision: at least, on the current GSM networks, it's possible to locate a phone to within about 100m without trouble, and to about 50m outside urban areas, 10m within, by using the lag times from different cells that the phone is connected to.

Of course, there's legal implications - the user has to /agree/ that they want to be located. But technically, this is feasible today.

Anyway, people like Nokia and others are working on a GPS receiver that would be small enough to fit a phone or handheld.

And I don't think H2G2 want to get into the terminal market, or do they? That choice is best left to the user. After all, I can also listen to my Hitch-Hiker's Original Radio Series CDs on any player I happen to like...

50m radius is probably enough for the Guide at its current level of detail, but the problem is finding an operator/phone manufacturer that will expose the location information to a service provider...

We're working on it and it's a hard slog. If you have any leads we'd love to work with you

I think that cooperation with the operators is the way to go, since the location thing happens at the network, not the terminal, level.

I have a few leads at the three GSM operators here in Switzerland. I'll see what I can do, but of course can't make any promises...

One of them, diAx, already offers a regional info option on their WAP platform that uses the high-level locating option to give you info customised to within several miles. Of course, they don't want to pinpoint their users more accurately yet, at least not without the user signing some sort of agreement. There was a scandal a couple of years ago here, where the police were using the GSM network to track "suspicious individuals" (i.e. just about everybody) without their knowledge or consent... So people here are a little touchy on the issue.