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

Sorry, English isn't my main language.

No need to apologize, Interestman. I believe Yelbakk was referring to the useless fact that ASTROnauts do not travel to among the stars (yet) as the term would seem to indicate. Cosmonauts is a technically more correct term as they can (somewhat) be considered to travel in the cosmos. LEOnauts, might be a more accurate term currently since we have no one going farther than Low Earth Orbit.

Leonauts do not walk among lions, then?

Y.

There just isn't a perfect word for "space traveler" is there? How about we just pick an arbitrary meaningless name like "fleebs"?


By the way, did I ever mention the unit of measurement of space sickness used informally by some members of the US Space program, the "Garn" unit, named after former US senator/astronaut Jake Garn? Seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Garn#Spaceflight

Well, "kosmonaut" is someone who travels the cosmos, the old Greek idea of space. An astronaut is someone navigating to the stars. And although we haven´t made it but to our satellite, calling them "moonies" would sound a bit daft.

And why should it be that every word should mean *exactly* what the etymology means? Should we applaud every time we find something plausible?

It still sounds better than Exatmosphereonauts.

Or Spaminacandines.

Heh... The formal term for astronaut trainees is Astronaut Candidates... which we shorten to AsCans.

Apparently, there has yet to be a sinister pope. I'm referring, of course to the definition of sinister as meaning left handed. Any other connotations I'll leave up to the judgement of the reader.

Almost missed this. Today, 19 April, 2011 was the day that SkyNet becomes self-aware. Where's Sarah Connor?

No, no, SkyNet became self-aware in 1997. Sarah Connor died of leukemia that same year. (Everyone knows that Terminator 3 never happened.)

Well, there is that.

You may wonder why there wasn't a nuclear war and billions of deaths. Actually there was. Humans lost. The survivors (that's us) had our memories erased and were plugged into a gigantic interactive virtual reality simulation so we wouldn't realize that we were born and died as slaves, thus allowing SkyNet and its machine army to use our brains as bio-chemical supercomputer processors.

It's perhaps questionable whether this is necessarily a bad thing: is "freedom" really worth the loss of virtually all physical pleasures? Would you really prefer trying to scratch a living out of a post-apocalyptic wasteland? And even if /you/ would, would someone else? Do you have the right to take that choice from them? Don't your vaunted principles of "freedom" obligate you to let them make that choice themselves, without only giving them vague hints of what it entails, but rather the whole and honest truth?

I don't know, but it doesn't really matter when you think about it, because actually this was all thousands and thousands of years in the past (yet still somehow using a gregorian calendar and modern clothing styles), before the last survivors of a brilliant and devestating surprise attack on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol managed to find and colonize Earth through no adequately explained methods.

In the thousands of years interim, the Milky Way Galaxy, which was only barely inhabited before, witnessed the evolution of a parasitic species with a genetic memory and mind-control abilities. Discovering a network of devices left behind by a neglectful precursor race that create artificial wormholes in space and time, they use them to carve a mighty empire in the stars. These evil parasites stumble upon Earth and the now-primitive humans living there. Using their advanced technology to pose as Gods, they genetically modify human beings for their own purposes, and spread them throughout the entire galaxy, terraforming countless worlds. The people on Earth rebel however, and the parasitic demons abandon it, allowing its civilization to develop without further interference. Millennia later, a Stargate that was left behind is found in the sands of Egypt, and the foolish and short-sighted humans of Earth use it to travel to an alien world, where they kill the leader this parasitic species, who they learn are named the Goa'uld, witlessly starting a war with Earth (mostly just America really) and the ancient Gods of our own myths and legends!! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

But really that's neither here nor there.

<<

It still sounds better than Exatmosphereonauts.

Or Spaminacandines.>>

I dunno "Spaminacandines" sounds pretty to me!

Gay men have longer index fingers than straight men do...

and you would have to throw a ball up at a speed of around 7 miles per second (25,000mph) for it not to fall back down to earth.

<>

(*relative to their ring fingers)

A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in spring.

If gay men have longer index fingers does that make them better baseball pitchers?
Maybe the MBA should use this as a criteria in the draft .

Talking of Spring and summer - can anyone explain the nursery rhyme "Here we go gathering nuts in May?" Nuts aren't ripe till the autumn!

According to a site that shall not be named, the "nuts" could have originally been "knots" of flowers collected for May Day celebrations. Or possibly edible tubers called pignuts.