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

A Brief History of Time? Sheesh! Doesn't anyone around here read People magazine?!!?

Say, response time is pretty bad right now. I see you are logged on, have you noticed the same thing on your side?

I'll peek at the h2g2 Post while I am on a conference call that begins in a couple of minutes. See, we here in The States don't get all of those extra holidays that y'all do!!!

And if you don't care for Star Trek, how 'bout that movie Contact with Jodie Foster? Corny ending, I thought. I just enjoyed watching Matthew Macohahey (Spelling?) I'll watch that guy recite the phone book, he's THAT easy on the eyes!!

Hi

On the reading matter front, does the Sun count?

The response times from h2g2 are ok over here at the moment but I just tried a site based your side of the pond and got a timeout error, So I guess the bit of string accross the atlantic is getting stretched again, it quite often happens at this time of day

I'm not a great movie watcher even on TV, I can't sit still long enough, even at the moment I'm watching the snooker on TV and playing around here at the same time. (or at least trying to )

Gotta Go
I'm off to meet some friends at the pub for a pint or three.
or should that be

The SUN! That was it. I couldn't think of the name of one of your tabloids, so I used our "People" magazine instead. Yes, it counts. If I were English, I'd be a regular reader of The Sun!
NOT!

The reason that I don't read much is because I can't sit still long enough! I limit my reading to technical stuff for the purpose of finding answers that my employer PAYS me to find. I do programming and design, so my nose is in IBM manuals and on technical web sites quite frequently, so the last thing I want to do when I get home is to read a book for "fun". I have a short attention span, I get bored easily in other words, so I gravitate towards magazines ... but NOT to Vogue and Cosmo! I mean more news oriented magazines. I don't watch movies much either, just once in a while. I'd rather get out and meet people and experience life rather than just read about it.

Cute little mug-cons, I'll have to remember those!
I don't suppose you went to drink American beer, huh?!?!
Hope you had a pint for me.

Hmm...

Sun + Reader thats two words you would not normally put together; mind you most sun readers can't either!... .

Above joke copyright Jasper Carrot, who used to do a whole set based on Sun reader jokes.


Like you I spend much of my working time with my nose in technical manuals.
In real life I work as a Railway Signal Engineer, which means all my friends can feel free to cuss me when the trains are delayed even when its nothing to do with me!!.

So when not working my limit is a copy of the Gaurdian and the occaisional computer magazine most of the time, but if I do get into a book I'm in "do not disturb" mode until I've finished.

On the beer front I was drinking Budwiser last night but not the US kind, this one comes from Budvar in the Czech Republic (Budwise in its german spelling), the US and Czech brewers have had quite a few court cases over here about who owns the copyright on the name, the end result (so far) is both can use it!!
As I had a few pints you can lay claim to one if you want

here it is

.||
/ |_|

Still in the bottle

Cheers

Bugger
it must have got broken in transit, (it worked in the preview window)

Hmm. Thanks for the beer! Aaaah! That hit the spot. I have never heard of the Budweiser duplication. Interesting. Personally, I like a Canadian beer like Molson. Pardon my blondeness, but if you have two beers with the same name, like, how does the bartender know what you want?!?!? Like, I'd be TOTALLY confused, 'ya know!

What time is it over there right now anyways? Aren't you about 8 hours ahead of US Eastern Time? I am in the Central US time zone, by the way. It's just about 1:30pm now. I am at work, on a conference call. That's why I am web surfing! Honestly, I have never heard so many people talk so much, but end up saying so little!!!
Yeesh!

American Budwiser is normally reffered to as Bud the Czech one is less common but is normally sold as Budwiser Budvar but it does cause confusion when I'm drinking in a round with someone who is on the American version.

Assuming everyone is now on Summer time (we all seem to change on different weeks, just to add to the confusion)

Should be 6 hours later than you,
so I assume its about 2pm your time as it's 8pm here.

Any way must go its the Pub Quiz tonight.

I am sitting here in the midst of this huge cube farm still on this stupid conference call. We are on hour number six! I am gonna go crazy!

Pub Quiz night, huh?!? Have fun!

Ah well we came third out of eight teams
Must do better next week....

Cube farms ? I don't think I could stand it.
I've worked in open plan offices in the past and at the moment I've managed to gain my "own" office (With Windows, Glass variety not Software)
But the idea of trying to work in silly little cubicles seems to me to be the worst of both worlds.
In open plan you can have a bit of banter with everyone else while getting on with your work, which is how I've worked for most of the last twenty something years, and since I've had my own office the door is open except when I've got to deal with something nasty.
Normally I can pick and choose when I get disrupted, except by my bosses (but even they have been known to beat a hasty retreat when it looked like they might get dragged into something they might wish to deny later ).

As for confrence calls I hate them, they never seem to achive anything, at least if you meet face to face you can do a deal over coffee during a break in the meeting.

Maybe I'm getting old but we used to sort problems out after work over a pint (and I think we got more things sorted with less hassle and paper work !!)

I noticed that you changed the subject to the "Dilbert Syndrome". How appropriate!! Since I began working with this company, I have called my job a "Dilbert Nightmare". I agree with your accessment of the cube farm. The problem is that I was lied to in the job interview. I too had a window office, though mine was with a major American corporation (a retailer). I had almost 11 years in with them, and I walked away on principle. I ended up at another major American employer, though this time an IT Services company that has a worldwide presence. Since it's programming by the pound (weight not your currency) they skimp on expenses everywhere they can so long as it doesn't annoy the any of their friends in the entrenched "good 'ole boy" network that permeates the place. Ugh! I plan t leave as soon as I see a better deal. The job market is not the party that it was 2 years ago. I went from a window office with a real wood door to a cube the size of my bathroom!!! But I make a lot more money so maybe I should be glad that I am not on a folding table in the hallway!

I agree with your view of conference calls as well. Today was miserable and we have part 2 ALL DAY on Thursday. What a total waste of time. Perhaps we should break out the beer and get this project MOVING!

Third out of eight, huh? Well, you beat MOST of your opponents!
Shouldn't you be in bed by now? I wouldn't want you to fall asleep while staring out your window!

Here's your prize for coming in 3rd: !

Say, did you notice that one of MY forums (Well, where do I begin) is the 4th busiest!

You were right, I should have been in bed by the time I last posted but thats the problem with h2g2 it's addictive.
I wasn't in the office today, instead it was a slog round the London Orbital Carpark, officially known as the M25 motorway and out to site around Reading and Newbury.
As usual it only stopped raining when I had finished on site, still thats a price worth paying to escape from the office for a while.

Your views on the cubes seem to bear out my instinctive prejudice against them and as for promises made at job interviews well I'm still waiting to see the exciting developments promised when I started as a trainee 20 + years ago

I'm a bit late getting here tonight because I popped in to see my parents on the way back from site.
I had a quick look in earlier using my dads computer but didn't have time to post then.

Parents
Usual routine, Scrounge a cup of tea and then spend a couple of hours listening and listening...... but they are OK really

Sadly I failed to look at the busiest forums list, so I missed it but well doe anyway

Well, I may be blonde, but I was also born and raised in New York City which means I am not easily convinced by strangers! I know that during a job interview, both sides are doing a little puffing. I avoid that, because I have no interested in talking my way into a job that I am not interested or qualified to do. I want the RIGHT job, so I am one of the few (probably) who doesn't lie or exaggerate during an interview. I don't believe every pie in the sky promise the prospective employer makes either, but when I ask simple questions about WHO I will report to, I expect the truth. I was lied to about that even. But 'nuff about that. That's in the past. but when I think about it, my blood boils still.

Why were you in Reading and Newbury today? Business or pleasure? You used the words "on site" and here that usually means you were working. I guess I am trying to learn English slang!
All I know is what I hear in the British Comedies like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. The nurse in my Dr's. office is English, and I get an earful of slang when I talk with her! Very nice lady, actually.

Well, if you are late due to a parental visit, that's quite alright! I believe family is important. I got a chuckle when you said that you logged on from your parents house ... you MUST be addicted!!!

I think my forum dropped from the top 5 busiest list. It got hot and heavy last night, while you were out DRINKING while us hockey fans argued about the playoffs. If my team loses, I am going to be stuck putting a banner on my home page congratulating the winning team. I should know better than to take stupid bets, but there 'ya go!

Well, I am glad that you had a good day!

Applying for the RIGHT Job?

I only applied for my current job because I knew who else would be applying and I didn't fancy working for any of them! if it hadn't been for that I would have been quite happy to stay in my old job.

Yes on site does mean the same here, I spend about half my time away from the office, where depends on what contracts we have at the time.
However railway lines look much the same anywhere so I don't normally get to see the local tourist spots, just Rails Sleepers and Ballast

As for Slang, I'm never too sure whats slang and whats not as new words and sayings are always appearing and its only a matter of time until they get recorded in a dictionary, such are the delights of a living language.

As for logging in from my parents house, its not all that suprising, my father is probably more knowlegeable about computers than I am.
Before he retired he worked on data communications systems for the government and later the police.

Since he retired he spends even more time "playing" with computers as a hobby and repairing them for friends.
My mothers view is at least it keeps out from under her feet.
Since we were sorting out a problem with ie5 on a machine at the time, it had to be tested, so how better than h2g2.

I assume its Ice Hockey your talking about? Hockey over here involves running around a field chasing a ball with sticks.
I won't be taking any bets on that as I dont even know who the teams are, having only seen it a few times on TV.

PS hows the great waste of time going? (Conference call)

Ha! Funny you should ask! I have my headset on now as I listen to more of the same BS. Nothing is getting resolved, only "action items" are being created. Oooh, they just took a break and we reconvene (spelling?) at 3pm eastern. Yippee! I am not joking, Bloke, this stupid requirements document is 164 pages long and we ar on page 43 after 1.5 days!! Help me!!!!

Well, at least you get out of the office from time to time. Even if you get rained on, you still have a change of scenery!!

Does you dad log on to this site too? If so, what's his nickname? I'll have to watch what I say!! By the way, I didn't know how to post a joke, so I went to the joke page and pasted a good clean one into the discussion forum. If you get a minute, you might want to take a peek at it. It's relates to new terms for the 00's, which ties in nicely with our conversation about slang!!

Yes, I was referring to professional ice hockey. Although I do know what you mean by what we call field hockey (chasing a ball around in a field using sticks). I played field hockey in high school! I had never heard of it before, and I was told by the coach that it was a "rich girls sport" that originated in England. I didn't know if that was true or not, I just thought it was fun!
Well, the NHL playoffs are in full swing now, and if you suddenly see sports banners on my page or the pages of others, you'll know it's because we lost a bet!

I'd love to enter in your quiz game at the pub and take on the sports questions!! But then again, I suppose they wouldn't ask about North American pro hockey, they'd ask about English Football (a.k.a. soccer to us) right? Well, I could answer any question about fashion and supermodels anyways!

Bit late replying because I spent last night having a meal with some friends I hadn't seen for a few months.
Good chinese restaurant in Aylesbury (about 40 miles north west of London)
Very little to drink though because I was driving.
We got there at 8pm and didn't leave until 1am so it must have been a good night
But it also means I missed the virtual 1st birthday party
Still I may be able to get to the h2g2 gathering in London on in two weeks
Subject to work commitments

Oooh great 164 pages of reqirements
I bet they could really fit it onto two sides of A4 if they tried .
I also bet that the most important piece of information thats needed to complete the project will turn out to be missing from the final document so that there will be major rows before the job is finished!!

How can I say this without even knowing what the project is.........

Because it happens to us every time


I don't think my dad logs on to this site, and if he does then even I don't know his nickname.
but he was a fan of the HitchHikers guide when it was a radio series, So I'd better watch out

Hockey a GIRLS sport!!!!!!
I'll have you know its played by blokes as well, I used to occasionally play in goal at school!!!very badly, I may add, which was why it was occasional
After I left school I played a few times in mixed games and you girls play far more dirty than us blokes
I can confirm that all goalkeepers have season tickets for the local hospital, I spent a fair bit of time there!! Ouch

Old saying #76443

All hockey goalkeepers must have their heads examined before the game to ensure that there no brain there to be damaged .

Coming back to rich girls sports,
I think the posh girls schools play Lacrosse, don't ask me to descibe it but it involves sticks with nets on and is possibly even more dangerous than hockey.

With regard to the pub quiz, Ice Hockey is just the sort of thing that does come and catches us all out, you would probably think the questions sooo simple

I'm trying not to mention football (soccer) because my local team Wimbledon are only just above the relegation zone from the premier league and we have a match tommorrow against Bradford who are one place and two points below us at the moment, and there are only three games to go in the season

Just had a look at your joke page

Hey there! Glad you had a nice visit with your friends. Chinese food is my favorite. These must be good firends of yours if you missed the 1st virtual birthday party!! I missed it as well, but I am not as involved with this site as you are, obviously. There's a lot of activity for only being up a year. Who started this site, and why? Who pays for it? I don't see ads, and servers and maintenance cost money ...

You are right on the money with your comments about the most important piece being left out of requirements documentation. This is a HUGE brand new project, and I have a feeling that a LOT of things won't become apparent until the last minute. And it our client, it will take an act of congress to get permission to change the text of a stupid column heading on a screen! No, our client isn't the US Government, it's actually SLOWER moving!!

I was told that field hockey was a girls sport. We played wearing little skirts, of all things. We had shorts underneath, of course
I know what Lacrosse is, but I never played it. It's like field hockey, but instead of swatting the ball up the field, in Lacrosse you carry the ball up the field in the netting on the end of your stick. I guess you have to tackle each other to get the ball loose or something, I don't know. In high school, field hockey was the fall sport for girls, for boys it was soccer. The winters sports were basketball (boys and girls had their own teams), plus wrestling for boys and cheerleading for girls. I played basketball. In spring it was softball and track for both boys and girls. I opted out of spring sports. After a couple of years, the school dropped field hockey and replaced it with volleyball for girls. I went out for that as well, and broke my elbow during a practice when some clumbsy woman bumped into me when I was airborn spiking the ball over the net. That was quite painful!!

Hope your football team won! If your pub quiz asked who won The Stanley Cup (the North American NHL championship) last year, it was MY Dallas Stars!!! They are doing well this year so far, and I have a bet with Marv the Grate that MY Stars will beat his Colorado Avalanche when they likely will meet in the next round, assuming both win THIS round. Actually, my true allegiance is with the NY teams, but 2 of the 3 of them didn't make the playoffs, and I have lived in Texas for 12 years now so I may as well live like the natives do, right?

So what went on at the virtual birthday party, anyways?

Having arrived in London "for a few months" twenty four years ago and then stayed, ever since my normal diet seems to consist of Chinese, Indian or similar, Probably because I'm single and damn'd lazy in the cooking department, (although I can turn out a pretty good meal if I've got friends round).
As for the vitual first birthday party I didn't really miss it because you can always read it after, and I'm not one of of the most prolific posters on this site anyway.

As for who started this site and why?
The answer has to be Douglas Adams in association with some others for the who bit look for users with researcher numbers below 10K, they are either staff or part of the start up team, but the why I'm not fully sure but I know it was a good idea
The concept is based on the guide as described in The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and the h2g2 is activly being developed for use with WAP phones etc, which will get closer to that aim.

(oh yeah how did the weekend reading go? )


As for the who's paying for it, I don't know, obviously the one small banner ad at the top of the page can't bring in enough on its own.
I know ,TDV, the company behind this site, also runs Starship Titanic and some other sites associated with projects Dougles Adams is involved with, but I dont think it could be classed as vanity publishing as I doubt those projects could have produced enough money on their own.
I have a feeling the aim is to create something much bigger, it could even eventually truly become The Hitch Hikers Guide to the the Galaxy,
Its already heading that way with a around 40K researchers spread all over the world.
The only way I can see it being financed is that the investors must be serious about the long term prospects of creating a major site on the internet, starting from here.

As for football I'm not talking about it.
Read this as we lost, the manager got the boot, and we are now in deep shit.

Hi Bloke! So sorry about your football team. Who IS your team anyways? Where are they in the season? Is this the beginning or is this getting near the playoffs? I guess they treat sports team managers the same over there, eh? If the team loses, fire the coach or manager because it's easier than firing all the players!

I understand about having arrived someplace for "a few months" and then still being ther years later. I too, arrived here in Texas for an interim stay and that was 12 years ago this month! At the time, my intent was to go to California, and with this move from NYC to Texas I figured that I was halfway there! Funny thing happened. I realized that I could live a lot better here because the prices were not at high as in NY or Los Angeles. In other words, my salary at the time wouldn't get me very far in LA. Then there started to be earthquakes, mudslides, riots, etc. and all of a sudden California didn't look very inviting. So I looked north towards Toronto Canada. I really like Toronto, but at that time, which was the early 90's, jobs were tight up there and I'd have to take a pay cut (thanks the the Canadian v. US dollar value) and Toronto is as expensive as NY or LA!!! I am very ready to move on, and now I have experience that I can take to most any city, and I am anxious to move on. This is a nice place to live, but not for me. I am a bit bored.
Oh yeah, I am single too.

And I CAN'T believe that you remembered my weekend reading assignment!!! Wow! You do have a good memory! Well, I didn't read the stuff YOU wanted me to, but I did read other books ... REAL books, not magazines, I swear! I am doing some fact finding about cancer at the moment. All joking aside, (but just for a moment, don't worry) I tend to read for research purposes rather than read novels for pleasure. I only read when I HAVE to, I guess. But if SOME people have such GOOD memories, I guess I'll HAVE to read The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy too, right?!!?!
All I can say is that it had better be good with all the harassment I am taking for NOT having read it!

Another excuse for not reading it over the weekend is that MOM flew in to see me last Saturday and she's staying a week. Mom makes for the BEST excuse, dontcha think?

We are under another tornado watch tonight, yeesh! See why I don't mind moving on? Does your pub quiz ask sports questions only? Or do they ask all sorts of trivia? Like about Texas weather?

Have a good day!

Football! I'm not talking about football!

Well OK just for you
I'm one of those rare beasts, A Wimbledon Supporter.
We've had a Norwegion nutter as manager, they started the season reasonably but he lost the confidence of the team and has now paid the price but its possibly too late
However with the new manager in charge they just about scraped a draw today against Aston Villa, with a last minute equaliser by John Hartson. which lifts them just above Bradford (but only on goal difference) and just out of the drop zone.
Theres now only one game left before the end of the season and either Wimbledon or Bradford are going to end up going down to the Nationwide league, We have to play Southampton next weekend while they have probably got the tougher match at Liverpool but this is football and you never can tell.
So the next week will be a real nail biter.

If you want to know more see http://www.h2g2.com/A243677, but watch out the page owner Ormandroyd http://www.h2g2.com/U95721 is a Bradford Supporter!!!

Talking about expensive places to live, The cost of living in any major European city tends to be a fair bit higher than the states and London is one of the most expensive, I'm quite lucky as I bought my flat 12 years ago, House prices here seem to always rise a lot faster than wages which would make it impossible to live where I am now if I was just starting out.

I must admit your mum coming to stay is probably a good excuse for not doing your reading asignment (YET), she probably wouldent be too impressed if you spent the week ignoring her with your nose in a pile of books

Although we do have the occasional tornado in the UK they are generally puny by your standards, our real specialty is Rain in all its forms but mostly drizzle