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

I didn't say they were sane. I just said they were female.
And all of them seemed to like beards.
Now as for the ones I wanted to associate with,
the ones I stalked and wooed and courted...and whom would have nothing to do with me...
The were sane.

Sanity is sometimes over-rated, but I wouldn't want to live in a relationship where waking up every day is an adventure to see which bit of you has been cut off this time.

Were the Wright Bros. sane?
Were the Marx Bros.?
Were the Dolly Sisters?
Were the Andrews Sisters?
Were Chang and Eng?

No. It is the 'normal' ones you have to watch out for.
The quiet ones. The one's with the well-thumbed copy of
'Catcher In The Rye'...

The ones who watch their football team every weekend, get bladdered and shout abuse at people in the street.
The people who voted in 'Pop-stars' (don't know; don't ask. Just run).
People who think the royal family does a worthwhile job.
People who think that cannabis is dangerous as it leads to hard drugs (it's 'common sense'), yet still smoke 50 fags a day.
People who think that the world should stand still for any sporting event.
(Fact: More people watch EastEnders, a popular UK soap, three times a week than watch the FA Cup (Biggest sport event in UK) once a year).

I had heard about Eastenders from various people whinging about it,
but when I read, after a Google search on Wendy Richard, that Eastenders had given over their cast and set and production crew to a finale-type Doctor Who...well, without better evidence, I say they must be doing something right...besides, my wife and daughter are addicted to Ally McBeal and Boston Public and CSI...
I am pleased with myself. I read the backlog on a Yank-bashing thread today and I did not weigh in. First time I've done that.
Acquaintance of mine (on here) is whacking his beard off and having his dog put down on the same day...

Pity the Dr Who special itself was so appalling. Although it was for charity.
I find I'm watching less and less television. There are only three things I make an effort to watch nowadays:
Series IV of Lexx (don't know; don't ask)
Time Team (Archaeology against the clock!)
Can't remember the title of the program but it has Fred Dibner and he's talking about architectural styles and techniques in Britain.

The Yank-bashing thread wasn't the "9-11" one? I've put my neck on the block there.

Seems a bit extreme about the beard/dog scenario. Surely shaving the dog would be enough to fulfil the owner/dog lookalike criterion? Or is he planning more drastic action tomorrow?

Nah, it's a new thread. Just like a rerun of 'Doctor in the House'.
Same type cast, same tired old gags.

No, seriously. He's got an old-old dog and he's having to have it put down. Seriously.

I am watching almost no tv right now. I can't hist delete and change anything on the screen. I check out or rent movies so I can see something visual that is not too abysmal...yeah, I know, it's a quote, but it just seemed to fit.

Any is better than none.

Pity about his dog. I've never had a pet myself, but I've seen what losing one can do to someone.
I keep reading complaints about the standard of television in the papers and I always think 'do something else, then'. What with h2g2, role-playing, my programming project, my writing, my PhD, drama and S.O. I scarcely have time to sleep, never mind watch TV. I really must read LOTR again, I'm slipping in the trivia stakes.

You can have it. I barely made it through the first time.
And I found the movie pretentious and overwhelming.
I prefer Lord Dunsany and 'The King of Elfland's Daughter' or some of that Mercedes Lackey or Micheal Moorcock or Fred Saberhagen stuff.
I did manage to crawl through most of David and Mrs. Eddings stuff.
Never could stand Thomas Covenant...

Moorcock! Ug! And I've never really got on with Dunsany.
I've not got round to reading Mercedes Lackey, but I've heard recommendations.
I've read Berserker by Saberhagen and loved it; a quick look at amazon reveals he's done some fantasy stuff as well, that I'll have to look at.
I got halfway through the prologue of one of David Eddings' books; then gave up in disgust, making it one of only four books I haven't finished after starting.
One recommendation I'd make would be Juliet E. McKenna; I don't know how easy it is to get hold of her stuff in the US but her work is damn original and interesting. She's published four books in a series, with a fifth on the way. Fortunately, they stand better on their own than many parts of series and the first book was only written as a single story initially.
And, of course, there is the Great God Pratchett...

We'll just have to agree to disagree, then.
Terry never rang my bell.
Moorcock's Eldric fantasy is a little morbid, but the body count do rise!
Lackey has written some interesting stuff about gay bards.
Saberhagen's 'Swords' trilogy is fascinating.
I used to read the original Howard stories but I got tired of him.
Elizabeth Moon's 'Deed of Paksenarrion'(sp?) is fascinating. She tackles female sword fantasy from the outlook of a Marine officer!
I only stuck with Eddings because I like Merlin rip-offs. And his Merlin take-off character is lovably irrascible.

Gay bards? I suspected as much... All their fancy clothes and singing...
I'll have to read some more Saberhagen, as soon as I get my next gift certificate from amazon...
I've read some of Moon's collaborations with Anne McCaffrey (another fine author), but not any of her solo work. I tend to prefer sci-fi to fantasy, with a few notable exceptions.
I think I've been soured on Eddings for good after my previous experience.
If you don't get on with Terry, I take it you don't get on with J K Rowling either?

Well, the Rowling books were a bit better than the Animorphs and Star Dreck and Star Bores spin-off books the kid was reading...
but they are very formulaic...
Me and the kid have been reading Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, about a zombie-raiser and vampire killer who lives in an alternate St. Louis.
She and I plowed through the old E.E. Doc Smith fascist Lensmen novels in a day or two. She recently discovered 'The Stainless Steel Rat' and read all those. I read them years ago. She read all the 'Tarzan ' junk and all the Doctor Doolittle. I've got her started on the HHGTTH now. She plowed through the first book in about four hours.
She's read most of the 'Xanth' series... I gave her my 'Dangerous Visions' and the sequel, but she's not ready for them yet. I did buy a Harlan Ellison audio book of him reading his stuff from the sixties... Harlan's sick, but I'd trade places with him in a minute.
I don't remember what I said about Terry. I just haven't latched onto him at the right moment, I guess...
As a writer and a veteran reader, a book has to get me in the first chapter or I'll toss it and wonder on to the next one. I guess I haven't picked up the right Pratchett...

You ask x Pratchett fans what the best book is to read to start with, and you'll get 2x suggestions.
For a short intro, I say try either Only You Can Save Mankind or The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. They are both nominally children's books, but the first is in a comteporary setting and the second is set on the Discworld but doesn't rely on you having any previous knowledge of his work. They're both pretty short, and two of my very, very favourite books.
It's pity the third Dangerous Visions book will liely never be released. Although rumour has it that it was below-par.
Laurek K Hamilton? I'll have to try her. I'm not normally sold on urban gothic stuff, but my SO introduced me to Nancy A Collins, and she's pretty good.
Lensman. Aah. Only read First Lensman, but I think I can interpolate the rest of the series from that...

My big prediction for the later Harry Potter books:

***Hagrid is forced to choose between saving Harry's life and saving Dumbledore's life. Dumbledore dies.***

I think it will be interesting to see what Rowling does next.
I mean, it's been ten years, hasn't it, that she's been stuck with the same outline...

I'll see if I can find time for Pratchett... I've got my own first novel sitting here asking to have a second draft...

H2G2 makes immediate publication so easy...

I read a series of articles last night about inaccurate and downright silly Science books in American schools...that keep getting republished and repackeaged...

Apparently half of the big textbook publishers are all owned now by a company called Pearson...

Did you know that spinach's reputation for high iron content stems from a typo in a school science book in which a decimal point was misplaced?

Let me tell you about EdExcel, one of our GCSE (exam for 16-year-olds) exam boards. They have:

* Distributed text books with incorrect passages
* Released multi-page errata for those books
* Lost students' coursework
* Set unsolvable problems in exams
* Lost exam papers and bluffed students' marks

Whoo boy, I'm glad I'm well out of that.

I don't think Rowling will go from strength to strength after Harry Potter finishes, although her pension is assured. She may write other books set in the same world, but I doubt they'll do as well.

I can never sift between the fact and urban myth concerning some US states and evolution in science text books.

The one's that are teaching legislatively mandated creationism are interesting because they are at least teaching with a textual basis, regardless of truth.
The fundamentalist home schoolers are in some cases teaching that Adam named the dinosaurs and the earth is 4000 years old....

The truly frightening science texts are the ones that are teaching evolutionary biology so ineptly that they might as well be blank pages.
Some books teach a demonstration as an 'experiment'.
Some take the results of a demonstration and then back-project what it means in an incorrect manner.
Some proceed from glimpse to glimpse of various scientific disciplines without bringing it all together into coherency.

The history books are frightening in that they have no sense of affecting the event by observing it. Many of them seem to be cranked out by liberal arts majors who can type and skillfully plagiarize what they want from earlier editions. The Political Correctness of much of what is taught would have found many adherents on the communes of the Sixties.

The literature books should be easy to assemble, easy to read and easy to teach. Fat chance. The texts are full of confusing graphics dedicated to bringing the student into the world of 'art' through relating it to everyday life...
They slop in Maya Angelou next to e.e. cummings next to Judy Blume next to Mark Twain without a thought.
And imagination is something to be harnessed with 'style' and memorization.

I understand that there are serious problems with testing.
I think it is the 'production' aspect of it.
They are not designed to detect 'results' but 'statistics'.
Too many variables spoil the funding.

It always cracks me up when people say they don't 'believe' in evolution. Evolution is just an explanation of how the nature and number of entities changes over time. The evidence that it will produce 'fit' entities over time is crushing. It's even used as an algorithm for solving allocation problems and is a standard statistical technique (neural nets). Whether or not someone believes that the world we know was brought about by this process is their own business; although it does seem to be entirely consistent with it. Either life on Earth has followed evolution to its present state or it was created to look like it was. Either way, the evolutionary hypothesis can be used to examine the fossil record.

I think we've been luckier with our school texts. Given texts for GCSE were only ever used in science, maths and language lessons, the rest being 'talk and chalk' lessons. The science books were the weakest, but I think part of the problem is that the umbrella terms science encompasses such a huge range of topics. It was even worse for us because we did double certificate science, a double-value GCSE that encompassed physics, chemistry and biology. There was always an emphasis on doing experiments and writing them up, and in hindsight it seems less useful than ever. It is almost impossible to conduct an experiment adequately in a classroom, particularly when there is a limited amount of equipment and you get partnered with an oaf.

Come to think of it, evolutionary biology was never covered in our science books. Perhaps it doesn't provoke such strong reactions either way over here.

In history we were given 'document' work, where we had to read sources and decide how they were biased and what could or could not be relied on. I wish kids were taught to apply the same technique to newspapers and other present day media. We weren't introduced to the 'grand view' or historical argument until post-16 level.

Out English language work always concentrated on one text at a time, and variety was introduced by studying very different books from time to time. In fact, if we had finished our slated work, we were encouraged to read any books that came to hand. I read To Kill A Mockingbird during English.

In my professional capacity I always despair when people throw some numbers together and think they've arrived at something useful. Even if aptitude in a subject was well-defined enough to measure properly, all these tests would not gauge it adequately. Here in the UK the government is trying to introduce performance-related pay for teachers, basing their wages on how much their pupils 'improve' during the year. I can't find words to express how imbecilic that is.

Neither can I.
I think the academics still haven't gotten over the insult of having to deal with 'universal' education.
And the industrialists are still peeved that mandatory school attendance means they have to wait ten years before they can feed the fodder into the factory.
In the meanwhile, both have done their best to make sure that the mind is honed to a dull point so that employees are as ill-informed and pliable as possible.