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

Hi Ben,

If you can use any of the smileys for your compliation - perhaps next to the page numbers - you can have any of mine.

Print resolution and animations frame-by-frame available. KB's done some, too. The creators of the other smileys might be harder to track down, since they're not tagged! But I know who did some of them.

Since both of you know me, I'll just sneak in here...

This is related to something I thought of in the shower last night--if h2g2c2 gets the bid, will we be able to keep the older smileys? I mean, Mal just gave her permission, and KB's not exactly hard to track down, but do we know who did the older smileys? I know Amy the Ant listed the ones she did on her PS, but does anyone have any way to contact her? And the smileys done by the inhouse art team, way back before the Community Artists existed--where do those stand, copyright-wise? Don't get me wrong, the last batch of smileys are great, and there are a lot of them, especially considering that 2 people did them, but the sheer *number* of older ones... Are we going to lose them?

Interesting question. I'd assumed they were part of the fixtures and fittings like the blobs.... Mmmmmmm.........

Are the blobs part of the takeover? (Did you ask the blob artists for any entries you're going to use?)

I didn't ask the blob artists beacuse I am not sure how to find out who they are. I'm just not using the blobs - hence the reason why we need an illustration for anhaga's entry. The others are 'nice to haves' but that one needs illustrating. I've put something together based on a photograph with a creative commons licence, but it could be better....

Would we get the blobs? I personally see no reason why they would be treated any differently from the entries. But I am not the BBC, and I am certainly not a BBC lawyer!

B

The newer illustrations have the artist/photographer listed, like the sub-ed. It's a good place to start...

Working today, but I have to do some drawing anyway for our new site so I might be able to sneak in an illustration for you, too.

I'll add them to the spreadsheet and set Amy on them.

B

Don't worry, done

A126659 - Wire Hangers - Deke - old blob
A471025 - The Gentle Art of Screwing - Pheroneous - no blob
A685055 - Lies, Damned Lies, and Science Lessons - Son of Roj Blake - old blob
A707906 - A Very Brief History of Ireland - Woodpigeon - no blob
A950203 - Inukshuk - Anhaga - no blob
A2528101 - Tomorrow is Too Long - boots - no blob
A2184509 - Visting Tonga - Frenchbean - stock photo
A2636976 - The Years of Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire' - 1962 - Mu Beta / Shazz / Trout Montague / Brolean - no blob
A3437237 - Sex in the head - Rising Tide - no blob
A3871523 - Trailer of the Temptress - Deidzoeb - no blob
A3882981 - Visitor from another world - Sprout - no blob
A3724977 - Learning to Walk in Extremely High Heels - Mina - Illustrated by Community Artist Fairydoodler U1464672
A10358868 - The Hebrew Manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah - Azara - no blob
A11284850 - Rick Rescorla - Security Manager and Hero - Icy North - no blob
A12654209 - A Pilgrimage - h5ringer - no blob
A18927859 - Heaven - The Christian's Blessed Hope - Shagbark - photo by Galaxy Babe
A20283572 - Moroccan Gins? - PedanticBarSteward - no blob
A22808243 - The Story of Yogh - Gnomon - BBC stock photo
A24145490 - DB Cooper: Skyjacker and Folk Hero - Phred Firecloud - no blob
A25953230 - Declawing Cats - swl - no blob
A26353686 - Gustav Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde - h5ringer - illustrated by h5ringer
A26107751 - Prime Numbers - Big Al - BBC stock photo
A29779005 - Full Moons - what's in a name? - Broelan - BBC stock photo
A34644224 - Volk's Electric Railway and Daddy Long-Legs - Deke - no blob
A42129876 - The London Beer Flood of 1814 - Matt - Illustrated by Matt (though it's just a coloured-in copy of a picture by Katsushiga Hokusai, to which I have objected.)
A42694806 - How to Guide a Blind Person - 2legs and minichessemouse - BBC stock photo
A44342651 - An Introduction to the Fracture Mechanics of Spaghetti - Pinniped - BBC stock photo
A47629317 - David Beckham's Red Card, St Etienne 1998 - Trout Montague - no blob
A51724217 - Egg Shell Mimicry Advice for Young Lady Cuckoos - Tibley Bobley - no blob
A52907178 - Vergering on the Ridiculous - KB and Malabarista - illustrated by Malabarista
A52007573 - How to Write a Scientific Paper - Danny B - BBC stock photo
A54557580 - Percy Fawcett and the Lost City of Z - Giford - illustrated by Malabarista
A54096816 - Grace Gifford's Wedding - Dmitri Gheorgheni - Illustrated by King Bomba
A51822849 - Bobby Sands MP (1954 - 1981) - Beatrice - fairly sure this is King Bomba's picture, too, ask him!
A55852905 - Philip Lampi - The Itinerant Historian - Jordan - no blob
A57720440 - Stolpersteine - An Everyday Memorial - Malabarista - photo by Malabarista
A65192231 - The Great Flood of 1953 - Galaxy Babe - BBC stock photo
A76271853 - Colours of Wildlife - Willem - illustrated by Willem, obviously
U236943 - Earthquake Journal - Frenchbean - no blob


You have permission to use any of mine, of course, and I can give you higher resolution b/w images. KB still has his, too. I assumed any where the photographer wasn't credited were stock photos. Except for Fairydoodler, the rest are all current researchers!

Right - we can't use the stock photos, so it looks as if I need to ask King Bomba (is that KB or are they different?) and Galaxy Babe - though she's given more or less blanket permission.

I'm happy to go without any more illustrations, or to apply exisiting ones by artists we've got permission from, but I'm also happy to include new ones.

Why not take a look at it when it's been typeset (which I'll be doing tonight and tomorrow) and see where illustrations would fit.

By the way, I'm worried about using the Vergering illustrations in solid black - I don't think the paper will be up to it. I'll be getting a proof copy done fairly soon so we'll know for sure then. We could print that section on one side of the paper only, or we couild grey-scale them or perhaps cross-hatch them.

What do you think?

Ben

I'll have to take a look at my Photoshop files, but I believe the versions I have are in two layers with outlines and fills. Grey should work well, not so sure about cross-hatching because it would fray out the contours... What kind of paper are you planning to print on?

Which program are you using? I've got InDesign, so if you're working in that, you can send me the templates and I can help you do some pages. I'll also convert all graphics to greyscale, if it helps. The problem with InDesign is that it always reads crop marks as colour, so be careful that you're not paying for colour...

And yes, KB is King Bomba. Sorry for the confusion.

I'm sure h5ringer will let us use his illustration for his entry, but he might have a better-quality image to send you if you ask him. (And it's black and white already!)

I'm just following the instructions on Lulu.com - so I am using MS Word which worked ok last time. I can kick searious donkey in Word - there is almost nothing I can't force it to do for me and I really understand how it works. Lulu likes pdfs and I have Adobe Acrobat, but I'm a total newbie with Acrobat, so I worry that I'd lose definition unecessarily when converting from Word.

It's a standard paperback book on very ordinary stock. I ended up with a perfectly funtional book. The production values are very day-to-day, but it was entirely adequate.

The image software I use is a freebe whose name I can't remember Photo Impact, I think. I'm very pedestrian with that: what does this button do? what about this one? Etc. I also have a copy of the GNU Image Manipulation Programn (known by it's initials but the filther doesn't like that) but it's been a while since I've used it.

The book size I'm working with is A5 though I may try some of the other sizes, it depends on how many pages I end up with and how much it costs.

I'll let you know the width of the text then I can include picture files in more or less any format in the word document.

Ben

Should work ok, then. But I'm happy to do it in InDesign as well, depending on how the proofs come out; image quality can be a problem from Word. It would probably be a good idea to re-size them to the resolution and dimensions you need first, rather than manipulating them in Word, just for consistency of print quality.

I fear I've been rather absent from the Consortium lately - it's been a bit overwhelming because I've had less time for it due to job searching. But this is an area where I feel I'm on a firmer footing and know what I'm doing, and doesn't require me to have an overview. So in other words, if you need me, I'm happy to volunteer. I'm also quite content that you know what you're doing, though, so if you don't need help, I won't be offended.

The Interim Committee stuff IS overwhelming for all of us. I can only cope by getting very stuck into it, but not everyone can do that. Job hunting has to come first. Are you back in the fatherland yet?

I definitely need help with the images though. As you say, Word is not to be trusted there.

B

No, still knocking about in NI - off for an interview in England next week, and possibly one in Germany the week after that

My mouse is yours, Milady.

In case you don't know it yet, if someone sends you an image in a Word document there's a good trick for extracting it with no loss of quality. Save the document as a web page/HTML, and all images will be in the associated folder, both in their original size and with the dimensions they have on the page.

Good luck with the job interviews. I hope they go well and turn out to be good companies.

Cool about Word adn save as html, I knew you could do it, but I didn't know that was one of the benefits.

I'll give you a link this evening to the thing as it stands now, and you can see what it looks like.

B

Thanks. The one I really have high hopes for is one right here in NI, as playground designer. You'd be more popular than Santa Claus , bringing children new playgrounds...

Ok. I have to go see a man about a horse, but I should be back by eight or so.

I wouldn't be able to help with finding fairydoodler--never heard of her until now. Though if you want to make sure the spreadsheet's complete, then by all means...

I've got a more up to date copy of the spreadsheet on my PC - I'll check the differences between the on on Google Docs and the one I've got and combine them and then upload to Google.

Mala, are King Bomba and KB the same?