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

Okay, so this is probably a bit of a cheat, but I occasionally come across interesting bits of information that I want to share with the community, and so have to come up with some contrived way of turning the thing into a question so that I can put it in ask, and so share.

But I'm giving up with this one. I just want to show it to people, so I'm put it here, and asking, is there anything you have discovered today that you would like to share too?

Here's mine - the meaning of pavement markings explained: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25915468


Geggs

Giant fish are heading up the Mississippi and threatening the Great Lakes. Ggreat horror movie plotline, I thought!

Nice one, Geggs

BBC News Magazine often has gems like that.

Today I discovered that the little blobs that appear at the top of your TV screen 10 seconds before the commercial break are called 'cue dots', and their days are numbered.

Aren't those cue dots related to the wee dots that used to appear on film to warn the projectionist that a change of reels was imminent?

Same principle. These ones tell the power companies when the surge is about to happen - we all boil the kettle when the ads come on.

I completely agree, Icy. The BBC Magazine regularly comes up with interesting little titbits like that I often think would make perfect additions to the Guide, but now can't be, because the Magazine has now done it brilliantly, and any re-write a researcher might do to get it into the Guide could only suffer in comparison.

If you see what I mean.


Geggs

I once wrote to the BBC Editors suggesting that they archive BBC News Magazine articles into the Edited Guide, or adapt them for it. It never happened.

They may have been leery about H2G2's long term chances of staying under BBC control. I can't speak for them, though. That's just a guess.

According to a Nick Reynolds blog I read, there was indeed a bit of tension in the BBC online space over this sort of thing.

I cleaned out my desk today and discovered a lot of old computer user guides, dozens of diskettes from a long-ago time when you saved files on diskettes, printer user manuals, etc. Also some pens and pencils, which are going to be very useful.

I moved a sideboard in the living room this evening and found two corpses!

Not human ones, I assume?


Geggs

A mouse and probably a mouse.

I also discovered that the fousty smell wasn't coming from them but the vole one of the cats had tossed on top of the storage heater

It must have been a vole de mort.

I discovered that iframes don't work as advertised.

I made up a web page and it looked great on localhost, but when I uploaded it, the background color would NOT appear. Instead the background image showed through. The markup had to be scuttled.

How the tank was developed:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-25109879


Geggs

I've discovered a number of 'Quite Interesting' things recently, not all of them today.

Robert Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle and one-time friend of Darwin, was responsible for the legislation requiring masters and first mates of merchant vessels to be certificated to prove they knew what they were doing. He was also Governor of New Zealand for a short time.

St. Briavel's castle in the Forest of Dean was the chief centre for the manufacture of crossbow bolts in England in the 13th century.