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

hello there, i am quite new around here and wanted to meet a few others so i was wandering around the site a bit when i came across your name ...it made me curious, what distant shores are you from? i love hearing about others as they always have very interesting stories to tell.
i also wanted to comment on your entry for your page, you are quite right, sometimes people get in such a hurry that they do not realize they are really slowing down....what is that saying i used to hear all the time?, 'running in circles', yes, that is it.....you find yourself so busy that you are running in circles instead of actually going anywhere. i always like to take my time, try to stop and smell the flowers so to say .
AA

Selamat datang dari rumah kura-kura ducat pantai pasir panjang. (Welcome to the home of the tortoise next to the white sandy beach).

Actually, it's not quite true whilst the nickname, hopefully, conjours up impressions of the coconut fringe white sandy beaches of the South China Seas, I'm actually in Kuala Lumpur. KL, as it's known in these parts, is a typical modern city. It does have a distinctly Asian feel to it, more so than Singapore and in some ways more so than Jakarta (due to the suppresion of the chinese language, which may have been lifted since I was last there when Suharto was still in power).

I am very fortunate in that Malaysia is one of our two home countries, the other being England. Quite often my wife and I feel more at home in each other's native country.

I, too, feel new to the guide. For me it is fascinating to see how the other "researchers" view the world. It demonstrates how we each see the world through our own limited perception and re-inforces my awareness of the danger's that can bring. It appears that many of the researchers are young, relatively wealthy and western (and probably white). They see the world in a different light to me. It's good, if not ncessarily comfortable, for me to understand a little at how they look at things.

To explain a little further, I had a futile forum conversation with the community editor. I don't think my English is that bad but it appears to me that she didn't understand the point I was trying to make. I commented that the five a day guarantee which promises five entries everyday of your working week was misleading because everybody's working week is different. My point being that there are five new entries of "our working week" that is Monday to Friday (no doubt excepting UK bank holidays).

I simply didn't get my point across and rather than remove one letter from the guarantee, there was much soul searching whether it would be possible to post new entries seven days a week.

Sorry to bang on, in essence I'm very much agreeing with you that it's very interesting to "meet" the other people and there is much we can learn from each other especially if we can start to see things from the other person's point of view.

(:

(The round yellow things remind me of possibly the world's most cycnical football team)

very interesting, you must tell me a bit about Malaysia sometime, i really am quite interested in places and things that are different from mine. i like to see the differences in other areas as well as the similarities.
one of the things that i have found which i like about this site is the diversity, so many different personalities and cultures in one place. it is a great way for us to learn more about things outside out 'bubble'.
i do not know if you have ever read the Post which is the virtual paper which is put up each week on h2g2 but i have been working with them for some time now (even though i have just now joined the site officially) and have found that it can be a good place to find different attitudes and such. it is fairly new to the site but i can see where with the help of other researchers it can be a great way to introduce lots of things we have not been privvy to before.
do not worry about 'banging on' as i said, i do enjoy hearing what others have to say, their thoughts and feelings.
do tell me one thing though...the smileys, why do they remind you of a football team and which one? you must excuse me but i do not really watch many sports as i have trouble understanding them.
AA

Malaysia is truly a country of differences out of which comes a unique harmony :

It is small but spread wide
It is developed and not developed
It has it full of modern buildings (including the tallest in the world) yet is covered with thousand year old rainforest
It has the world's most modern grand prix circuit and water-buffalo to plough the padi-fields
Its population is Malay and Chinese and Indian and Baba and Dayak and .. and .. not forgetting the Orang Asli (aboriginal)
Its religion is Islam but there are Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs
The government is a coaltion of Malay, Chinese and Indian, the opposition is a coaltion of Malay, Chinese and Indian.

I have no idea how this is different from your place.

I visited the Post once but nothing caught my eye, when I have more time I'll check it out again.

As for the smileys, in either the late 60s or early 70s Leeds United achieved success under Don Revie. Their style was extremely functional and regimented to the point of being cynical. They were never a popular team in the eyes of the neutral observer. Probably, for commercial reasons, they decided to improve their public image. The main gimic was to change the club badge on their shirt to a yellow smiley. At the start of a match they would all run to the centre circle and wave at the crowd. Personally, I don't think it improved their image one iota.

you have done a good job at describing malaysia for me maybe you would consider writing an article for the Post on this sometime...we are a 'work in progress' meaning that we are still getting our feet wet and discovering what the readers want and don't want to see...it would be great to have you wander back over to see if things have become any more interesting or not....if you have any comments on what can be done to improve it then please do leave us a note, we are always open to suggestions
AA

AA

I certainly give some thought to writing an article for the post. I still haven't had time to go back and re-visit the post. I'll try to do so once my work is a little less hectic.

(-:

i am sure you will enjoy it greatly everyone seems to get a 'thrill' out of seeing their work in print and others enjoy reading it i am pleased with the work that shazz and pastey have put into the post, they are the reason it is still going as it is spending their weekends gathering everything and making sure it is up and correct for monday mornings quite a bit of work for them to do but i am glad that they do it
i hope you are not too busy, remember to take a break now and then to enjoy yourself
AA

I dropped by the post this evening but didn't stay long as there was a problem viewing in from my machine. In case it helps, I'll describe the symptoms for you.

I am browsing with Meglosoft's Internet Controller Version 4.5 running on Mac OS 8.6 with the display set at Thousands of Colors (sic) and 1024x768. The active window can display in excess of 800x600 pixels.

The text is so small at normal that it is unreadable but increasing the text size (by clicking on the browser's Larger button) distorts the page so that it becomes to wide to be viewed without horizontal scrolling. The floating "The Post" icon doesn't move horizontally and sits on top of the text.

I'll drop by again next time I've a few minutes to spare.

i am sorry to hear that it caused you trouble i will see if i can get the lovely shazz and pastey to figure out what caused this for you and your browser
AA

Howdy, I know exactly what the problem is with the Post text on your screen. Your computer is a lot better than mine
I'm running much smaller monitors so I see the text clearer. I should really sort something out that automagically increases font size for people with bigger screens. To be honest I never thought about this problem. But now I know about it I'll try and sort it out

thank-you my dear pastey ....you are a gem to be of such help
AA

I've been working on the problem, and may have come up with a solution to it.
I've stuck in a bit of coding that grabs the readers screen resolution and then uses that to decide what font size to use. If the screen is larger than 800 pixels wide it makes the font size 4, else it keeps it size 3. Hopefully that will allow the text to become readable for all you folks out there with larger screens
I'm not sure if this works yet, as the best of my monitors can only manage 800x600, the other managing 640x480 I've asked Arnia to help by checking it out, but due to browser refesh rates and all that it may be sometime before I know. The 1-2-1 article from this weeks Post has had the code put into it, so if you want to see if it's working, then try reading that one
If it does work then I'll stick that bit of code into the programme I wrote to format the articles, so it'll be there on all future articles

Pastey

Firstly, thanks for the complement about my machine. I have to agree that basically Macs are superior to machines running Meglasoft's Windows. Of course, they do have their disadvantages, one of which is that many websites are totally geared to Windows browsers.

Mac's aren't expensive, you can get reconditioned ones quite cheaply. I've read somewhere that 70% of all MACs made are still being used !! Perhaps you can twist somebodies arm to get you one for testing out The Post before publication !!!

I checked out the article in the 1-2-1 pop-up and the font was still very small, I could just read it. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Macs use 1 pixel per pt and Windows uses 1.3 pixels per pt. This could be part of the problem. (I find Low End Mac (www.lowendmac.com) is a good source of Mac related information).

When I get a little time, I'll try to do a little investigation at my end.

(-:

From Distant Shores

Pastey

I downloaded the source of the 1-2-1 article to see if I could help isolate the problem for you. I really don't know much about HTML and JavaScript but I was able to determine the following :

1. The FONT SIZE displayed is size 3. (If I change the SIZE="fSize" to SIZE="4", then size 4 is displayed.

2. Screen.availWidth returns 1020 on my machine using IE 4.5 Mac Ed.

3. The scope of your variable fSize is restricted to the function findFSize() ie it is a local variable. It is correctly set to 4 within the function.

4. When I made fSize a global variable the font size still displayed at Size 3 eventhough fSize was visible and contained 4.

I'm afraid that has exhausted my current JavaScript knoweldge, hope it helps a little.

Keep (-:

From Distant Shores

Cheers FDS, I'm afraid that using my machine I have absolutely no way of testing that bit of code out. It seems that from what you've said that although it defines fSize as being 4 , it does it too late to make any difference to the article. There are ways around this, I could set each article up to be written ad-hoch, but I'm intending to get them hosted soley on h2g2 soon, so it would be a bit of wasted coding.

I wish I could twist some arms to get me a decent machine to do the Post on, but seeingas how we're all doing this voluntarily, seperate from tdv (who run h2g2 in case you didn't know) there are no arms to twist

I am however expecting a whole load of new gubbins for this machine sometime in the next seven weeks, but seeing as how I'm getting married in seven weeks, then two weeks honeymoon, I think it'll be around ten weeks time before I can start playing decent games again

Pastey

I think you 10 week estimate is a little over optimistic. (-:

Congratulations and good luck with the wedding.

From Distant Shores

Cheers FDS

I think that I should be able to get teh machine running better quite quickley once I get the parts. I'm now working at the Post Office, delivering mail, so all my days are free from around lunch time. lots of spare hors to fight Windoze

Pastey

I dropped by your h2g2 home page and learnt of your recent employment by the Post Office and your understandable frustration with the employment agency. I always imagine that delivering mail would be quite satisfying. You're out in the "fresh' air, get some genuine exercise and when you clock off work is over, no worrying about when will I ever get this chuffing program to work etc..

On the other hand, I'm sure it has it's downsides too.

For myself, I used to earn my living as a programmer and I still work in IT. My programming was all pre-internet, actually pre-PC except for a few Cobol programs I wrote for an accounting package which ran on a Z-80 under the CP/M operating system. Programming for me is now an infrequent hobby, but still very enjoyable.

I think I have found the answer to your programming challenge on changing the font size. I'm not sure that its the best answer but it works.

Your comment that "it was too late to change the font size" pointed me in the write direction. The answer is to use JavaScript to write the HTML Font Tag. (HTML itself cannot process commands, it will only accept a typed number of between 1 and 7. When using JavaScript to write HTML, HTML treats it in the same way as if you have typed it yourself. I'm sure this is as clear as mud to you.)

Here's the answer :

Replace



With


document.write("");


The other change that is needed is to move the declaration of fSize before the Function findFSize so that it becomes a global variable and can be accessed in subsequent SCRIPTs.

Maybe you could consider writing a function to set the size to reduce typing.

If you want to test whether it works on your own machine, you could try temporarily changing the test in findFSize to x > 200.

(-:

From Distant Shores

Cheers FDS

That was sort of what I was looking at as well

even though this is all Greek to me i thought i would stop back by to see how things were progressing with the problem...i am glad to see that it is being worked out
AA