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

Could you post a URL where I can download an opinion on that?

Heh.. That's back when Windows was -commonly- known as what it is... a toy. For any -real- computing you had to use a text-based mini or mainframe.

PCs at the time were nothing more than glorified Word Processors, and if you were -really- lucky, you got one with a 20K HardCard.

User 1 rings the dept to ask about access rights to an app, bypassing the normal helpdesk procedure. I go to amend his access rights only to find he's not a user of the app at all. I email him for more info.

He emails back to say he's trying to have User 2 set-up to perform a particular task in the app (only available to Team Leaders). I check and find User 2 is set-up correctly, so send another email to User 1 explaining in detail how to do what it is he's trying to do. User 1 forwards my email to User 3 to let them know how to do it.

User 3 emails me to say she's been asked to follow this up, and how can they do what it is they need to do. I reply to her, copying the text from lower down in the _same_ email message - this time highlighting it in bold. User 3 emails me back with thanks to say they've worked it out now thanks to my help.

I could have pointed out that I actually didn't do anything, and perhaps they should have consulted someone who knows how to do their job in the first place instead of wasting my time - but sometimes it's easier to sit back and take the credit. I mean, if these stupid users actually started to work stuff out for themselves, we'd be out of a job....

Good point. I didn't think it through that much.

This peculiar speech pattern is precisely what lead to the other oft-quoted-and-never-actually-said-line "Bullions and Bullions of yumans." attributed to Dr. Sagan.

Fact is, everyone's laughing at his strange vocalisations, regardless of how sensible they were: delivery apparently makes a difference. He never said the above line; I know, I used to say the above line by cobbling together the words he most amusingly pronounced and put them into a single sentence.

Please don't "Play it again, Sam."

Fruitbat

PS:Peculiarly, Sagan thought very highly of the human race (did he win, BTW?).

Can someone tell me where these accent marks appear on a Mac? Do I need to have a plug-in in the system folder, or is there something built into AppleWorks?

Fruitbat

My guess is that they're more comfy with the familiar, and hanging out with more of the same gives them the comfort of strangers.

I also think this may be tied into why so many people are keen on organised sports; the desire for watching football or baseball, or anything else is utterly lost on me, as is who the players are, how good they are and why we're rooting for them - as if anything we say or do could make a difference.

Unfortunately, all the adverts that flog computer technology only talk about getting onto the Internet faster. They don't say anything about knowing something about the computer (and if the computer is IBM, this is a problem waiting to happen), how to work out the trouble-spots or solve simple problems.

I once heard the local Technology-Columnist saying that the IT industry is for people that like change and enjoy thinking. Clearly, anyone that doesn't like thinking or change isn't in the industry...however, they're also the people that're forced to use computers at some point and get into a huge flap because they don't want to learn them....

Fruitbat

Actually, this little discussion has two points that need addressing:
1)Science is a tool that requires analytical thought processes; most people aren't interested in thought, much less analytical thought. There's a special kind of mind that loves investigation, logic and methodology: all the stuff that makes a good scientist...oh, and patience.

2)Today's sales and invention divisions are in collusion in the effort to make everything as easy as possible: we don't have to know math because there are calculators...and few of us use what we know, anyway (unless it's work-related).
(I'm not proud of the fact that I'm a dead-loss at math, I'm sort of resigned to it. I've no interest in math, haven't had much need of it, and there's always a calculator handy, anyway....)

3)Artists usually use a different part of the brain from scientists. They express what science usually has trouble expressing: the emotional side of the fact-driven and logically-ordered randomness we see all arouind us.

And this is where SCIENCE FICTION is so useful: Bridging the gap between "those who measure and those who dream" (quoted from Spider Robinson). We have to know some of the properties in our world before we can be creative with them: know where they bend, break, and hold firm.
In our increasingly-technologically-driven world, the scientist, the technologist and the sf author will need to be talking to each other a great deal more...and hope that the people will listen.

Fruitbat

Fruitbat - DRAFT, man, DRAFT, for heaven's sake. Draughts are what come under doors, or was that the way the scripts were delivered?

Maybe we should start a new topic, Bad Film Adaptations of Great Novels.

One of my favourite novels is 'A Tale of Two Cities'. It is a novel of comparisons, of opposites, of reflections right from the opening phrase - 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....' A lynchpin of the plot is the physical similarity of Sidney Carton and a French nobleman posing as an Englishman under the name of Charles Darnay. In the 1958 film, Carton was played by the late-lamented Dirk Bogarde and Darnay by a French actor called Paul Guers. They are (or were) not in the least similar to look at, Guers was a several inches taller than Borgarde for a start, so whose idea it was to cast them together is a mystery. What was even dafter was that the producers felt it necessary to dub the French actor's voice with some bloke with a plum in his mouth who was obviously reading the lines, probably for the first time.

Fruitbat - DRAFT, man, DRAFT, for heaven's sake. Draughts are what come under doors, or was that the way the scripts were delivered?

Maybe we should start a new topic, Bad Film Adaptations of Great Novels.

One of my favourite novels is 'A Tale of Two Cities'. It is a novel of comparisons, of opposites, of reflections right from the opening phrase - 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....' A lynchpin of the plot is the physical similarity of Sidney Carton and a French nobleman posing as an Englishman under the name of Charles Darnay. In the 1958 film, Carton was played by the late-lamented Dirk Bogarde and Darnay by a French actor called Paul Guers. They are (or were) not in the least similar to look at, Guers was a several inches taller than Borgarde for a start, so whose idea it was to cast them together is a mystery. What was even dafter was that the producers felt it necessary to dub the French actor's voice with some bloke with a plum in his mouth who was obviously reading the lines, probably for the first time.

Oops.

What was that about stupid users?

When I tried to submit my reply, the forum failed to load properly so I went 'back' and resubmitted - sorry, everyone.

But the "immense dimensidy" line he definitely did utter. His tortured pronounciation combined with the distinctly orange cast of his skin caused by the conversion from NTSC to PAL to provide a rather startling effect, I thought, as if he really had come from a different planet.

It's worse than that. Each line mush get a laugh *from an audience of American 11-year-olds* - i.e. people with the critical sensibilities and comic finesse of the average European toddler.

That's why Spaceballs is so relentlessly grating, and why Police Squad was axed as being too intellectual. I ask you. A toilet humour-based comedy show, axed as too intellectual. Oh and they put a laugh track on M*A*S*H (shakes head in disbelief).

Well I hear they are planning to remake The Italian Job. With American actors (whose grasp of the wry understated humour of the original is likely to be less than perfect), using the new VW Beetle (a car designed by marketing men to help middle-aged hippies try to recapture lost youth, and which goes against all the rpinciples of the original) and set in Rome, because - get this - most people "don't know where Turin is."

Short of remaking Cry Freedom as a slapstick comedy set in the Bronx, I don't think any film could be more comprehensively ruined.

Ah! Flanders and Swann!

I saw them in 1957 or so at the Fortune and have been a MAJOR fan ever since. I once wrote to Swann and still have his hand-written and extremely kind reply. I 'do' various pieces drawn from their repertoire; I'll be 'doing' Misalliance next Friday at our Parish Church (Choir open evening) by special request of one of the boys - 'Do the funny one about the plants..'

I have the same volume that Zis Guy mentions.

çlever çlogs!

It's taken me 4 days to ifnd this in the mess of drifting thread which is this conversation ...

No I haven't. But I *have* got a book with all the words and music for the animal songs and both "hats" - which is most enjoyable, especially as (a) Mick Flan was a baritone, hence I can sing the songs in the right key and (b) my wife is a pianist, so we can flander about in the swanny river together

Not to cheat, though, all text posted here is guaranteed 100% off the top of the head and I am honour bound not to look the lines up. That would be as bad as practising beforehand (which ruins the fun). Also the music cupboard is over the other side of the room, and I can't be arsed to walk over there

Oh the hammer ponds of Sussex
And the dew ponds of the west
Are part of Britain's heritage,
The part we love the best.

Every eel and fish and mill pond
Has a beauty all can share
But not unless it's got
A big brass broken bedstead there!

(I love the line about "we leave them there at midnight / you can track a member's route / by the alternating prints / of boot and sock)

you´ve never heard of Humberto Ecco?! Jesus, that´s bad, really bad, dude.
If I were you I´d never mention that in public.

I think I've completely lost track of this thread and of who is replying to who/what/when/etc.

It could be worse - my mother knows nothing about technology, but thinks it is wonderful and can do anything. She is a bit of hippy & worried about nuclear arms - after watching War Games she asked me if I could use our computer to 'hack that NORAD thing and just switch it all off'.

I said, of course, just bring me some more hot water to run the Vic 20 on.............