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

Hi,

I saw that you lost your user ID somewhere in Scotland. Easy to do, but not always fatal.

I lost all my details a while ago, and emailed Peta. She straightened it out in about ten minutes.

Did you try that yet?

SB

No, I haven't gotten round to askin her to send the ID to me again. I did mention it to her in the pub on saturday, but I haven't really I'll probably forget to ask her again when she gets back to London. But thanks anyways.
I guess I'm just too lazy for it.

Peta? In the pub? Is this for real?

I thought all the italics were just 'intelligent' software routines developed to make the guide more user-friendly. At best I imagined disembodied heads connected to tubes and needle probes, but now you're telling that at least one of them is actually a real person with an outside life.

Wow. I try to be helpful and you respond by challenging my whole world view. This is going to take some serious re-processing.

Perhaps Peta is in fact the first autonomous unit, a kind of prototype mobile italic that will serve as the model for the next generation of h2g2 researchers. The next step will be to see if she can fool sober people too. Maybe you could try going to the pub and not drinking to see if this has any effect on your perceptions.? I know that I've started to see the world differently since my medication ran out.......

I'm afraid that it's far more widespread than you mentioned. I have, in a sober state, met several of the Italics. Mark, Peta, Abi, Ashley, Jim Lynn.. And they didn't even seem to be disembodied heads with tubes sticking out of them. I even met the one Peta called "her son". Very surreal.

But we still managed to have a good night out. Lots of and .

And you say you were sober at the time?

Hmm, very interesting. I'll give it a try and see if they turn up here as well. Perhaps we should recruit other researchers and persuade them to stay sober long enough to accurately observe their surroundings and report on the number of italics they meet. They could be averywhere and we haven't even noticed yet!

SB

Well, I was sober to start with. I had only had a couple of pints of cider before Imet them.

I think there should be some serious lobbying going on to get the Italics to the US meet. And the further into next year the meet gets scheduled for, the more probable it is that I can attend.

Ah, but saying 'lets meet in the USA' is like saying 'lets meet in Europe'. ie it's a very large space for us all to be bumbling around in. There are several h2g2 researchers here already and I haven't bumped into any of them yet - although I have RVd with a couple.

If a venue hasn't yet been selected then San Diego has three important advantages:

1. It is a major centre (sorry, center) for wireless web technology and biogenetic research. What better place for the italics to beam theirselves through the ether and be reassembled at the other end as flesh and blood? This would also save on airfares, at great benefit to the taxpayers. (Aside, is the general public aware that the BBC is being used as a cover for an illicit AI project?)

2. I wouldn't have to travel anywhere to get there, thus saving my funds for some really useful research trip elsewhere.

3. The weather is always great. I sail in shorts and T-shirt in January. Compare that to, say, Minneapolis, which is in the centre of the country - handier for everyone but also uninhabitable for normal people.

Any other suggestions? Las Vegas is very handy for Area 51!

SB

I like the idea of going to San Diego. Or Las Vegas. Only problem I could think of is that I qouldn't be able to stand the heat there for too long. I'm better built for the cooler weather, like the weather you'll find in Minneapolis..
Anyhow, I know that you can't generalise the USA in the way you can generalise smaller countries like the ones here in Europe, but we still tend to do that.After all, it's one country.

I don't think we TV-licence payers over here realise that the BBC is experimenting with AI and "TVT" (Teleportation Via Telephone) technology. Kinda cool, though.

I'm surprised that the censors haven't realised that I'm on to them, or do you think they're not high enough up in the hierarchy to be in the know? Or perhaps I don't stay online long enough for them to wriggle down the phone lines and climb out of my screen like something in a Terry Pratchett book. Wow, maybe there are advantages to using a compaq modem after all. (They're crap!)

Still, I should be careful what I say. There are other 'intelligent systems patrolling the web as well. Last year I was prevented from posting to h2g2 from a computer in San Diego library - because the heading of the thread I was replying to contained the word 'sucks'. AI really is scary isn't it?

Ever read 'That Hideous Strength' by CS Lewis? It's all about a government agency tasked with the proper 'organisation' of post-war Britain. One recruit is finally taken to meet 'the head', which turns out to be the re-animated left-overs of a recently guillotined french maniac. If it hadn't been for Merlin the Magician and an escaped bear the world might have turned out very differently. (I believe, without question, everything I read - except the cover of a book on sales I'm working on at the moment. Can something be famous and secret at the same time? Maybe it can in sales?)

Oh well, have to go wash dishes. I do it every week even if the sink isn't full.

ttfn
SB

Oh, I think I read that in some thread a long while ago about your troubles. At the time, I thought it was quite silly, and I still do. BUt I can also see the relevance of it in a public place. After all, the youths of today can't be exposed to harsh language from the internet, can they? They have to get that from the TV or the movies.

I haven't read that book by CS Lewis that you mentioned. However, I have read another book called "The Death of Computers" or something like that, which is about a civilisation completely run by computers. I'll see what it's called and get back to you.