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

“The fact is, copyright’s not there to reward people for their labor - it's to incentivize people to create new books or poems"

I don't see it that way - it's a little from column A a little from column B. If I could have written one song, just one song that became a classic and gets regular play on the radio, or was chosen for an ad campaign, and earns me enough money to live a comfortable (but not ostentatious) and work-free life...

Yes, I do consider staring out of the window waggling your pen around your mouth or tapping the top of your head with it as you try to think of something to rhyme with the last line to be labour. And why would you be incentivised to create new books, music, poems if you weren't going to be able to make a living from them? That's the incentive right there.

The corporations who own copyright (and their shareholders) certainly see it as monetary reward and income, and come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who disagrees by sharing it around.

Yeah, I have a serious issue with corporations, especially Disney Corp, who have lobbied extensively to extend copyrights into infinity. Even worse is when they take public domain works and alter them a bit and then claim copyright on those works for greatly extended periods. The classic example is what Disney has done with the works of the Bros. Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. Copyright law has been greatly twisted since it was first introduced a century or so ago.

Hmmm, thinks...

A song that becomes a classic - that's not a bad place to start. Now, what rhymes with classic? Wazzock... no, attic... close but no cigar, although it has implications of a struggling artist, boracic... wait, that's it!

Gonna write a classic,
Because I'm boracic,
Gonna write it in my attic.

What do you think of it so far

I had to look up the Cockney translation of boracic the last time you used it.

It doesn't matter that no one in the US would know what the hell you're singing about. No one knows what a "holla back girl" is, but that didn't stop that from being played on constant rotation.

Oh rats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmpjeyYkeFU

Was that intentional remake, or did you do a google on your lyrics?

It was intentional. I knew the song existed already

Ah, then that explains that the "whoosh" noise. It was that joke going right over my head.

Damn...

This silly little monkey-selfie story just keeps getting deeper.

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/ethics-of-non-human-primates/

If I wasn't so pessimistic about the future of our civilization and the great anthropogenic mass extinction in our not-too-distant future, I would look forward to the day when we humans have little choice but to acknowledge the sentience of other creatures especially primates, corvids, elephants, cetaceans and octopuses to name a few likely contenders. With a long enough future I'm fairly confident that a few of these species could evolve to a stage where interspecies communication will be possible. I now believe this to be more plausible than in-person interaction with extraterrestrials.

But between the assured self destructive combinations of anthropogenic climate change + rampant climate denialism and growing religious extremism + increasingly available W.M.D.s the chances of that day arriving are looking more and more remote.

My God, that song was horrific. I could only stand 30 seconds!

Keep going with the rewrite. You can't make it any worse!

Isn't it dreadful?

Paella sandwiches? Lasagne sandwiches? Chicken-tikka rock? You're having a laugh http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/sep/01/britain-crimes-against-foreign-food

Why the would you put sheets of pasta in a sandwich - between slices of bread? Because if there's no pasta in the lasagne sandwich then it's just a plain old tomato sauce sandwich (and I don't mean one of Marlon's inch-thick (ugh) tomato ketchup sandwiches*).

I lay the blame for this fairly and squarely at the feet of the marketing people who just can't leave anything alone and who have no filter for what's right and what should never, ever be, but the pillocks who actually buy them and create a demand have to take a good deal of the flak too because if they didn't purchase the things they'd wither and die on the vine, as they damn well should.

*If anyone has the cultural references and memory to know where that comes from I'll be very impressed

This, on the other hand, I can live with http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwdUYZHIAAAzb1q.jpg After all, batter puddings are widespread in their various guises across several cuisines - some savoury, some sweet. Just because we happen to eat it as Yorkshire pudding doesn't mean it should be paired with something other than a roast beef dinner, or the sweet fillings some people have it with, or golden syrup, or just gravy.

They probably had to use 'Yorkshire Pudding' simply as a reference, so that people would know exactly what it is. At least they didn't call it 'Chikken Tikka in the Hole'. That would be a step too far.

well you do know that we do eat Yorkshire pudding with everything, right?

I didn't, but I can see how you would. It's an accompaniment, just like spuds, carrots, sprouts or peas. Well, maybe not like carrots, sprouts or peas, but you know what I mean. Which is why it can quite legitimately be eaten with a curry filling, in my opinion.

Batter puddings are one of the most versatile recipes I can think of. Take the same ingredients (flour, milk, eggs, and in the case of sweet batter puddings, sugar), mix them up, fry them in a skillet, you've got pancakes. Deep fry them, you've got funnel cake. Bake them, you've got Yorkshire pudding or toad in the hole.

If there was any Yorkshire pud left over (when I was a teenage Gosho and constantly hungry) after the Sunday roast, come 3.00 or 3.30 I'd go to the pantry and cut myself some from the bottom of the tin - the bits that haven't puffed up and gone crispy, and have it with golden syrup and a cuppa

I seem to recall a bit of cultural consternation a few decades ago when a certain fast food chain introduced a ham & cheese breakfast bagel.

Heh... and a quick google demonstrates that no one sees any irony in this any more.

Bagel... it's just zis bread, you know?