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

How about to find out what the Ultimate Question is, we ask other questions to get to it?

I propose we start with "What makes less sense than a cheese sandwich in a skipping tournament?" and work from there.

I agree!

A skipping cheese sandwich in a no-skipping contest ! ! ! !

Well here is one to ponder :::: "kit 'n' kabodle"...what is it some kind of poodle?

It is a poodle requiring some assembly. Usually delivered in a kitset.

Surely a *cat* requiring assembly would be delivered in a *kit*set...







GOD THAT IS DREADFUL!!! /me bangs my head against the wall!

what's with the use of inappropriate pronouns? Is you some kind of freak? or maybe you're Jarjar Binks with your ears tucked up your arse!!

I didn't write me - I wrote /me... Anyone that's used IRC will know there's a world of difference.

oh and for those of us who have real life friends it means /inappropriate pronoun.

erm. well /me in IRC is replaced by the nickname and presented as an action.

I think chatrooms are mental.
My flatmate was showing me around the palace last night and I found it to be quite silly. All these people with little pictures which are probably nowhere near as ugly as real life, standing around in boring computer generated rooms going blahblahblah to people they would probably hate in real life, if they had one.
Why don't people get real friends I mean small talk is boring in real life but typing it into a computer is just ridiculous.
/me rips my hair out in frustration at the extreme nerdiness of cyber-land.

Wow!

You actually went into /graphical/ chat rooms!

The vast majority of people use IRC where you just chat at each other - and I for one really enjoy it. In my experience far from following the cliche that everyone will lie through their teeth most people find it much easier to be honest and open in IRC than IRL - sad as that may be for the human race. As to the charge of not having any real friends, for the most part I use IRC to chat to friends of mine that live hundreds of miles away and that I can't see in person on a more regular basis. Also if I become friends with people on IRC I hope to meet them sometime - a number of people I met over IRC are now very good friends, including the current lover!

It's easy to be honest with someone a thousand miles away who you will probably never meet.
To me the whole thing sounds like a recipe for RSI, square eyes and big internet bills. If I can't be around friends I find the periodical ranting letter or, at worst, e-mail is best.
If you're asking why I'm being a hypocritical by spending time writing in h2g2, it's because the alternative is working and that is a worse fate than compu-nerdism.
I think that the major difference about h2g2 is people spend more time thinking about what they're going to say rather than just sitting around making non-stop in jokes in HTML language.

An old flatmate of mine would be talking about six hours a day on the internet before he even got up. He was fat and lardy and used to rant about his mates in Invercargill (who at that stage he had never met in real life). Then they decided to come to Auckland to visit and they ended up hating each other on sight which I found quite funny.

I think chattrooms are an extraordinary waste of time and effort. At least if you're making small talk at a party you can grab a cocktail and spend the time making a fool of yourself the good old fashioned way instead of making compu-fart jokes and baring your soul to complete strangers.
Anyway my shift is over and I'm off to interract with some real human beings. . .

Some of what you say is sensible, and I don't use IRC as much as you seem to think everyone who uses it at all does. I tend to think that if you can't see friends, the combination of letters, emails, and very importantly telephone calls, makes it bearable. The difference is that with a telephone you interact and can discuss things, in real time. Unfortunately, one of the big things about having friends very far away tends to be a high price of telephone calls - the internet however allows you to get some way near to proper discussion, at local rate, or for free.

As long as you're keeping it in it's proper place. . .
I still prefer to keep my contact with faraway friends on an infrequent, non-interactive basis, simply because it gives you something to talk about when you do see each other again.
Most of the people I have met who use IRC are the kinds of freaks who spend a whole lot of time doing it. I'm sure there are quite normal people out there who do it too (and I apologise for my apparent snarkiness - I am just afraid for the future of the human race!!)..

I think your response says it all - you like to keep contact with far-off friends minimal, which is not something I think that many people would agree with...

Keeping in touch with every friend I have all of the time greatly reduces the quality of the time I spend with the ones that are there corporreally. I can reach any of my friends if it's important but I don't want to know what they have for breakfast every morning when they're on the other side of the planet. . .

Yeah, that sounds fair. But it's not totally either / or.

I know one friend was very upset at not having heard that another one had been ill. Sometimes the punctuation in people's lives is very important...

Yes for the important things.
It's just important that communication doesn't stand in the way of new experiences, or you can soon run out of things to communicate about. but I would be pissed off if I wasn't told about important things. . .

Yes, but to be honest I don't think I tend to run out of things to say, and that I have enough friends that if I go through them all by the time I get back to the first I've got more to say!