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

LOL ... I know what you mean.

Contuing my saga of being raised by two extremes (which you'd thank me hasn't been mentioned anywhere here ), my father is that way... He not only thinks computers can do -anything- but that I can make them do it.

Excellent

This means the thread has either (a) acquired independent consciousness and taken on a life of its own, hopefully to emerge years later fully sentient and able to pay tax, or (b) drifted into the twilight zone of late-night clicking on buttons several inches form the one you were aiming at.

Either way, I thought that's what this place was *about*

As anybody who watches Hollywood films knows, an IBM XT is capable of rendering full-screen full-motion graphics in millions of colours, in real time; all building security systems contain a complete wireframe 3-d model of the building, with rendering of surfaces as an option, and capable of showing the location of any object with a photorealistic sprite; the Internet is so powerful that you can access any computer, anywhere, even if it is turned off, and then download the enitre Library of Congress in 15 seconds over a modem.

That's all well and good, but I still wish for a "go to latest reply" in that goo.

You mean I should stop bugging the Help Line people about why my 'puter won't do these things?


;^)#

I posted some suggestions to the PTB about that; also about flattening the reply trees. No response yet, but we live in hope

A 'go to latest reply' would be a start. However, I sometimes don't visit H2G2 for a few days, and even if I do visit every day it's possible for several replies to be posted in a single day. What I would like is a 'show me all the replies since I last visited this forum' button.

Hear, hear. To say that this thread is labrynthine is an understatement - and we are just making it worse! What fun! (or for the cynics, What fun?)

Right, draft it is; I stand corrected...actually, some scripts do arrive like that: the Americanised version of Red Dwarf featured Rob and Doug sliding revised scripts under the actor's doors before the next-day's shooting so they'd have something workable.

I'm always amazed by what producers think will "work": wind on the soundtrack when NOTHING in the picture's moving; a title that has nothing to do with the story....etc.

Fruitbat

Then I suppose you're unfamiliar with "Three Men and a Cradle" which had a serious point to make about the nature of irresponsible bachelors, and the American version "Three Men and A Baby" in which glamorous hunks played Daddy to a living doll that wet itself on camera, and which they were supposed to be utterly befuddled by...?

Adding to the list: "Le Femme Nikita" badly remade in America (on the grounds that most Americans won't read subtitles and the film simply HAD to be seen in America) as "Point of No Return";

"The Tall Blonde Man With One Red Shoe" remade almost 20 years later as "The Man With One Red Shoe". The comedy didn't work because the nervous nobody's-bother-with-me attitude of the French actor wasn't possible with Tom Hanks as the hero of the second.

Then there was "Down and Out in Beverly Hills", which was based on some French picture I've not heard of or seen. What was painfully obvious was tht the humour derived from what was not socially acceptable in a wealthy family in France at a given time (probably early '70's) simply doesn't bother anyone in late 1980's Los Angeles. The American version wasn't funny either, making me wonder why they bothered.

Fruitbat

I've often wondered what happens to shows that originate on NTSC and wind up on PAL or SEACAM; somehow, just adding to the number of lines doesn't feel like enough as the extra lines have to be generated from SOMEWHERE....

As for his "immense dimensidy", possibly that can be found in one of his many books and translated through text...?

Fruitbat

Also you can bypass any security and gain access to top secret files by simply typing "override".

I have several copies of that floating around my drives, with some small variances. I should get them together on a page.

*coils tail daintily* ... Maze? Cheese? *perk*

I've noticed that nobody's done a "McDonalds" on Bill Gates by posting a huge neon sign over Microsoft saying something to the effect of: How many software packages sold, how many actually understood, how many fully functional upon being loaded, how many returned in a blind fury, how long users spent on help-lines getting sorted out, etc."

That would be a useful contribution to the computing world. Spend little up front in exchange for expensive hours of grief later on.

Fruitbat (a smug Mac user)

SMUG - the Superior Mac User's Group, right?

So by inference - there's an Inferior Mac Users Group?

Yes, they use Windows, copied from the Mac with very limited success

When I was looking to buy a computer 5 years ago I did consider a Mac. However, they were considerably more expensive than a PC and I couldn't find any information about how their performance compared. Then I was concerned about how easy it would be to get software for them, as most packages I could find quoted Windows / PC requirements and said nothing about using them on Macs.

Perhaps if Macs had been cheaper and the information I wanted on performance and software availability had been more readily available I would have gone for a Mac. As it is I've got a fairly standard PC and I'm quite happy with it. Mind you, the only MS product on it is the operating system, and that's the way it's going to stay!

Macintosh: a computer with training wheels you can't remove.
3

Macs are just as prone to crashing as PCs, but they apologise... "I'm Sorry, A Serious Error Seems To Have Occured"...

On the main theme of the thread, I found that the greatest challenge in my system support days was trying to phrase a question to a user that could only have a yes/no answer, thus circumventing their life story as an explaination of how they came to click on a particular icon...

On hardware reminiscences, I have one 16K bubble memory board (for purely decorative purposes) from a Data General minicomputer. The complete machine had two of these boards, and a single-sided 8" FDD, to serve six terminals! By the time I helped "decomission" it, any one of the terminals had more processing power than the DG Mini!

On Flanders and Swann, I am in the process of arranging for a friend's collection to be transferred to CD, as he no longer has a working record player. We still sit upside-down in our chairs while listening to the sloth song...

On Science v. Art, I say let each side of the brain do its own thing! I often display my ignorance up-front, but that's not a sign of pride - just an attempt to point it out before someone else does.

I have no opinion on Dragon-related subjects (unless there's a 6809 involved)

Have I covered everything?

Oh and, Sex and Chocolate - Yes Please!