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

"Look out! Behind you - ooh too late" as my old mum used to say.


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How did you create him so quickly?

TDV might think they have 17000 users, but in reality 15,963 are mine - I'm sure they'll come in handy one day.

btw I'm sure thats a false beard Harry was wearing.


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hotmail

Fantastic! Thanks, Si, that's exactly the piece to which I was referring.

I'm good at C++ (amongst other languages), know a bit about hardware, got an 'A' grade for English Literature 'O' level, am fairly well read in the classics AND I can program our video without using Videoplus. So there!

I used to work for a company where there was very little communication between the software team and the hardware team. In fact, the hardware team used to take the attitude that certain things should be detected and dealt with by the software, because it was easier to do it that way than to change the circuits. This lead to the following 'joke':

How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, we'll do it in the software.
How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, it's a hardware problem.

Having read the book and then seen the film, I reckon the films a pretty good adaptation and I prefer its ending to the ending in the book.

Completely off the subject of computer users. Can anyone explain why some films which are book adaptations bear so little relation to the book? At least in the musical 'Oliver' they had the decency to say 'Loosely based on a book by Charles Dickens'. And it was a closer adaptation than some I've seen!

Microsoft wouldn't need so many helplines if their products weren't so bug-ridden and such utter cr*p!

It's because translation from one medium to another always means changing things. There are things which work perfectly in a novel which just won't work in a film. Interior monologue is a good example. It's fine in a book, but in a film it's usually awkward.

As proof, I cite David Lynch's adaptation of 'Dune', a film in which the whole story is told through voiceover (at least, that's how it seems).

Dont forget that the book has to be 'fitted' to a suitable movie length. Even allowing for the 'a picture is worth a thousand words' factor most books would be too long & therefore too expensive for a straight convesion to a movie.

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The IT in our Company are superb ....

.............. that is if you are around tomorrow and don't need your problem sorting out straight away! We have a tendancy to employ small diminutive men who carry the look "if you shout at me again I'll cry"!!!

The best one in our place at the moment is they are rebuilding everyone's PC's - unfortunately after the rebuild they seem to crash! There is no way am I letting anyone near mine - it works fine and I am a firm believer in the old saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"

Pretending to be Harry didn't fool me for a second - He could never cope with logging onto the internet let alone using forums!

ahhh well I guess the false beard was a waste of time then.


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I seem to remember he had a moustache but don't remember a beard! You would to have had a really loud honking laugh as well!

Good try though!

I appreciate the facts given in the previous two replies. But it doesn't explain why some 'adaptations' bear no more resemblance to the book they were adapted from than the use of the names of the main characters.

errr, umm, artistic license??


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Have no fear I read the other day that windows might be obsolete in four years time and we might be using Lynux as our OS

I should of added that a lot of people are useing lynux allready

I understand the gnome project is running quite well, and there's another (KDE?) which is even incorporating the drag-n-drop function. Personally I generally boot to linux when I've had -quite- enough GUI thankyouverymuch. I haven't adjusted Xwin to my 'new' machine yet... (erm.. new=15months)

So sue me. I grew up on a VAX.

I was talking to an IT guy and he was helping a stupid user turns out the users problem was that he or she had not turned ether the monitor or the computer on