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

Welcome to h2g2. Have a loo brush. I'm Batty, one of the h2g2 ACEs (Assistant Community Editors). If you were going for the NY style of greeting I think it's 'hayadoin'. Or at least that's the Guidoland take on it.

I can relate to the nails vs. fun thing, only with me it's cooking. I'm fussy about how my nails look but then again I'm constantly screwing them up doing some serious prep work and cooking.

Below are a few links you might find useful. Feel free to contact me if you need further assistance or just wish to chat. Click on my name above to go to my page and leave me a message, or just reply to this one.

- The <./>Welcome</.> page
- A Special Welcome from Douglas Adams: <./>Welcome-DNA</.>
- DNA's own homespace, as he was very involved in h2g2 during his life (it includes lot's of links): U42
- <./>browse</.> H2G2
- Don't forget our own periodical, <./>thepost</.>
- The <./>ACES</.> Homepage
- The Smileys Page (more than just smileys): <./>smiley</.>
- If you'd like to participate in some of the upcoming Virtual Events this is the place to go: A715592
- If you would like to learn to code your pages to look really great, go to the GuideML Clinic: <./>GuideML-Clinic</.>
- If English isn't your primary language, try the Terran Embassy: A473898

Ready to socialize with some of h2g2's festive (if somewhat odd) locals? Try some of these links.

- A list of many of the Virtual Pubs available on h2g2 and 'Sense of Place': A707465
- If you just can't seem to get the hang of Thursdays join the Thingite revolution: A516647
- Join the crew of h2g2's own pirate ship, 'The Blood of the Zaphodistas': A579684
- Got something that's yours and yours alone? Claim your Keeper title here: A441596
- If you're the questioning sort you might enjoy the "Questions Only" forum... just don't expect any actual answers.. F63419?thread=100987
- If you would like to find out about other researchers living near you try here: A660313

As if this wasn't plenty, here is Shea's Links Page: A534953 (why bother to create one of my own when Shea did such a great job?)

Oh and... don't forget your



Batty, ACE

Hi Batty,

The greeting is a little homage to an American lad we had working with us here in the UK for 6 months from Detroit, as that was his usual greeting /chat up line until we started taking the mickey out of him for it. But hey, that's us Brits. He also achieved fame by using the rear of an SUV for purposes not normally known for those vehicles, and recieved the department "Cock-Up" award for it.....

As for the nails, I find my little fingernail useful for screw retrieval! Cookery is a good hobby but its hard to find the time.

Thank you for the loo brush, I shall put it with all the others ;o)

Have a good one!

Rains

The little nail also makes a handy flathead screwdriver when necessary... though it doesn't work nearly as well on phillips or other types...

Not sure I want to know the details on the SUV thing... though I can imagine it was quite something..

Know what you mean, some of those phillips ones are just too awkward..

Well, we didn't see what happened. He borrowed the department pool car one weekend, saying he was off to visit a girl. When he brought it back, a couple of the other guys needed to use it, and they found something 'used' in the back of it!

I think the worst thing was that we all picked on him about being too cheap to take her to a hotel or something!

Several years ago I used to go to what are called 'after hour clubs' here. Those are dance clubs that are open 3am-7am and don't serve alcohol. It was sort of the fashion to keep a fishbowl or a punchbowl full of the "party favors" you mentioned at the bar. While I was in the lavatory my friends filled my handbag with a festive assortment of them. We went out to breakfast after dancing all night and when I went to get my wallet to pay my bag fell and they flew everywhere! Keep in mind, when having breakfast early on a Sunday morning the restaurant is filled with not just the party animals who stayed out all night but also with the churchgoers on their way to sunday service.

Oh, NO! Pretty embarrassing, even if the restaurant isn't full of churchgoers. Never heard of that kind of tradition here, though I've got to admit if that were to happen in a club all the men would gget very drunk and then use them as balloons. I saw this done several times when at university....

Also never heard of 'after-hours' clubs, but they sound pretty cool. Over here the tradition seems to be go to a friend's house first, drink alcohol; then go to a bar, drink more alcohol; go to a club, dance and drink even more alcohol; then go for a donner kebab / curry / pizza / chips and chilli sauce sort of junk food fix; then fall into the taxi home. Loses its appeal pretty soon for me.

I no longer go out all night.. it did lose it's appeal to me..

I remember the "balloons" at uni as well.. we filled the student union with them one afternoon. The frat rats there learned a valuable lesson that day as well. It seems the ones with the uh.. "added protection" gel coating make your lips numb when you try to blow them up for balloons.

Ha ha :o) I hope they learnt their lesson from that (although remembering my uni days, they never did then)! I remember from those lessons we had at school that that coating always used to make my nail varnish go funny - bit of a giveaway, really.

I can never decide if I hated or loved uni - I loved not having responsibility, but hated not having any money. The trouble is now I'm working I'm still not a fan of responsibility but I still don't have any money!

hehehe... I don't think they did learn any lessons now that you mention it... the student union sure looked pretty though.. much to the chagrin of the "Baptist Student League" whose office was right near the festivities..

My days after college were on the broke side too. It took a while for me to get to a point where I was making any real money then it all kind of soured. Hence my now being back in school and changing careers for something that is much more stable.

Hmmm, entertaining ;o) We never seemed to have many of those groups at uni......or maybe I just didn't hang around in the right circles!

The system here seems to be geared towards letting students pile up as much debt as is possible before letting them out into the real world. I've been lucky enough to get a decent salary as soon as I got out of uni, but I'm paying off about £10,000 worth of money....not including my car!

Not sure I could contemplate going back to school, but I've only been out just over 15 months. Sounds like a major change.....

It is. I didn't have student loans last time I went because my mom paid for the pleasure of my driving her nuts whilst at uni. So I guess it isn't too bad having to take a student loan now.

I majored in biology when at school before but went into sales/marketing for the six-star cruise industry (go figure). With what has been happening lately the industry kind of stinks. I decided I just didn't want to be in something so unstable. I told my boss I had decided to leave NYC because my mother had a very hard time with my living there after 9/11 and was asking me to move closer to her.

Once here of course industry jobs were nearly nonexistent. So I decided to just not look for one and go to class full time and take a student loan rather than finding a job and going every evening for the rest of my natural life.

My parents took the view that I had to learn to sustain myself - hence loans, overdrafts, credit cards...... A bit harsh but at least I learnt the hard way about budgeting for things!

Sales/marketing seems a bit of an unstable industry at the best of times, but I guess after 9/11 it must have got much worse. Doing biology first is a unique route!

So, what have you decided to do at class all day? Working all day then doing classes in the evenings seems a bad way to do it to me, I have to agree.

Actually it was the six-star cruise part that was blown...

I'm taking various computer certification courses on a track for systems engineer...

Sounds bad - don't really know anything about the cruise industry to comment, though!

A couple of the guys I work with here graduated in Systems Engineering, but I'm not sure how much computing they did as it was all general systems, all looking at "black boxes" and that kind of thing. One of them's working on vehicle communication networks and the other one gets to work on vehicle satellite navigation.

sounds interesting.. I don't think I'm enough of a tinkerer to get into that type of engineering. This is actually working on large corporate networks and the like. Designing and maintaining them.

The entire travel industry suffered after 9/11. In the week after we gave back over $600,000.00 in bookings because of tie-downs and such. Considering that the first few days of that week we didn't even have phones (because all Manhattan phones went through the WTC) it was frightening.

Sounds far too complicated - me and IT have always clashed awkwardly ever since I brought down my school's network by accident at the ages of 14! I'm much happier with mechanical things. What sort of things does it involve?

The repayment of bookings is a horrendously large number when you consider that half the people wouldn't have been able to get through on the phones. If they all went through the WTC, how did they manage to restore the network?

I have no idea how they restored the phone network. Perhaps there was a certain redundancy in the system that they just needed to deploy or reinstate or something.

Systems engineering, at least what I'm studying for, is for deploying and maintaining large networks for computers. Mostly for mid to large companies. Making sure all of the computers can communicate with each other and the resources (printers, etc.) as needed. In the case of larger companies it could be a worldwide network of computers. It also involves security. Who has the right to do what with what on the network. It also involves being able to troubleshoot the network so if something fails knowing what caused it and how to fix it.

Pretty y basically. But I find it interesting.

It may be geeky, but if you find it interesting, then why not do it? If you're going to be doing something for a living, you should make it something you like and find interesting. And at least it's not trainspotting!

Here each department's got a full time bloke who looks after the networks, permissions etc and interacts with all the other departments, and it's a pretty demanding job. Ours really knows his stuff, although he does look like a reject from some 80s rock band!

I think quite a few look like that actually. Comes from being on call 24/7.. doesn't give you the time nor the inclination to keep current on such things...

That must be the reason why he looks like a refugee from Van Halen! Although I wonder if this look is "frozen in time" or does in fact move along with the rest of the world, just 20 years out of phase?

Or maybe I'm really out of touch and mullets are fashionable once more??

I keep out of fashion debates - as an engineer, I'm not allowed to be fashionable anyway ;o)