Slashdot Mirror
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.
---------------------------------
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
==============================
PROUD to be GEEK
----
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!"
No? Oh well, I thought it was funny.
--
--
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
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.
----
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
---
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
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.
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?
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
That's the problem with British cooks...
Hey, but they make great fish & chips.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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!
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
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....
In the US, failures are only funny when there's either slapstick going on, or it's a comedy of errors; But very nearly every movie in the US has a happy ending, so any failures along the way are just plot complications.
There's a movie containing Michael Douglas called Falling Down which I have not seen, but am told is just a movie about a guy having about as bad a day as you can possibly experience without being in a POW camp someplace. In essence, it's a story about a kind of failure... So I wouldn't say there are no examples of movies about Failure in the US, but then, I don't know how the movie ends, either.
I do know that people who post spoilers are bad, however, and being naughty in my sight, they shall snuff it.
In any case, America is an extremely young nation with very little history of its own, even as compared to England. Let's face it, we only go back a couple hundred years. We're sensitive about our failures in the same way that a boy just past puberty is insecure about his sexual orientation; History speaks for itself, but we (as a nation, not individuals necessarily) still get defensive when someone brings up something embarrassing. Remember the Alamo?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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...
--
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I don't think the HHGTTG can claim be the first, in that succeeding similar ideas (such as Everything) rip it off. It's just too much of a broad concept. However, once DNA saw the possibilities (read: commercial) in Everything, *then* he created H2G2.
As for your last point, no, I think it's astonishingly precocious if an author does not care about his audience, and still expects to be taken seriously. Some artists claim that their work is for themself, and others liking it is just a lucky chance, but that sounds desperately conceited. DNA is quite happy to reap the rewards of his popularity, but if it was more widely known that he is, at least metaphorically, raising the finger to his audience, his income would drop.
And stop flamebaiting. I have more personal relationships than you have (Insert comical yet insulting value here).
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
The Islington one was the original: DA saw the name, thought it was cool and used it (with permission).
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 love deadlines.. especially that "whooshing" sound they make as they go by.
--
Never knock on Death's door.
Ring the doorbell and run
(He hates that).
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
Is it just me or has anybody else gone through 6-7 copies of the hitch hiker series as books loaned never come 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
question? Jeez, that's what I get for leaving the questions to others.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Suprisingly enough, a third Douglas film, Fatal Attraction, originally had an ending where Glenn Close's (?) character, rather than the attack Douglas and his wife, commits suicide and frames Douglas for her murder. (Psychologists said that this original ending was far more realistic behaviour for the type of disorder Close's character exhibited.) The depressing ending didn't test well, and was replaced by the more traditional ending where despite all his faults, Douglas' character becomes a hero of sorts.
--
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 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"
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.
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."
--
while in the UK version, it is being given out for
which is a very different kettle of fish altogether. In the US version, it gives a load of explanatory information about the word 'Belgium' (ripped from Episode 10 of the radio series, but with an edit over the F-word), while in the UK version, it just gets to the point. Let's face it, it wasn't particularly funny in the radio series (although my tape copy provided some unintentional humour by saying "un-f(bleeped)up personality" in respect to use of dirty words in public.)
This happened to Gilliam's Brazil as well. Gilliam wanted the original edit of the film, but Universal were too queasy about letting it out. Gilliam managed to sell the European rights to other people (Warner in the UK) so a 'European cut' of Brazil was released, with much more violence than there is in the original US version. Gilliam managed to force the release of his original US version instead of Sidney Sheinburg's cut version, which would have been a disaster.
The Sheinburg version is available in Criterion's excellent Brazil box set, on both LD and DVD. It is an interesting entity in its own right, because it's utterly terrible, ending with a *happy ending*. Er, Universal, it's a depressing movie, as the poster above pointed out. But did they care? No, they nearly put it out! (It's even been seen on cable in the US a couple of times.)
However, the US version of the film, as it was officially released (the newest Criterion cut is better and newer than either) is different to the European version in many of these respects. A film this also reminds me of is Blade Runner, which also was mucked up ending-wise (with the permission of Ridley Scott, however, because of the film's poor test scores - which shows the fallacy of test scores.)
All are about failures in society and the person, and usually both. That's the thing.
Excerpted from dictionary.com:
defeat
n.
2. Failure to win. That seems to speak pretty clearly to me.
Excerpted from Remember the Alamo:
The Alamo was remembered, as well as the Goliad massacre (perpetrated by order of General Santa Anna), forty-six days later, on April 21, 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, where 783 men led by General Sam Houston defeated 1,500 Mexicans. The battle lasted only eighteen minutes. When all was over, 630 men of the Mexican army were dead; 730 were prisoners. Nine Texans lost their lives.
General Santa Anna, disguised as a peasant, was captured the following day.
The independence of Texas was won !
So here we're talking about how the Texans got caps popped in them, and died (natchly), and then just to put a happy ending on it, we talk about San Jacinto.
Now, I know that the Alamo is not significant to the vast majority of Americans, but it is an excellent example, which is why I've spent so much time working on this comment. (This wouldn't have taken that long, but abovenet is having problems. I wonder if they're being DOS'd again.) In any case, the Alamo is seen as a victory, in spite of it being a defeat, because a small force held off supposedly overwhelming odds. I won't get into highly defensible positions, though. That's a different discussion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
I still want to see where I said Falling Down was a funny movie. Talking about failure being funny in movies was in a seperate paragraph. A sentence is a complete thought, a paragraph is a complete collection thereof, generally to make a particular point.
Next point: Even five hundred years is a short period of time when you compare that to nearly any other nation. Your point on Australia is taken, however.
Oh, and I think I can safely say that Canada has no sense of irony, evinced by the Alanis Morrisette song, "Ironic", in which she appears to believe that rain on your wedding day is ironic. For those who are still confused: That's just a bummer (Hmm, perhaps that song should go something more like "Isn't it a bummer... don't ya think?") and not irony: Irony would be if you had changed your wedding date from a day that the forecast indicated rain to one which was supposed to be sunny, and the reverse were true. Of course, that's more just boneheadedness for trusting the forecasters, anyway.
I do agree with you on the last point though; Failure which is not ironic isn't funny, it's just realistic, and therefore unexciting, and therefore I'll pass.
Oh, one last tip of the hat in favor of Australia: Someone (I wish I could remember who... anyone?) said (About the Lewinsky Case) that they were glad they lived in .au because it was better to be in a country founded by criminals than one founded by puritans. And since by the standards of the Religious "Right", I am a criminal...
I couldn't agree more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
All three are required reading for DNA fans...
--Arcum
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
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.
It's less a ripoff of Everything and more a ripoff of Project Glactic Guide. Been around since 1991, a long time before Everything was a glint in the milkman's eye. But PGG is honest that it rips off HGTTG, so it all works out in the end.
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