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

It's not a leap year next year is it? I hope it isn't. If July 4th falls on a Sunday next year then I reckon the observed day will be Monday, so I *will* get the three-day weekend. Just not at the same time as everyone else.

Sorry, it will be a leap year. I remember it by the association with presidential elections coinciding with leap years, except when the it's the turn of a century.

Oh hang on, I'll get the three-day weekend anyway, won't I, because July 4th will be on the Monday if 2016 is a leap year. What a muppet I am sometimes

There's something quite magical about coming home on the bus with all the booze you need for the evening, and not having paid a bean for it.

I'm living the dream

I've just heard that there's a Google self-drive car trundling around Austin. I can't wait to throw myself onto the bonnet and sue Google for enough money to give me the lifestyle to which I've always wanted to be accustomed, and for the rest of my life

So far, the self driving cars have been in a few wrecks, but I believe they've all, or nearly all, been the fault of the other car's drivers.

So you'll probably feel rather disappointed as you hurl yourself, face down into the street, feet in front of the car's bumper as it anticipates your attempt and brakes accordingly. Oh, and it will undoubtedly be on camera so look forward to joining the ranks of these folks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhbmN1qpvc



Be sure to ham it up appropriately.

Plan B: Fall onto it from a bridge or out of a window. Sorted

What's happening with Greece and Germany right now reminds me so much of my last job: People with more money restricting the ability of those with less money to have enough to live on and thereby making their lives miserable.

Someone (possibly another h2g2er) posted this GIF a while back that perfectly describes why the Greek bailout didn't help the Greek people.


http://imgur.com/gallery/Duqccay

Pluto, you are Magrathea and I claim my £5
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33440926

That's really stretching the pareidolia to see a whale in that blur.

Ah... plural...

The Pluto pareidolia polka continues...

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-a-heart-from-pluto-as-flyby-begins

Whatever the tendency to name things on a planet billions of miles away for objects we're familiar (and no matter how tenuous the similarity), I for one am truly excited by this mission. We've already seen better images of Pluto than even Hubble could achieve, and we're still some way off. It's such a pity that NH won't be able to stay in orbit and send back something like the information we got about Mercury from Messenger.

NASA was my introduction to teh interwebs - the first time I went to an internet café (in Soho) and asked someone to show me how to get onto the web. I chose this as the first website I ever visited http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars-pathfinder/index.html

NASA has more than its share of good websites for a government agency. I'm a bit proud to say that some of these websites are run by some of my coworkers on this contract.

That said, every once in a while I run across some of the less impressive ones that are text laden lists of links rather than proper, user friendly web environments.

Ray-Ban. Sunglasses that ban the sun's rays. Ohhhhh, I get it now

Heh... You're one of today's lucky 10,000.

http://xkcd.com/1053/


I had a thought and just discovered something myself.

Bain de Soleil doesn't mean "Sun Ban" like I thought it did. It means Sun Bathe.

It's fascinating to me how words that are put together in a certain way and then used on a daily, or very frequent, basis can lose their original meaning. Like Sex Pistols or Spandau Ballet. They almost become new words in my head and lose any connection with their original meaning because they're associated now with whatever it is they've, er, come to be associated with. You hear Anarchy in the UK, you don't think about sex or pistols, or what a sex pistol might be Same with Spandau Ballet. Neither a prison in Germany nor a form of Terpsichore come to mind when I hear To Cut a Long Story Short.