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

It's just a rather bizarre side of my sense of humour. I blame the heat as well!

Rest assured that I had something a lot more constructive in mind this time!

I'm quite a bit further North than you, so the thunderstorms haven't reached me yet. They're due to arrive tomorrow.

RhoMuNuQ

I like though, as well as ...

Ooh that reminds me yet again that I must risk updating my page to get the yikesing advert into it.

It's not been a good week for communicate logos so far has it. I haven't removed the smileys - yet. I wasn't sure about the little images I added next to the sections. I thought they might be fun and I think the section headings work better in all skins now but I'm less sure whether the pictures really add anything. I can't think much at all right now anyway.

One of the Renegades found another "fun" link but, on reflection, I decided it was more appropriate elsewhere. Then I removed all trace from my space of having posted it.

They might have a new Communicate image today!

*looks*

Nope.

RhoMuNuQ

Maybe the communicate team is where Slacker went after leaving h2g2.

I wondered who an RDF/RSS feed of the frontpage would benefit: the communicate page. Automate it to access all the RSS feeds of the relevant areas.

spelugx -- Butting into your conversion again?

[pointedly ignoring Spelugx]

Another odd thing is how the existence of a yikesing group has apparently completely wiped out the instances of things requiring yikesing. It must be like umbrellas. Carrying one seems to scare the rain away. I use mine as a sunshade and device for fending off people as well though.

The complete overnight closure of the message boards has finally happened. I don't know if that will mean more of the trolls will come over here though. Perhaps since HVL is pretending not to be around I should subscribe to some of the science pages on h2g2 to defend them. I don't have a lot of enthusiasm at the moment though (or ever ).

I know - maybe it hasn't been advertised enough?

On the other hand, if it reduces the load on the Moderators without us having to do any work, it can't be a bad thing!

You seem to have a lot of enthusiasm to me - just not for wasting time writing posts to trolls.

RhoMuNuQ

It looks like my predictive powers are working to well while my logical brain is still having some down-time. Check out a couple of recent posts on A317549.

Oops not fun. I've gone off-topic. I could direct you at that article I hid earlier (too much fun perhaps ) or at a homeopathy site gone mad (possibly not really fun if you think about these actually being real people though ).

Not fun = T297345 + T297343 + T297340. When did you suddenly become the messenger of doom, Rho? We would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently aimed at your badge are part of a special service we extend to all our least enthusiastic holders, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your contribution in future researcher incarnations.

Hmm.

To get back on topic and given that no-one whatsoever is lurking on this thread (including its owner) there'll be no-one to take advantage of this important piece of science research. I previously posted it elsewhere on h2g2 when someone pointed it out to me. But I suppose you do need something to occupy you over the summer holidays:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993942

In case that causes a fun overdose perhaps some less strenuous entertainment is in order. I can't remember if I pointed these out round here earlier:

http://www.sluggy.com/ - you haven't really seen backlog until you've seen that one - and it won't make much sense until you do. Then again, it still might not make much sense. I know someone who really admires the rabbit though. Somewhere in that lot there was a rather warped personality test...

http://www.elfquest.com/ - aww look at the pwetty elves and faiwies ... with very sharp weapons and slobbering wolves ...

I'm not - or at least I hope that I'm not - the messenger of *all* doom. Abi wanted messages like this to be left for all ACEs who hadn't posted to the site in the last month. She didn't have time to leave the last three messages, and, because she wanted them to be posted before Monday, asked for a volunteer to post them on her behalf. That was me! Nevertheless, if you like, I could 'predict' doom to come.

Hmm, I can't view New Scientist's website just now. I'll read Sluggy's mammoth backlog and Elfquest a bit later, when my online time isn't measured in minutes every few days.

RhoMuNuQ

[looks round]



Noooo! I got back in too late.

PS Sluggy's website has gone slightly strange (like a begging letter) in the last couple of days because they've suddenly realised they've run out of money. I was still trying to get hold of the books.

*shouts loudly* Come back in and read this message that will tell you to come back in while I'm not lurking!

RhoMuNuQ

I've been offline for a long time installing things. I now appear to have broadband. However, it doesn't actually seem much faster if at all than my dial-up was. I probably need a more representative sample of things to try other than a couple of downloads and h2g2 login. I suspect that the dna servers are slow to find the page but that the graphics are being displayed faster once the page has been found. The important thing is that my minions will be able to ring me up on the phone while I'm online (eg from the supermarket to take my order and from the back door to say they've delivered it). My other option for a back door solution was a gong.

I ordered the Sluggy books anyway. A group of us got together to donate some money, get "defenders of the nifty" membership and some free artwork thrown in, but the person with the paypal account prevaricated too long and may have missed the chance to get free artwork. The only good news in this is that the offer was shut down so quickly because lots more people sent in money than was expected (making it difficult to sort out enough artwork) and the site is going to be able to continue. I guess the people running it have a better idea of the enthusiasm of their fan-base now too!

*spies a reply and unlurks!*

That's good news! I'd have gone for the gong myself, but there we go.

That's good news! Déja vu? Never!

RhoMuNuQ

I could still get the gong anyway. What worries me is that the birds might learn to use it to summon me to feed them or something.

Just to see that in real life, as opposed to just having a mental image of it, is reason enough to get the gong!

RhoMuNuQ

We used to have a squirrel who would come and tap on the glass back-door and demand to be fed. When it was opened he(?) would only back off a very little way and wait for the nuts or shreddies etc. It might have been possible to get him to take them from our hands but none of us were keen to "train" him like that.

Last night broadband appeared to be slower than dial-up. A friend of mine says it may be more time/traffic dependent than dial-up, ie competing with other BB users in the evenings. This morning (supposedly a good time while people are travelling to work) it seemed fairly slow too. I had wondered whether the installations I had done were using up enough bandwidth to be annoying. I shut down the cable company's connection optimiser program after denying it internet access since it didn't seem to be doing anything useful, ie not controlling the connection let alone making things run faster. Then things seemed a bit better. It could just be a coincidence of course.

I'd have loved to have seen that!

That's odd - every broadband connection that I've ever used has, at any time, been faster than dial-up.

It doesn't sound like a coincidence - maybe that program's a way of trying to get you to buy a T3 connection?

RhoMuNuQ