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Douglas Adams Answers (Finally)
Relationship to Terry Pratchett?
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Enoch Root
One author who is often compared to you in terms of style and humor is Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame. What is your opinion of Pratchett's work? Do you agree or disagree with the comparisons between your works?
DA:
I can't really answer this one. I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett.
God Exists
(Score:5, Interesting)
by bfree
Did you endorse the use of "Babelfish" by AltaVista or did you consider trying to prevent them from using the word as they are far from proving that God does not exist?
DA:
We are working on developing all sorts of cross-promotional opportunities between AltaVista and h2g2.com. Does that answer the question?
Modern Culture as silly as the one in HHGTtG?
(Score:5, Interesting)
by SoupIsGood Food
In the HHGTtG series, you deal with a culture accustomed to instantaneous access to hip information -and- time-travel. It seemed to spiral in on itself, with time being as inconsequential a barrier to getting the best possible parties that geography is in the age of highways and jets.
In the contested twilight of the 20th century, we can go out on any given weekend, and find people dressed up in zoot-suits swing dancing, decked out in bell-bottoms at a disco, and rushing about outdoors attired in the shining armor of medieval knights, whacking each other with sticks.
Has the Internet and recursive nostalgia brought us to a point where modern culture is every inch as silly and fractal as the one you created?
Also: I have the phrase "Don't Panic!" marching cheerily across my web-access cell phone's display when not in use. Did you expect to see the technology you envisioned with "The Guide" come to pass in your lifetime? Are you terrified someone might come up with an infinite improbability drive sometime before dinner?
DA:
You obviously go to better parties than I do.
Comedy....or Tragedy?
(Score:5, Interesting)
by FascDot Killed My Pr
First, a big thank-you. You've made a lasting contribution to "our" culture (or should that be "culture"?)
I first read HGttG in my early teens. I doubled over laughing the whole time. I read and reread the entire series, bought both Dirk Gently books AND Last Chance to See. Loved them all and wouldn't trade having read them for anything. (btw, the first mental ward scene in Long Dark Teatime is a no-foolin', all-time classic.)
However, a few years ago I was talking to a (then) classmate. Very smart, philosophy-major type. He said (paraphrased) "I thought that HGttG was depressing. Such nihilism." At the time I thought "Hmmm...I didn't SEE a black beret on his head....". But every reading of the series since then his comment has struck me as more true--especially in the case of Arthur Dent. In fact, far from being funny, I now find Dent's character depressing--he's not just a loser, he literally has no control over his life at all (except in So Long for a while). And the control he does have does him no good (e.g. Earth is destroyed while he's trying to save his house.)
So my question is: When you were writing these books did you feel you were being gaily whimsical or did you instead feel frustrated and cynical?
DA:
I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall) Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It's like cancer, it just isn't funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it's the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans he doesn't have any stock options, he doesn't have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!
I've hit a certain amount of difficulty over the years in explaining this in Hollywood. I'm often asked 'Yes, but what are his goals?' to which I can only respond, well, I think he'd just like all this to stop, really. It's been a hard sell. I rather miss David Vogel from the film process. He's the studio executive at Disney who was in charge of the project for a while, but has since departed. There was a big meeting at one time to discuss, amongst other things, Arthur's heroicness or lack of it. David suddenly asked me 'Does Arthur's presence in the proceedings make a difference to the way things turn out?' to which I said, slightly puzzled, 'Well, yes.' David smiled and said 'Good. Then he's a hero.'
In the current, latest version of the screenplay, I think that Arthur's non-heroic heroism is now absolutely preserved, and I'm pleased with the way he works out.
In respect of the screenplay, I'd just mention a couple of things. I finished and delivered this new draft last week, and it's suddenly really working in a way that no previous version really did. It's a very hard circle to square that it should on the one hand be true to the spirit of Hitchhiker, and that on the other hand it should work as a structured movie with a beginning, a middle and an end, and character motivation and so on. Well, I think we've finally got there, after all these years. The other thing I want to touch on is this. There was a bit of a commotion on the Web last month about a version of the screenplay that got leaked, and which people didn't like very much. There is a whole story to be told about that script and the role it played in the politics of the development process, but now is not the time and maybe there won't ever be a time. But it wasn't my script and bears very little relation to any script of mine. The new script is my script and I'm extremely pleased with it.
Interconnectedness of all things.
(Score:5, Funny)
by Spud the Ninja
Dear Mr. Adams.
While the Hitchhikers' Guide trilogy is very good (I own a copy of the omnibus), I couldn't help but notice that it has 5 (five) parts. For this reason, I enjoy the Dirk Gently books greatly. My question is this:
What is your favourite type of cheese for cucumber, tomato and onion sandwiches on a nice French bread?
DA:
Cheddar.
Thursdays...
(Score:5, Interesting)
by MosesJones
There was a Radio Series, a TV series, the books... but no film. What stopped Zaphod becoming the most self-centred person in Hollywood?
DA:
My answer above will throw some light on this. But there are some other points. The story started on radio. And while radio and cinema are both extremely visual media (yes, I meant to say that) the way in which they each create pictures is very different. Sound is very important to both of them, but on radio you create pictures with words, and in cinema you create them with cameras. Translating between the two of them is a big stretch. (TV is the worst of both worlds. It's not as good at words as radio is because the pictures are a distraction which demand attention, and it's not as good as cinema because the pictures are not nearly as good.) However, I think we are now well on the way to solving these problems, and I hope that the movie will work out just great. I am very much looking forward to working with Jay Roach, whom I feel very fortunate to have fallen in with.
Interesting Music Software
(Score:5, Interesting)
by weston
In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, the character Richard MacDuff is obsessed with mapping natural processes into music. I really enjoyed this book; not only was it fun to read, it started me thinking about the relationship between math and music when I was a wee lad of 16 (and I still think it's the sort of thing that might be stimulating to young minds; I gave out the fictional essay "Music and Fractal Landscapes" to my high school students this last semester, and some of them took to the ideas. Some of them thought I was a jerk, though).
But my question is: are there any music composition software packages/languages/environments that you find interesting? Anything that Richard MacDuff would find fascinating?
DA:
There's one particular package that I bought and found very promising, though I have to confess that I never found the time to climb its steep learning curve. It's called MAX, and it's a high level object oriented music programming language. You can find information about it at www.opcode.com/products/max/.
Distributing copyrighted media over the internet
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Cycon
As someone whose writing talent and sense of humor many of us in the Slashdot community have come to admire and respect, could you explain to us your stance on some of the current issues regarding distributing copyrighted material over the Internet?
For instance, the original BBC recordings of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy have made frequent appearances on various pirate music sites, and they show up frequently in searches on Napster. What are your feelings on this sort of thing? Also, although I'm not aware of it happening currently, how do you think you might react to discovering that some of your various novels were being traded online?
Finally, many of us feel that the issue revolves around one of availability - for instance, if I knew that I could purchase digital recordings of the original HGTTG broadcast over the internet, I would be happy to do so, but as far as I am aware, such a distribution scheme is not currently available. Do you think that this is merely a cut-and-dry issue of intellectual property theft, or do you feel that issues such as these point out that maybe it is time for the publishing industries of these various forms of media need to redefine the way they do business?
DA:
I don't think the issues are cut and dried at all, and I think that we will see new models emerge. I don't think any of us can really predict exactly how they will work, but I do think that any model which fundamentally prevents people getting something they want is going to fail. We shouldn't be trying to prevent copying, just trying to make sure that the creator of the copyright gets something for his or her work when it happens.
However, under the current state of copyright law, copyright holders are obliged to protect their rights aggressively, or lose the right to protect them at all. That's why you'll often see people (such as me) whose natural instinct is to be a little flexible and forgiving in this area having instead to take a tough stand.
In fact, there is a very simple way of getting hold of digital recordings of the original Hitchhiker BBC broadcasts. We sell the CDs off my Web site, at shop.douglasadams.com.
Is Radio Drama Dead, or Can the Internet Save It?
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Cy Guy
The Hitch Hiker's Guide is probably the most well-known, if not the only known radio drama to gen-Xrs in the U.S. Do you think that given the vast array of media available today the Radio Drama as an art form is dead? Or do you think it can survive as Internet based streaming audio because the audience can listen to it at a time and place that is convenient to them, and there is a revenue model that works for U.S. listeners?
DA:
I think that radio is a great dramatic art form. In the UK it never has died, though obviously it has fewer listeners than it did before TV came along. I'd love to see it gain a new lease of life on the Internet, and I strongly feel that one of the things that might drive this is if the BBC created dozens and dozens of streaming channels and started to pump out all of the radio drama and comedy they have had sitting in their vaults for decades. They could do it on a very cheap subscription basis, and I guarantee you that there are lots of absolute gems sitting there. And a lot of dross as well, of course but there's nothing better for promoting creativity in a medium than making an audience feel "Hmm I could do better than that!'
How do you feel...
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Wah
....about predicting the Internet?
My mental image of the the Guide (outside of the Don't Panic sticker) was a laptop computer with high speed access. The big hint was when you said (paraphrased) "The Guide contains vast amount of information on every conceivable concept, much of it completely erroneous or actively dangerous." That's about the best description of the Net I've seen, and it came about before the thing was mainstream. I guess my question is, Have you ever thought of it that way? Do you like turkey? And what's the deal with Smithers?
DA:
Yes, the Web/net is a bit like that. And I think the reason it's like that is that it is essentially just people talking to each other.
I think that turkey is just big, bland, dry chicken.
I've consulted my lawyer and I have no deal with Smithers.
The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster
(Score:5, Funny)
by phossie
What is the origin of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and how would you make one on Earth?
I need to know.
DA:
Unfortunately there are a number of environmental and weapons treaties and laws of physics which prevent one being mixed on Earth. Sorry.
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Given the obvious thought and length of these answers, I can see why it took so long for this interview to come back :)
For some reason, I get the feeling the DNA just doesn't like to write that much. (Where is A Salmon of Doubt, damn it!)
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The subject says it, I think.
My blog
Mods, if you haven't read his books and don't know that mice are the smartest creatures on Earth, don't mod me down :)...
No, seriously though. It's a great interview. It's nice to see someone put so much thought and effort into one of these. Definately worth the wait. I think I'll even go out and buy another one of his books today.
kwsNI
DAMN IT. I was hoping he would tell us how the hell the dolphins got off planet earth before it was destroyed by the vogons to make a hyperspace bypass
I was hoping to employ the same technique to get out of work for a coupla days
==============================
http://www.geek-ware.co.uk
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PROUD to be GEEK
I'm not sure he's totally right about failures not being funny in the US, but it IS an interesting point.
Now if only we hadn't gotten so many "pan-galactic gargle-blaster" questions modded up to +5 we could have had a good interview going here.
--
Less money, less admin, less machine--more power
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
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Also, there's a fantastic DSP addon to Max called MSP, which manipulates waveforms and ADSR info the same way Max manipulates MIDI information. This is the multimedia development environment of the future. Share the joy!
wug
"It's OK, my sheet's got a hole in it!"
If he's ever in America I shall have to kidnap him and cook him a turkey. That's the problem with British cooks...
On the other hand, their beer is a lot better than ours...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No? Oh well, I thought it was funny.
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What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
I would have liked to see a few more serious
questions, but on the whole, interesting stuff.
I can hardly wait for the movie. I'm curious as
to which existing script it'll follow closest.
(the radio series, tv series, or books--they're
all fairly different)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
(1) Douglas Adams cares about fish. "So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish"
(2) Penguins like fish.
(3) Linux mascot is a penguin.
(4) Therfore, Linux likes fish.
(5) Damn, that's not it.
(6) Therefore, Douglass Adams cares about responding quickly to our questions.
(7) No, That's not it.
(8) Penguins like Linux. That's it.
(9) Uh, no, you idiot. That's not the answer.
(10) What is the Answer?
(42) This space left intentionally blank.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Hmmmmm, it took him that long to answer half his questions with one-liners? That's pretty disappointing. Of course, maybe that's because we moderated up only very silly questions.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I totally agree with English literature to be rather anti-heroic in US standards... this is a constant theme in Brit Lit, and I think quite a nice mindset, and would be a large part of HHGTTG's appeal to me.
Americans are too power/glory hungry, and the anti-hero theme gave me insight into balance, and acceptance of life, instead of living in a fantasy world.
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Well as any DA fan should know, he hates deadlines. Did you really expect him to meet this one?
--Nothing Funny Here.
Don't forget Douglas Adams has also been involved in a few excellent computer games:
HHGTTG: an Infocom classic text adventure.
Bureaucracy: Another Infocom text adventure
Starship Titanic: Graphical adventure.
All of which you can find on eBay most of the time. One even contains Peril-Sensitive sunglasses.
I didn't play the last, since it was in the middle of the Titanic hype and some girl had just made me sit through that movie twice. HHGTTG is a true classic, and was the first adventure game I got through without any hints. I played it on a CGA-equipped genuine IBM PC with one of those excellent clicky keyboards, and enjoyed every second. It also made me more curious about tea, which I rediscovered and learned how to make properly as a result.
Crowther and Woods' Colossal Cave Adventure was the first one I ever played, on a family friend's CP/M system. But HHGTTG and that clicky keyboard were the things that made me really decide that I was going to do something with computers. Thanks Douglas, you changed my life!
Since the mod points were split up between them, none of them rose as high as the question about his favorite cheese.
There were several other really good potential questions, but instead we get two questions about the same upcoming film. Alas.
Perhaps the method of moderating and selecting /. interview questions should be re-examined.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
But the green guy from the Hitch Hikers Guide book covers is being used on some adult links site full of porn ads.
Here
He's on that page more than once. Not sure if anyone else mentioned it before or noticed.
Homer has got to be one of the biggest failures ever, but he's still funny and the Simpson's are on TV. Although Homer does have control (sometimes) of his life, so I guess that doen't really compare with what he was saying... oh well.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
How can you have a Douglas Adams Q and A and not cover his time as a writer for Dr. Who? Such as how much his was responsible for Tom Baker's jokes. Such as the Zoroastrian elements. Such as how much working on the show influenced him. Et cetera.
I had hoped he'd answer my question about what influence the writings of Lewis Carroll had on him. It had gotten modded up to +5, but perhaps it contained one-too-many references to 42 and got unilaterally rejected on those grounds.
If anyone knows the answer, please speak up. This one's bothered me for the last decade or so.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Also, although I'm not aware of it happening currently, how do you think you might react to discovering that some of your various novels were being traded online?
I think the trade in novels online was just waiting for a vessel to carry it, and with palm pilots now shipping with up to 8M of ram, the opening has presented itself. Check out this site:
http://chroot.ath.cx/fade/pro jects/palm/palmtext.html
which for better or for worse, has all five books of the hitchhiker trilogy in iSilo (reader software for palmpilot) and ascii format. I think it would be really great if DA could stick to his "more lenient side" and not take a hard line on things like this, they really are great for reading on the subway - but at very least, the site seems topical.
J.
PS - Without meaning to flame, bitch, or otherwise irritate people, I had expected... I dunno... more, from DA. Am I the only one who felt that the only questions that got more than three words were the ones promoting the movie or his website(s)? No disrespect intended, the man has 7 times the genius in his pinky that I have along my entire left side, but...shrug... I was expecting more.
DA's contrast between american and english humor was interesting - I've never seen the "failure" take on it before, although it works quite well.
In even the worst american humor (Jim Carey, in my opinion) the protagonist accomplishes something.. There is catharsis, the impression that he has done something.
While not all British humor centers around failure, it is certainly present. If you think about MP's "Holy Grail", the knights of the round table are certainly failures.. Sir Robin, the brave? ".. He bravely ran away...".. And riding pretend horses while banging coconuts.. these guys are complete losers..
I've always found english humor much better than american humor, but then people here have always thought i was strange, too.
wish
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I hope everyone above is joking because that was possibly the worst interview I've read on /..
Non-answers, flip-answers, and plugs for products. It's like Woody Allen fanatics that laugh at the credits because they are so droll and insightful.
I love the guys writing, read 3 Hitchhikers, but peeyoo.
- I like pudding.
You obviously go to better parties than I do.
I'm a reclusive misanthropist, I don't go to parties. There is a startlingly profound difference between "go to" and "somehow wind up at".
SoupIsGood Food
You must be somewhere in the US without microbreweries. Here in Oregon we have more breweries than in Germany. There are 7 brewpubs within 2 miles of my home.
Before writing off US beer come to Oregon.
-LB
Where was the deeper meaning of 42 explained? Quite a big hole left with What do you get when you multiply six by nine? (Grunt)
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
It is important to remember that often an author is very separate and distinct from the characters he/she creates. I know my expectation was for witty and tongue in cheek and other Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect-esque responses. And yet, we had the true blue Douglas Adams talking to us.
Sig-"Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Jelaluddin Rumi
they must have an unimaginable amount of radio material from their history (assuming it hasn't been tossed out as with the Dr. Who debacle), and I for one wouldn't mind hearing it streamed via RealPlayer/QuickTime/whatever.
I probably wouldn't want to pay to subscribe to it, though. And how likely is the Beeb to do such a thing for free, coming from a land where license fees for radios and TVs help make up their operating budget?
(note: that's not a rhetorical question.)
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
for what? The fish? ;)
I think it's interesting that a good writer like Douglas Adams) answers questions in less words than a musician (Lars).
To paraphrase John Byrne, I think it was, (the great comic book artist), once said that drawing was not about making a lot of marks and lines to create something, but to use only those absolutely necessary to make it recognizeable. The art is in knowing what not to draw, or say.
In conclusion, that's why metallica sucks.
lf.o
History is littered with people whose first works (in whatever medium) are greated with acclaim and are elevated to classics and the creators deified.
DNA is just such a person. He's managed what others have only glimpsed, like the Beatles changing styles from album to album, but not like Python who've been abusing the same sixth form gags for 30 years, he has been trying to outgrow his roots.
The radio series was wonderful (if you don't own the CDs, go buy. Now) the books translated them to a new form.
His subsequent ventures have seen a few flops, but they have been different.
I saw him lecture a few years ago on some element of futurism and I really got the feeling he was looking at the world through slightly different eyes and it was a privilege to glimpse his perceptions.
One thing that has always surprised me - and he touched on it in some of his answers - that such a basically English (not British) sense of humour is such a hit in the US. Why is that?
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"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
These were not "silly" questions at all. Weird becomes normal when everything around it is weird.
These silly questions fit perfectly into a Douglas Adams interview.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
It's really annoying to have to discover the "real" author underneath those great works. He's not concerned with pleasing his fans anymore - far more with creating new opportunities, making the most of his product's potential, etc etc, to actually care about his long term fans. Ok, so I might be inclined to do that too, if Hollywood was waving six figure amounts at me, but it's still a shame.
Oh, and I think it goes without saying that he's not got the slightest interest in slashdot, except as a vehicle to push all his latest and greatest creations, including (INCLUDING!) h2g2, the commercial ripoff of Everything.
Shame. SHAME, I say.
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
Radio dramas are rarely heard in the US, in Seattle, WA we had (still have?) a sunday night radio drama show on one station. Its on late at night and I haven't checked for it in quite a while, but it still may be running.
Back in the olde days radio drama was the big thing. There were cool sound effects and good voice actors. The plays were written so you could follow the action only with your imagination.
Nowadays most radio stations are too concerned with providing either the latest new music or up-to-the-date traffic and weather to bother spending money on quality radio drama. Another excellent program that I haven't heard in a long time in the Seattle area is Music with Moscowitz, the last station I heard it on switched formats and dropped it, when it was the highest rated show in its time slot!
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Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
Hey, what about upstate New York? Some of the best breweries in the world are here, like Saranac (FX Matts Brewery) in Utica. Saranac beats the pants off most "international" beers. Plus, we have some of the best wineries in the world around the finger lakes. We rock!
lf.o
The non-answer almost made me think that maybe he's jealous of Pratchett's current surge in popularity, and I'm getting sick of my favorite authors turning out to be petty dicks as people (JMS, James Randi, the guy who wrote West SIde Story... Stephen King had a short story about the phenomenon.) I would have rather had something more definitly positive or negitive of the Pratchett comparison, if not the books themselves.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Actually, in the mid 80's there was an O'Charlie's restaurant in Nashville that made a drink called a "Pan-galactic Gargle-Blaster" in honor of the HHG series. They even had a (unofficial) contest going on who drank the most. We got into some serious trouble one night when I tied the previous record (5) and a friend beat it with 6. Ever see anyone do a slow-motion sideways fall from a high barstool? At least it seemed slow-motion to me at that time!
I think some of the people I hung out with at the time snarfed the drink recipe, but I wouldn't have a clue where it is now....
I visited Islington a few weeks ago, and must say that I was quite amused that there's a Hotblack Desiato Realtors.
Oh, you can just call me Phil.
They need to justify their continuing licence fee. This would be a pretty cheap way to do it. They don't charge for the news on their website ( news.bbc.co.uk ). And no ads!
The licence fee is only for TVs, not radios. And very few people in Britain think the licence fee is a bad thing. (ie only ultra right wing tories, who would like to sell the BBC to themselves cheaply, like they did to a lot of other publically owned industries).
If you ever end up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada you get this drink and many more at a bar called Zaphods...
Man, you just opened up a can of worms with that one... but thanks, I already own all the novels, so having them in digital format on my Visor is great! And it's legal, right???
lf.o
the nearest match for one on earth that we have found is this 1 oz tequila 1 oz gin 1 oz vodka 3 oz lemon juice mix gargle swallow repeat as necessary :)
I enjoy seeing him fail. His character was promoted temporarily, but from the second it happened I enjoyed waiting for him to plummet back to where he was before. The show is supposed to be about a loser and his three loser friends.
And Guiness puts them all to shame.
Although newport is a fun place to visit
--oregonian past and gone.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
He's letting the same people who felt no compunctions at all about letting Quasimodo ride off into the sunset with Esmerelda or the Little Mermaid avoid becoming seafoam make his books into a movie?
Please say it ain't so...
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It's chock full of Adams' dry wit- not to mention being a decent graphical adventure.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You clearly live in US West territory (like myself). You should get out more -- there is TONS of better food and beer in the (Mid|North)west...
Turkey is marginally better than chicken, but not something to make a big fuss over. Have you NOT had pheasant? People shoot all kinds of game birds in these parts, and they all happen to be tastier than the common "farm fresh" birds you get at the supermarket.
I live in Minneapolis, and there are plenty of tasty brews to be had. If you like beer, ale is the only way to go, and there are at least two good sources. Across/along the river in St. Paul, there is Summit Brewing Co., which makes a Pale Ale second only to Sierra Nevada. Their India Pale Ale and Porter are also top notch. A little closer to home, near the West Bank campus of the U of M, there is the Town Hall brewpub, which serves wonderful brews from a hand pumped cask -- no nasty forced carbonation, just pure, tasty beer. I also hear good things about the Sherlock Holmes brewpub in Minnetonka, but I haven't been there myself.
must... go... now... hungry... thirsty... I'm glad it's lunchtime!
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E2 IN2 IE?
Since he mentioned MAX, I feel that I should post a reminder that while MAX is a commercial program for MacOS, you can get jMax, the descendent, free for Linux and SGI.
:)
You need the JDK, Swing, and libaudiofile (probably have that anyway) to compile it. Everything but Swing can be found in packages (at least, for Debian), and Swing is also free (beer).
What is it? Well, it's a programming language for music. You can either do it textually or graphically. What you do is create little modules, and link them together via "patch cables". Each module could be a slider, wah-wah, sine generator, or whatever. It also allows for time-programmed events. Once linked together, you can then "run" this "program" to produce sound.
I've only just gotten time to start with it in the past few days, but as someone who's been doing music for years, it's truly incredible to me. And I also like the fact that it's one app Linux has that Windows doesn't
ps: Aphex Twin uses MAX. If you haven't listened to his stuff, do so immediatly.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans he doesn't have any stock options, he doesn't have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!
He's right about English culture, you know. In the immortal words of Floyd:
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
I took the wines course at the Cornell University Hotel school, we had tasings from all over, and guest speakers from France, Germany, etc., and they all highly regarded NY wines. Goose Watch, Loch Sheldrake, Salmon Run... all medal winners, and Hosmer makes the best Chardonnay I have ever tasted (1998 reserver, gold medal winner). First of all, what the heck kind of title is a Master of Wines, and why would your friend rip on NY State wines? They make plenty of cheap, crappy wine in Italy and California too.
lf.o
There were a few episodes where he was dating a woman who was like 60-something. How many people would want to see him dating woman in his league?
Probably not many. I don't think it would take away from anything, though. It would definitely add to the loser factor.
Ham on rye, hold the mayo please.
thelocust[dot]org
record breakingly late, largely detouring around the topics, and over way too soon. (or am I the only one who's read enough about the man to expect this sort of thing :) )
OT-ish: has no-one outside the UK heard of The Meaning of Liff [sic]? This was a non-Amazon link but BOL's URLs are too long.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
I have both 'The Meaning of Liff' and 'The Even Deeper Meaning of Liff' on my bookshelf... They are very much woth the read!
Is it just me or has anybody else gone through 6-7 copies of the hitch hiker series as books loaned never come back?
What is/was embarrassing about the Alamo? It was certainly a heroic defeat, but not a failure.
What does it have to do with US history, except for the fact that Texas is now part of the US? The only memorable things that happened at the Alamo, happened well before Texas joined the US. So from a cultural or national perspective(not as individuals) who in the US, and not of Texas, cares enough to be embarrassed?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I am at least one US citizen who has heard of The Meaning of Liff (and, indeed, The Deeper Meaning of Liff). In fact, a quick Google search turned up an online Liff site. It isn't clear if that's an authorized web transcription, although I noticed that Borders lists only the second book, and calls that one "hard to find."
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
As a long time lover of Guiness, I have to say that in general, you are correct. But a local brew pub I had a stout (called, appropriately enough, the Terminator) that, while not exactly superior to Guiness is certainly in the same league and definately _not_ put to shame. It had it's own flavor, as well.
Then again, never having been overseas, I can only compare it to the Guiness available here in the States. Still, it's a damn good beer.
The enemies of Democracy are
This man doesn't deserve respect, and certainly not the worship that this highly intelligent community (no sarcasm) is thrusting upon him. The man is a fraud, and although I only suspected it until today, he is also an asshole. I thought I liked the books when I read them, I thought they were great, but I began to realize that when he wrote them what he did was sat down, closed his eyes, and typed whatever random thoughts came into his mind. He slapped them together and presented it to the world, gift wrapped in stench and decay. We don't need this! These kinds of people and these kinds of works are only keeping us numbed and sedated, blinded to what is really going on. The opiate overdose has to stop. My advice: to see just the kind of transparent shadow of an author Adams is, read Robert A. Wilson, and never look back.
Of course! The meaning of Liff was/is my favourite - every couple of months I just have to leaf through the book. There is even a Finnish version of the book - very good version, I have to admit. Translation would not work so the Finnish team made a book about Finnish city/county/community names. The name of the book is "Elimäen tarkoitus" - they even managed to 'translate' the joke ("The meaning of Life" is "Elämän tarkoitus" in Finnish and "Elimäen" is a small city in Finland - actually Elimäki, but conjugated)
The question about best-known radio drama ... I've been told I am a gen-x-er, and I didn't know H2G2 was a radio drama. I grew up with Green Hornet and The Shadow. Oh well.
My copy of Lewis Carroll's Games and Puzzles mentions that LC had a huge fascination with the number 42 and encoded it everywhere in his books (he was a mathematician). It seemed reasonable to me that DA got the number from LC, but it would be nice to know for sure.
--
Marc A. Lepage (aka SEGV)
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
What is the origin of the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and how would you make one on Earth? I need to know.
Since you can't make one on Earth (the treaties could probably be ignored, but the laws of physics are going to be a bit tricky) you need to find a substitute. I've found the Zombie to be a crude but effective substitute. Some nice fruit juice, lots of Rum. YMMV.
Or you can always fall back to gin-and-tonics, which are available in every culture.
--Jim
Actually theres a little bar in Ottawa that I went to with Emmett last year at OLS called Zaphod Beeblebrox's which serves the Gargle Blaster. I can't remember what precisely was in it, but it was pretty tasty :) I think I will be returning to it this July
God Fucking Damnit
Now if only we hadn't gotten so many "pan-galactic gargle-blaster" questions modded up to +5 we could have had a good interview going here.
Oh, come on now. So many? I normally wouldn't bother to defend myself here, but geez. It was the only one in the interview, and it was last.
Some kind soul actually told me where i could get one after I asked that question.
And, to top it all off, no one had asked before I did - my post was # 291 (sorry, you'll have to search).
I agree with you on the failures question... but depressingly enough, I think he's mostly right. Most people here (US) tend to have no sense of perspective/ humour.
[|]
And post the answer here. His e-mail address is prominently displayed all over his web site (site URL is included in his answers above). He took the time to corespond with me personally when I sent him some "silly fan mail" a couple years ago, he may be amiable to answering these sort of questions as well.
question? Jeez, that's what I get for leaving the questions to others.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Um, Guiness is Irish, not English. And I've never had a really good pint more than 20 miles from St. James Gate.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Actually there's a club in Ottawa (Canada) called Zaphod's (IIRC) where you can buy a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It's blue ... that's about all I can say ... the rest is very fuzzy for some reason.
Oh, to have Carl Kassel's voice on my answering machine!
Best show on the radio right now.
Bar none.
Best of all, you can listen to all the episodes in real audio on the NPR website here.
-------
-------
"It was people! People soiled our green!"
Bite the hand.
Having originally come from Ottawa, I know the place well. For anyone planning to be in Ottawa, its located in the North Eastern part of the Byward Market.
I believe their recipe went like this:
1 shot of Jack Danials
1/2 Peach Schnaps (although some may prefer a full shot)
1/2 Blue Curaco
Mixed in a small glass of orange juice.
And yes, it does turn the most lovely shade of radio-active-green.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
While I'm at it, you could say Seinfield was a failure... mediocre comedy career, spending his days doing nothing important with goofy/oddball/ecentric friends, just coasting through life.
And without trying to hurt my brain remembering more shows, esp sitcoms, that revolve around buffoons or losers or idiots, I'll have to stop. My point is that these shows exist and pull in the ratings because people like to watch other people fail or make fools out of themselves. So maybe they're not heroes... okay. Douglas has a point. But maybe if he combs his hair right, or wears a hat....
In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever
I guess that explains English cooking.
I recently got a Palm Vx and was wondering what to do with all the extra memory (this is upgrading from a pilot pro, 8x more memory :) I loaded up Frotz and the z-code from HHGTTG and now I can make futile attempts to solve the game when I'm bored.
Fun to play that game all over again, though I miss the "Don't Panic" pin and all the other paraphenalia that came with it.
F0 07 C7 C8
When was the HHGTG series written? Many people claim Adams was the first person in pop-culture to predict the net/web.
But many of you Who fans would know Pete Townshend had more or less predicted it in a sense while writing his Lifehouse project, which he eventually aborted and turned the songs for it into their album "Who's Next".
The storyline went something close to a Father searching for his daughter or something relatively close, over a "grid" that took place in the future where everyone was connected to each other by it and used that as the primary form of communication.
Townshend has since finished Lifehouse nearly 30 years after he first started writing it.
Fuck Ajit Pai
I wonder if Douglas Adams had read the book The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy?
The book consists of a series of essays on well-known figures of history, with the main text giving the (usually) straight dope and the many, many footnotes (a Cuppy trademark) making fun of it all. Underneath the footnote humor was a wonderful set of irreverent observations, some of which struck me as fodder for master thesis topics for historian candidates.
Failure, presented in a funny way.
As I recall, the book was on the USA best-seller list for weeks. I didn't see it until much later (in paperback). If my history classes had been taught in this way, I might have been hooked on history instead of bits.
Here here! although guiness is Irish ;)
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Am I the only one amused that, despite all the know-it-alls who complained in a different slashdot thread about the improper use of the phrase "steep learning curve", we have a professional writer who uses the very phrase in its common, "misused" form?
-- A.J.
"Um. Yeah."
Excellent idea. Now that Douglas Adams has answered, please see if Terry Pratchett is willing to participate.
Reasoning:
- His books appeal to many geeks.
- He was an active participant in the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett last time I checked (a year or two ago, admittedly). So he'd be likely to support this kind of interview.
- He recently toured the States to promote "The 5th Elephant". Ok, maybe that's not an entirely valid reason, but I got my photo taken with him in Minneapolis which was way cool.
- I'm not interested in a flame war, but it would be very interesting to find out what (if any) opinion Pratchett has on Adams' writing style.
I've always described Fraiser as a cross between William F. Buckley and Don Knotts.
But I think he is quite a loser, and would agree that he parallels sort of a frenetic Arthur Philip Denu...
But then, look at the successful protagonists who excel with their looks, wit, intelligence and physique: Xena, Michael Knight, VIP bimbos, Mcgyver, Walker Texas Ranger, Dr. Quinn, Manimal... I think they're more pathetic than the 'losers' in sitcom world.
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Damn thats good. Moderate UP! Moderate UP!
Douglas Adams interview? What next? What are your favorite lines to quote from The Holy Grail? How many episodes of Doctor Who can you name? Name every girl who dumped you in junior high?
How completely worthless
Boulder Geek is absolutely right -- you get a different Guinness depending on what part of the world you are in, and none of them are as good as the Irish one, a.k.a. 1TGS.
For a number of reasons, the Guinness found anywhere other than Ireland is a joke. The ingredients vary depending on the region they export to, and the brew itself is more alcoholic so it can "keep" longer (think India Pale Ale), and is therefore more bitter. Additionally, Guinness is hand pumped from a real draught in Ireland, not force-carbonated in the keg. One of the best qualities of Guinness is its head, and it's much nicer when it's real.
Aside from Heineken and Beck's, Guinness is most overrated beer in the U.S. -- THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE THAT!
--
--
E2 IN2 IE?
I saw Ira Glass "produce" a show live at SMU's McFarlin auditorium. The simplicity of it was really cool. The show often features music by They Might Be Giants, and David Sedaris' bits are hilarious.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
It does seem reasonable, but according to DNA it's not the case. Here's a DNA quote listed in the douglas-adams-FAQ (21May96):
"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story."
"I love deadlines - I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by..." -Douglas Adams
Many, many years ago I picked up a book entitled "Don't Panic," a companion book to the HHGTtG. It was written by Neil Gaiman (I had no idea who he was at the time - today I'm a huge fan of his as well.) Mr. Gaiman spent a lot of time researching it and talking with Mr. Adams - and he answers a lot of questions that /. posters posed, but weren't moderated high enough to be submitted. (An example: who Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings was based on is addressed in the book.) Its a wonderful source of detail and trivia re: the original trilogy (I don't think So Long... is covered in it.)
Good luck finding it - I'll pull it off the shelf tonight and append this comment with the publisher's info as soon as I can.
When Metallica is slow to answer, Slashdot runs a snitty article complaining about it.
When Mr. Adams is even slower to answer, Slashdot takes this "that's-ok-we-know-you're-busy" stance.
Hmmn. Double Standard? Editorial Spin?
Or maybe it's just that putting out a "Douglas Adams slow to answer" article won't generate the same amount of controversy (read: thousand$ of ad banner impre$$ion$) as anything about Metallica?
In either case, it seems Slashdot's description would more correctly be "Strong Opinions from Editor Nerds. Stuff that we think matters."
--
Hey, a homey from my hood.
If you haven't tried it yet, hit Summit's Maibock. It's like three beers in one - it'll make you cross-eyed and happy real fast-like, all the while remaining tasty.
I've tried micros from all over, and I'm still amazed at how *good* Summit is. Then again, a beer snob friend of mine hates the stuff, so my opinion is hardly the last word on the subject.
...suckling from the sweet amnion of life...
But did it _really_ take that long to think up a few witty replies, or was he just so guilty for having put it off for so long that he couldn't stand the mental anguish (or the desire to advertise the movie) any longer? I was left with a dry taste (turkey?) in my mouth...
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So, who are we helping?"
Seems a good idea... he's savvy enough... but some points:
Pratchett no longer responds to email (his address is no longer public) or reads alt.fan.pratchett, mainly due to overload, partly due to freaky fans... just a warning.
He may have answered many of the potential questions already. Interviews can be found on www.lspace.org, the official pratchett fan site.
Pratchett most certainly has answered the question of how he feels about being compared to Adams. It's in the alt.fan.pratchett FAQ.
He might be cajoled into answering questions about the current state of his carnivorous plants...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
It's obviously easy to find in a search, but if you are as lazy as I am you'll welcom the link:
JMax
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The incredible failure of Brian in "Life of Brian".
He has no control over his life, being chased
around, and eventually get crusified.
His whole life was a failure.
Even at birth, when he was first mistakenly
taken for Jesus Christ.
I find this extraordinarily funny.. but then
I'm european.
In the (hollywood) producer's cut, our hero makes it out of the city and goes off with his love into a bright new future.
In the director's cut, that turns out to have been a terminal fantasy, generated as his (former friend) captor interrogates him into oblivion.
The producers cut (which, as I understand it, pretty much consists of cutting the very last scene) would probably end up feeling like serious deus-ex-machina to the discerning viewer. Actually, I would expect the reaction to be like: "Great movie, but WTF was it with that strange ending?" The director's cut -- while far more dark -- makes complete sense of the fantasy scene"
The critic's view of thing is that the Hollywood producers were far more interested in the 'happy' ending than they were with having the ending make any sense in what was otherwise a brilliantly dark movie.
............. I would actually say much the same thing of the ending to American Beauty. the "Gee, I'm almost happy that that macho coward blew my brains out" monologue almost made me sick. I would have been much happier with something like:--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Good beer is local beer, and that's all there is to it. Since the UK is pretty small, geographically speaking, everything is going to be local. But man, some of the beer in the US isn't half bad. Great Lakes Brewery makes a wicked dortmunder, Victory (in PA) makes all kinds of good beer, and Bert Grant's out in the northwest is hard to beat. We're not talking some Sam Adams BS "it must be good because we charge you $7 a six pack" beer, we're talking beer that has taste you can't beat. You just have to look for it and drink like a fish, the same way you'd go about finding a _good_ restraunt meal.
itachi
ps - despite the brewery, I highly recommend the hefe-weissen from Miller. I think it was Miller. It may be Busch... Actual good beer from a major US brewer, believe it or not.
Apart from finding "Douglas Adams" in the "If you like Pratchett you might like these guys" section of the FAQ, I found no reference to Pratchett's opinion of being compared to Douglas Adams. I looked at the FAQ here and here.
However, under the current state of copyright law, copyright holders are obliged to protect their rights aggressively, or lose the right to protect them at all.
Is this a UK thing? I know for a fact the exact opposite is true in the US.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I mean really, wouldn't we all rather that he hate deadlines?
...
Of course, he could be late for headshines.
It's all the same after the second Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, if you know what I mean
Will in Seattle
I posted this in a subthread, but it's pretty deep so I'm not sure anyone's gonna find it...
:-)
You can find the old Douglas Adams text adventure here. You'll need a Z-code interpreter to play it, do a search on Freshmeat or your favorite software repository for either "text adventure", "infocom" or "Z-machine". You can also play it online right here, but you can't save on this page.
For those of you who might be curious, the online play page is just a Java applet interpreting the Z-machine code file, and the URL to it is embedded in the HTML file as a PARAM to the Java applet. Pretty basic, I know, but it comes in handy a lot...
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
... that when Douglas was asked to do the interview he was heading towards a major screenplay deadline, whereas Metallica have been yelling their heads off and demanding publicity on an Internet-related topic. I think that's a pretty big difference.
Also, bear in mind that Slashdot was lucky to get any answers from him at all, considering that he hadn't actually confirmed that he had time to do the interview when the article requesting questions was posted. (I know Slashdot's got a reputation for being unprofessional, but this is taking things a bit far.)
-- Yoz
They come from working-class stock... dad's an ex-cop. Frasier and Niles were definately not born with a silver spoon in their mouths. And that's part of the absurdity of the premise. Frasier and Niles act sooo new-vo rich, so prissy and spoiled, delusions of grandeur... most of which get them into goofy-ass predicaments.
Both took to distinguished professions, only now Frasier is relegated to hosting a Dr. Laura-caliber talk show after having a go at private practice. Yet his ego is uncontrollable (hence the lovely metaphor of his "big head") and his elitest aspirings only conjoin to blind him to his Emporers New Clothes status. We laugh at the man. He is a failure and he does not realize it. But he is not a hero...
Here that is and search for "Adams".
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Ah, but that's just it. He reached into his subconscious, and being part of the great computer, pulled out the correct answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Good writers do not "check out" other writers.
Writers read as fans not as writers. They may take away ideas and make improvments but from the start to the finish they read as fans.
If one writer hears of his work being compaired to someone else he thinks "Well thats cool" but otherwise thinks nothing of it..
People will never buy a Pratchett book becouse his style is similer to Douglas Adams or visa versa. No one is going to NOT buy a book over the same reasons.
They'll buy a book becouse THAT BOOK is good or THAT WRITER is good not a similer writer of a similer style.
So Adams never picked up a Pratchett book. Not entirely supprising.
If Adams makes a movie that was not allready based on a book and didn't feel up to writing the book I doupt he'd have any objection to having Pratchett do the book and if Pratchett turns it down it will only be due to an objection to writing a book version of a movie and nothing else.
I don't actually exist.
I mean, as a US citizen born in Texas, I know tHGttG and the Alamo pretty well...so ask yourselves something...
Why would you want to celebrate failure?
Do you feel that the protagonist deserves to fail?
Do you think that his failings are intrinsically funny?
Do you identify yourself with failure?
The answers to these questions go a long way in explaining the differences between US culture and other places, much more so than a shallow analysis about how young the US is.
Personally, I find nothing funny at all about Arthur Dent's situation - it's the satirizing of culture and "hipness" that makes tHGttG funny for me. Laughing at Arthur Dent would be like laughing at Maximus at the end of the movie Gladiator - both of them just want their own personal hell to stop.
The US is ideally an egalitarian meritocracy - a culture driven on personal success. Success in business, success in social circles, success in education; you name the situation, and there are success stories that people in the US want to emulate. That's why there's a multibillion dollar market in self-help books. Finding failure funny requires a darker sense of humor than we in the eternally optimistic US, land of the American Dream, usually have.
The Alamo is celebrated, as a valiant struggle in the name of a just and ultimately successful cause. I won't get into the ethics of the Texas Independence War, but suffice it to say that if the Texans had lost against the Mexicans, the Alamo would be regarded as a tragedy today. I would also argue that Britons feel the same way. There would have been nothing heroic about Dunkirk or Gallipoli if the US and the UK had lost either WWI or WWII. Along the same lines, there would be nothing heroic about the famous torpedo bomber squadron during the Battle of Midway (they gave their lives as a distraction for the incoming dive bombers far above) if the US Navy had lost the Battle of Midway.
Places such as Serbia, where the entire national consciousness is rooted in the idea of heroic sacrifice, don't find abject failure heroic either. If you've ever read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West (one of the seminal books on the Balkans) than you know what I'm talking about. They regard every one of their physical failures, from their loss at Kosovo Polje in the 14th century to the Ottoman Turks to NATO forcing governance of Kosovo from them as a spiritual victory - a kind of affirmation of the Serbian spirit.
There is nothing funny or heroic about failure. The only stories of true failure that are funny are those of characters that the audience doesn't identify with - the comic foil.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Even thought the BBC is a public service corporation, and not allowed to run commercials, etc, it does have a commercial operation, which involves the selling of programmes abroad, and the sale of videotapes, cassettes, books, etc.
I think the worldwide broadcasting of its back catalogue would be more likely to fall into the commercial category.
Find funky gifts
Guinness have actually just announced that the version they've been selling in Australia for years is being discontinued and replaced with the real Irish recipe, which is good news for us Aussie Guinness drinkers who don't want to travel halfway around the world just for a good pint :)
That's why Americans love it. I'm sure they don't understand the first five letter word that comes their way (well most of them), which explains why they love to use certain four letter words... {=
I don't know much about cricket, or the ashes, but I do agree it makes an interesting game. Of course, many Americans don't even know what cricket is, and they invariably think of the insect first - even if they know of the game.
Why I know this? I'm not an American. It's all hearsay and conjecture. I will admit it.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
He is the man.
What Dr. Who debacle? Did they throw away some episodes? That's terrible, terrible news.
Why not take a Transmeta Web Slate, put it in a big leather binder with a smashing cover, paint a yellow smiley face on it, and put DON'T PANIC on it? After all, the Net, as many have remarked, does indeed resemble the HHGG. JHK http://www.cascap.org
... the BBC would bring back Dr. Who with Tom Baker playing the 9th re-generation of the doctor. With DNA scripting it.
That would be worth seeing.
If Yank sites discriminate against IP addresses outside the States (for enforcement of draconian crypto laws), the BBC could provide content free into the UK and chargeably elsewhere.
__
Arse
Okay, things go wrong for comedy effect, but he is in control of his life (unlike Arthur Dent), and is wealthy.
Let's see - what's the criteria of success in the states? $$$$. Oh yeah.
So what's the difference? Frasier is in control and rich; Arthur is a typical English bloke. Arthur is an anti-hero; Fraiser's just a comedy character.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
But that would be the same as saying that the BBC could make videos free to UK customers, and make the rest of the world pay. Of course, that would be a fucking brilliant idea, but it's just not going to happen.
Find funky gifts
Even if the dolphins could tell us, they won't, because we're not smart enough to fuly grasp the concept. Otherwise, *we* would be the ones moving from one dimension to another, on a whim, and then where would the universe be?
They probably used a transporter/teleporter, which makes you feel remarkably like being drunk. You know, like the one Ford and Arthur used in the first book?
And besides, if the dolphins wanted you on their new planet, they would have moved you there instead of whatever dimension we're in now.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
I have named all of the servers on my network names from DA HHG2G books.
Marvin
Magrathea
Deep Thought
Slartibartfast
;)
Golgofrinchian
I'm pining for the fjords...
I appreciate this insight. Henceforth I shall no longer be puzzled as to why there are absolutely no likeable characters in "Are You Being Served?".
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
It looks pretty odd.
Ignoring your condescending attitude I'll just respond.
From your interpretation of the dictionary:
>2. Failure to win. That seems to speak pretty clearly to me.
From RtA:
>The independence of Texas was won !
I guess we can argue about tactical losses or sacrifices and strategic victories, or heroic battles that can be regarded as such by both the victors and the losers. We can even get down to the details and discuss the loss, failure, or defeat of the nine Texans that were killed at San Jacinto; or we can discuss the victory or success that was won in part by their loss.
Isn't the English language wonderful?
Do you measure success or failure only by life or death? Did those men captured by SH and his army at SJ succeed because they survived? There are many ways to measure success, one that you have not brought up is the kill ratio. How many of the Mexican army that attacked the Alamo were in one way or another put out of action by the men that were defending the Alamo?
At the Alamo, the Texans fought well, as did the Mexicans. Considering the fact that the Alamo is remembered, and how important memories can be to morale and motivation, I'd have to consider the Alamo to be a success, not a source of embarrassment to either side. Certainly if the Mexicans had succeeded in suppressing the Texan uprising, then the memory or history records of what happened at the Alamo would not in any way, shape or form resemble what we think and read today.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
check this link out if you are aussie. Just bother reading #5.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Who ever said it was English?
Compared to pretty much all the beers in the silicon valley, getting a pint of guiness from anywhere is better than the stuff the have here.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Let me rephrase things a little: ...just talk to any international beer reviewer and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Oregon is known (worldwide) for good beer.
Oregon has more breweries than anywhere (a fact! (since two years ago)), giving more places to drink more types of more good beer.
You limeys sure like to generalize (;0)) Der.
-LB
I'll take australopithecines over H. sapiens sapiens anyday. I've had it up to my ears with our barbaric and backwards society. So much for civilization.
"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Chapter 23, Paragraph 1
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
DRuboid And I *do* care - really...