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

The thing you have to remember about the intelligence of the average person is that fully half the world's population is stupider.

There's a bell curve, though. A disproportionately large number are clustered between 90 and 110. I've heard of people with IQ's of 90 working their way to PhD's. It's a question of motivation and emotional stability, and probably a lot of encouragement and support from those around them. IQ is what you start out with, but it isn't something that predestines you to an ignominious fate. You might have a low aptitude for literary pursuits, but you might have Pavarotti's voice. Pavarotti himself was not able to read music, and h's memory was apparently not that great, so right before every scene a coach would refresh his memory about what he was about to sing.

(I was joking. Actually, I believe it was one of Mr. Carlin's jokes.)

I'm glad to hear your explanation, Anhaga. Some of Mr. Carlin's books make me laugh until I cry, even as I'm scolding myself for being un-PC.

Emotional conflicts can trip up even the smartest of us. Bobby Fischer was just plain brilliant, but he veered into a state of craziness. Obsessive-compulsive patterns and biploar disorder can trip up a lot of people until they figure out what is happening to them. This can take years. Intelligence might not really be all that important in the scheme of things.

I saw a very sad poster on the subway in New York about how the world was going to end on the 23rd of May. This was two days ago, on the 28th of June.

Even a broken end-of-the-world poster is right once a year.

that just doesn't work- sorry

Oh I dunno, I've got a 1999 calender that still
works for most things like Xmas and Canada Day.
Though I gotta admit it's crap for moveable feasts
like Easter.

~jwf~

"that just doesn't work- sorry" [Shagbrk]

Now that I think about it, I see your point. I've said weird things before, and this is another of them. Let's just forget about it.

how about this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbGNcoB2Y4I
for those not handy with youtube it is the trailer to the Hitchhikers Guide Movie where the world ends.

I enjoyed that movie, though I found Mos Def totally perplexing. Still, it was worth the price of admission just hearing John Malkovich sing. It wasn't enough of a box-office sucess to ensure a sequel.

>> I found Mos Def totally perplexing. <<

Yes he captured the character perfectly.



So it turns out the end of the Whirled meant
the end of the News of the Whirled.

What is less known and little understood is
that it was a Vogon operation to make way for
a cyberspace bypass.

Hence fourth estate values in h2g2, the active
Earth Edition of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the
Galaxy will be `all the Noose you need, all the
time`.

I hope we can have music added directly to posts
and Entries soon. All these Utoobie links people
keep posting as cultural clues to the deeper intent
of their postings is causing many of us to spend far
too much time away from this site as we wander down
the Yellow Goldbricker Road of `related videos`.

Incestuous Utoobies are. Relations always presume.

There needs to be a tool where we can imbed opened
videos in our posts for atmosphere, mood, context,
texture, funk shway, emphasis, illustration, etc.

-jwf-

Embedded? Does this mean that when you go to a thread and read a post, lots of moving images will assail your eyes?

yes.

Anhaga, you are very very clever. I see that we already have a few moving smileys. I think they're cute, but that's because they have bright colors, and they're too small to seem threatening. Plus, many of them seem like toys.

Seriously, however, what troubles me about ~jwf~'s vision is that it is remarkably similar to Facebook.

Darn! I missed the whole thing! I can&#39;t even remember what I was doing at the time. I think I&#39;ll go make myself a sandwich, or launder the towel.

The Maya calendar doesn&#39;t actually run out when it completes the current cycle, winter solstice eve, 2012, any more than time runs out when the clock strikes twelve. It&#39;s just that moments like that have a &#39;magical&#39; significance for some.

A millenialist or apocalyptic &#39;prediction&#39; can amount to a symbolic call for commitment to reform.




I was really quite stunned when I found that the steps of the Maya temple of the sun made an echo that sounded like the cry of the quetzal bird, or calendar bird, of the Maya system when one claps one&#39;s hands or strikes a drum in front of the steps.


http://www.google.com/#hl=en&pq=quetzalcoatl%20images&xhr=t&q=quetzal+images&cp=7&pf=p&sclient=psy&source=hp&aq=0c&aqi=g-c2g-b1&aql=&oq=quetzalimages&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=fce33a84b0764b22&biw=1277&bih=652&bs=1


I had noticed the effect, a tonal quality being produced when one gets a series of echoes in rapid succession from a flight of successive steps in a stair way, and could easily design a series of steps to produce a discrete musical tone.

Composing a chord that way is only a little more difficult.

Designing a feature like that which faithfully reproduces the complex appogiatura of the voice of the quetzal bird would have required an artist with perfect pitch, a sophisticated knowledge of musical harmonics, good mathematical skills and a knowledge of the speed of sound.


http://www.junglewalk.com/popup.asp?type=a&AnimalAudioID=6605