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

For some reason I thought Dimitri was a gal. It's a bloke's name of course, but I'd picked up that he was a she somewhere along the line.

I can't help with the inbox - can Bel?

Wasn't it one of the signs that you're a child of the internet age if you don't know the gender of 3 of your 5 best friends because their screen names are neutral and you never bothered to ask?

(Must get off to bed now - spent a long and surreal day in England for a job interview - but I'll see what I can do about it tomorrow. )

(And if it's for print, I'd consider submitting Gheorgheniplex and Platypus Dancing as .tiff files, the others should be fine as jpgs)

>> Is the idea to have every entry illustrated? Just so I know what we're actually doing instead of running around at cross-purposes..

I was going to use what we could, but other than the Inukshuk I wasn't going to ask for any more. The Inukshuk needs an illustration though because they are hard to visualise.

My thinking is that we should highlight what's already around, rather than to rustle up a load of new illustrations which would inevitably put a big strain on you guys, and I don't want to push my luck!

It's not just the strain though, it's about fairly and accurately representing what's here, rather than commissioning new stuff.

Does that make sense?

Ben

PS - I am absolutely open to suggestions of really good images to use whether they are cartoons or blobs. We just need permission. I totally Wowbagger's cartoons and I think I want to marry Spimcoot's, or have a laid back and decadent gin-fueled affair with them anway.

>> Wasn't it one of the signs that you're a child of the internet age if you don't know the gender of 3 of your 5 best friends because their screen names are neutral and you never bothered to ask?



Or their age.

Or indeed their species.

http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/426/nobodyknowsyoureadogontheinternet.jpg

Maybe I should leave it to Mal.

Divvy it up between her.

You asked a day or so ago how long we'd got. Actually, it might have been paulh who asked that. Either way, I'd like to have it done and dusted by the weekend of the 23rd/24th *at the latest* - I want to keep the pace up though, because if we can manage the weekend of the 16th/17th, that gives me a whole extra week for other plotting and planning....

B

With her.

Between you.

*Given Ben's response to spim's work, wonders if she should be happy or concerned that she introduced Ben to it...*

Spimcoot was a darling. I remember a wonderful afternoon lounging with him in a park in London. Glorious sunshine, glorious company. I miss him, sometimes.

Hello, this seems to be coming along nicely. However, my 'nominated' Entry about the Beer Flood while being written by me was researched a lot by Clive - so not sure it's wholly my own doing. I prefer my Ghost Chicken Entry to be honest.

As far as UnderGuide stuff is concerned, I used to be an UG Editor, so could look through the backlog. There's some absolute gem in there.

And is emr (echomikeromeo) on the list? Her work was always outstanding.

or indeed my Entry on the Stephens Island Wren, which I was very proud of - my own Last Chance to See Entry...although it was gone before we even did see it...

Hi Matt

The list is pretty much together and finalised now. I'm happy to swap entries out and replace them with others, but I don't have any spare slots left... Could you give us a link to your preferred entry? I'm happy to swap so long as it doesn't unbalance the collection in other ways. I like the London Beer Flood because it's (a) funky and (b) about London.

Be of good cheer- there's always the 2nd volume....

Is Clive still around? If we need to co-credit him, then we need his permission.

Thanks for joining in here.

Ben

I very nearly chose the St Stephen's Island Wren, Matt, it makes such an important point (sez me, who locks her cat out all day because corpses on the carpet are a pain to clean up). It's also about the Antipodes and we are light on entries about Australasia. In the end I went for Frenchbean's entry on Tonga (not Australasia, but not Europe/America either) and her Earthquake Journal.

Still, the wren could sneak in under the wire I guess.... I'd have to look at the list again.

B

Clive is still around--I'll go poke at him later (RL is happening in just a moment)

I'm working on getting spim to come back, now that I know I've a good email for him. He said he'll probably be back when his book comes out (I don't think he'll mind a bit of pre-advertizing--the book is about Eustace, and has the story from here with different illustrations, which is why only Paper Cuts is in the list of his works.) If you don't mind, Vip, I'll point out to him that he has at least 1 more lady that would like to see him back

I would be honoured, Amy. *bows*

Ask him if he wants us to use his real name. Actually, I ought to check that with everyone, really.... *sigh*

Sorry I'm late to this conversation.

I've been saving all my G'plexes as .jpgs because I was told that's all you could use. So I don't have any copies in .gif or .tiff or intergalactic standard format...

Can you just resave them as .gifs? (Ask Mala.) Or I'll draw you some, if you tell me what you need...

The comment that mine were 'just shocking' took me aback for a minute......I thought, 'well, yeah, but it isn't nice to say so...'

Anyhow, no, you can only have the name 'Dmitri Gheorgheni'. I pay good money for that name.

To answer your question as simply as possible: yes you can re-save them as gifs, but it won't do any good.

See this smiley? Now see this one?

They look very different because the second one has been antialiased - the jagged edges are gone, unlike on the first one, and it blends smoothly into the background. Saving as a .jpg does something similar; it smooths the transitions so you get a smaller file. Those smileys are saved as .gifs, but it didn't un-smooth them.

Original jpgs would be better than the small versions published in the Post, though. Our current Eds (sorry, Eds) don't seem to know how to prepare images for web and save .jpgs as .jpgs again to change the title; that degrades the quality every time. You end up with noise - so-called artifacts, the pixels that just don't look right - around the edges.

I'll get on asking people of their name preferences and get back to you by the weekend *note to self--no need to ask Dmitri, and be sure to check this thread so as to not to double-ask*