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Asteroid Named After Douglas Adams
tc writes "MSNBC is reporting that an asteroid has been named after Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy fame. Fittingly, the asteroid carried the provisional designation 2001 DA42, thus commemorating the year of his untimely death, containing his initials, and incorporating the famous answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. This seems like a fitting tribute to me."
First Asteriod
Rest in peace, man who made me laugh hardest ever - we don't need an asteroid named after you, but it sure sounds nice to hear somebody else cares.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
and incorporating the famous answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Can someone please shed light on this for those of us in the dark?
That being said, his appeal seem rather limitied to certain segments of the population such as science and IT types. So, let me ask, why do people like him so much?
Why not call it a rock?
Cheers,
Ian
So long and thanks for all the fish...... Seriously thought this guy was a comic genius and deserves this. Don't forget your towel
Don't Panic!
As hinted by the destination, asteroid Douglasadams is actually on its way to meet the mice.
To have your death year, initials, and famous number permanently tied down to a big chunk of ice and rock floating in space, unbeknownst to most people, is a fitting tribute? I guess if by asteroid, they mean the moon, then it could be more "fitting"... otherwise, I personally wouldn't even find such a "tribute" very flattering if it were named after (things associated with) me.
Like a 13 mile high statue of him throwing a plastic cup?
A museum and a monument can only be appreciated by the people on earth. A dead rock floating through space can be appreciated by inhabitants of alien planets in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
This seems like a fitting tribute to me.
This was a tribute to you?
I'm sure the dolphins apriciate the sentiment. And the mice.
It would have been much more fitting if they had decided to name the 10th "planet" (debatable) Rupert instead of Sedna.
How about a museum glorifying Douglas Adams? Or a towering monument in his honor? Or if all of his fans gave $100 to his family?
There are tons of things that are more fitting than to have your name attached to some dead rock floating in space.
Give $100 to his family?
The asteroid naming is meant as a tribute dumb-shoe - not as welfare....
***WARNING SPOILER ALERT***
A race so advanced that it hardly could reach anything more (mice) built a supercomputer that for a long time (something like a million years?) worked on an answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
It came out with "42". And politely explained that you still have to figure out the question itself yet. So another computer was built, ultimately huge and powerful, to guess the question. This computer happened to be the Earth. And got destroyed in really silly circumstances.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I'm surprised they didn't name it "DNA42".
Douglas was always proud of his full initials. (Douglas Noel Adams.)
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Mean while Douglas Adams is sueing the person who named the asteroid after him
For FREE NO ADS! 1GB/20GB PHP MySQL With a Control Panel Hosting
They are just begging for that asteroid to change course & destroy earth.
Don't toy with fate.
From TFA:
It's a relatively unremarkable space rock...
I think it is a very fitting tribute.
Of course other things could be done, but that is not the point.
It would be fitting, if the asteroid turns out to be heading straight towards us and this threat is used to convince all the phone cleaners, insurance salesmen and other 1st ship people to get on a spaceship to another solar system :-D
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Once it becomes financially viable (start now by depositing a penny into a savings account), perhaps a restaurant could be built on the asteroid?
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
For the guy who made me first laugh, then cry. It would be nice to see 2001 DA42 in the night sky, but I will be inside re-reading his books.
I hope he found some peace, and that his publicist hasn't found a way to contact him about his deadlines yet.
The ultimate dreamer, genius, slacker, geek and philanthropist. I hope his works continue to reach people and make laugh and sigh as much I as did.
Was this a special delivery from Magrathea?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
It's classed as "Mostly Harmless".
DNA was not just an author of amazingly funny and insightful books, he wrote many stories for Doctor Who. So a space object appropriate in many ways, imho:)
Nothing - well thats something.
... of an asteroid having 2001 DA42 as its name then becoming the tribute rock to Douglas Adams himself?
If the asteroid hits Earth will it think "Oh no, not again"?
why not? Douglas Adams was mostly famous for a work of science fiction about a journey through space. I can't think of anything more fitting (except perhaps a star!)
``Six pints of bitter, and quickly please, the world's about to end.''
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There was an asteroid already incidentally called '2001 DA42' and they are using this asteroid to be named after Douglas Adams.
Which means the asteroid name is/maybe Douglas Adams, or they may keep the original incidental naming.
Either way, I know where my towel is.
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I take it this asteroid is "mostly harmless" ?
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
MyBlog
The rock hangs in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't?
...the asteroid was on a collision course with Earth and preparing the way for a space highway?
(Note to fanatics: Yes I know it was a construction ship in the Hitchhikers series)
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This is great and I'm sure he would've appreciated it, but that's what I find strange. Why don't we make more efforts to do these things while people are alive. I mean, once they are dead, we are basically doing it for ourselves, "Oh, yeah, remember Adams and his books?" or maybe his family. But those who we are commemorating never get to experience what we are trying to express, which is overwhelming appreciation.
I think maybe we should try to do more retrospectives of those still with us. Who has lived a full life and made major contributions to our understanding, knowledge or culture. Then, give them an asteroid. Things like this are done, no doubt. Just something that struck me.
Bad form, to reply to trolling ACs... but I'm grouchy this morning, and you've pissed me off.
Fuck off, and die in a rat hole. Really. Douglas Adams touched a lot of people's lives, and a lot of us were deeply saddened by his death.
I understand that you're rolling along fine, repressing your feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, until they form a bitter ball of bile that splashes out into trolling, without the fucking balls to even do it without hiding away like a coward.
Some people however are a touch better adjusted, and feel comfortable expressing actual feelings about people they care about. Douglas Adams was, apart from being a great author and a lot of other things, a really nice guy. (Guess what, you're allowed to care about people of the same sex, and it doesn't make you gay! Amazing isn't it!)
Returning to my main point - fuck off and die in a rat hole. And now I need my coffee.
fortune -o
...if it will hit Earth no matter what, once somebody fires the drive.
Oh yes, nice day for it.
If you can keep the cup levitating midair, just like bricks don't, why not?
(quite easy actually. Just throw the cup at the ground and miss)
I've always heard that they wait until after someone is dead so that he or she can't disgrace themselves and make the tribute to them an embarrassment. Once someone is dead, they can't do anything bad and you know what you're getting.
Once it becomes financially viable (start now by depositing a penny into a savings account), perhaps a restaurant could be built on the asteroid?
I guess with current rates it will be financially viable about the time of the end of the Universe.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I think the most fitting tribute possible would be for the upcoming HHGTTG movie not to be absolute crap. Aside from that, this is quite a tribute from astronomers, being as they don't quite have the resources to manage your other suggestions. Have to work with what you have at hand and such.
Didn't someone name a new species of beetle after DNA a year or so ago? If so QED. If not... I wish I knew why I thought so...
Slightly offtopic, but considering the topic it seems pretty appropriate:
Am I the only one who thinks that the answer to life the universe and everything has to be an off-by one error?
If the answer is 43 this suddenly gives a lot of meaning. 43 represented in hex is 2B. And if the answer is 2B then the question gives it self and it all suddenly makes all the sense in the world.
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
...this seems like a fitting tribute to me
Fitting would be if that astreoid collides with earth to clear way for an intergalactic hyperway system...;)
--
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
I really fear what Hollywood could do to one of the greatest storys ever told. It could easily turn out to be a disgrace.
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
I'm going to post this AC because I'm drunk and I know I'll get +troll for it, but I think I speak for a fair number of people here when I say...
STFU, idiot.
Revised threat clasification Mostly harmless
Have you learnt nothing? If we banish the telephone sanitisers we'll lead full, rich, and happy lives until we're all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
Adam?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I quote:
This seems like a fitting tribute to me
Seems good old Douglas isn't dead after all.
Test screening for THGTTG are underway, May in cinemas.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/
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Yes, it's easy. All you have to do is make the statue Artistically Great. That way Art will keep it in the air.
(p.s. if you don't get this, listen to the radio series)
1st ship? It was the B-Ark that held the useless third of the population.
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
Didn't someone name a new species of beetle after DNA a year or so ago?
Googling turned up:
Erechthias beeblebroxi Robinson & Nelson, 1993 (tineid) with a false head; after Zaphod Beeblebrox, two-headed character from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
From Here
An asteroid was named after Arthur Dent a long while ago:
l
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_294648.htm
And more bollocks to you!
There are tons of things that are more fitting than to have your name attached to some dead rock floating in space.
It is very fitting. His most famous piece of fiction is about space.
You must also remember that this comes from a group of astronomers - so they honour them in their way. Other pay tribute in different ways. Where do you think Alta Vista got the name Babel Fish from. Where do you think the band Level 42 got their name from.
However, I still think the coolest thing in the world would have been if this press release had compared the size of the Huygens probe to a Ford Prefect instead of a VW Beetle
siener's youtube channel
That's telephone sanitizer to you buddy !
Of course the asteroid was named after Douglas Adams. He was named years ago, shortly after his birth, I guess.
rewriting history since 2109
Fittingly, the asteroid carried the provisional designation 2001 DA42, thus commemorating the year of his untimely death, containing his initials, and incorporating the famous answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.
;)
Perhaps more fittingly, it was described as "relatively unremarkable". Sounds vaguely familiar...
Naw, we organize a mission to have "Don't Panic!" etched into the face of the asteroid in deep relief.
And sometime, somewhere, if the improbability field is still operational (probably) DA42 will be hurtling through space, threatening the complete destruction of some inhabited planet in the deepest reaches of space.
And somehow, someway, even though the inhabitants of the planet have never heard of the Hitchhiker's Guide, much less earth; one of the inhabitants will scream out: "Fucking Vogons!" and SETI will recieve a signal.
maybe, if it was just about the MONEY.
his family has enough money, unless they've wasted it somehow.
museum of him? frankly, I think douglas adams would have been disgusted of such a thing.
send 'em a hundred bucks and see if they care more about that than what they would care about this. it's the thought that matters.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Once when he was addressing a science conference in the UK, he delightedly announced to all present, "My initials are DNA and I was born in Cambridge in 1952!" (as related in 'The Salmon of Doubt').
Unfortunately, given the current state of our Art, there's no way we could keep the cup up.
I mean, come on. We have reality TV. Forget the shoe-shop event horizon, we're really screwed...
I suppose that's why, according to IAU guidelines, objects "that approach or cross Earth's orbit are given mythological names". When we eventually learn that the End of the World is near, we don't want it to arrive by the name of Einstein, Zappa, or the Marshmallow Man. It better be named after Zuul or some other forgotten deity.
How about a museum glorifying Douglas Adams? Or a towering monument in his honor? Or if all of his fans gave $100 to his family?
I'm sure a toweling monument would be the ultimate tribute.I think it's very fitting.
:)
It would be much more fitting, though, if the asteroid eventually collided with Earth, destroying it
As some of you may know, Douglas co-wrote a book called "Last Chance To See" about endangered species. His co-author, Mark Carwardine is delivering the second Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture on the 10th of March. It's a charity event at the Royal Institution in London in aid of Save The Rhino and I believe tickets are available from them.
Bulldozer? Are they sure this "asteroid" isn't a "bulldozer"?
.. the asteroid hangs there almost the same way bricks don't.
Supprised you didn't include the previous and following entries on that page:
<i>Bidenichthys beeblebroxi</i> Paulin, 1995 (triple-fin blenny) with a false head pattern.
<i>Erechthias beeblebroxi</i> Robinson & Nelson, 1993 (tineid) with a false head; after Zaphod Beeblebrox, two-headed character from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
<i>Fiordichthys slartibartfasti</i> Paulin, 1995 (triple-fin blenny) Named for Hitchhiker's Guide character Slartibartfast, who is noted for designing fjords.
on a humorus note I also ran into:
"<i>Eristalis gatesi</i> Thompson, 1997 (flower fly) Named after Bill Gates "in recognition of his great contributions" to dipterology, presumably referring to money, not to bugs of another sort."
Lots amusing stuff on that page. Harrrison ford has two critters named for him, as does Smeagol (a.k.a. Gollum). There is at least one that used Tolkien elvish instead of latin or greek for naming (Tolkien's works are well represented in that list).
Thanks for the link, just my sort of useless but amusing knowledge (i've often contended my improves in direct ratio to the uselessness of the knowledge).
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Could you hand me my rubber ducky. Gin and tonics, anyone?
Rule of the open mind
People who are resistant to change cannot resist change for the worst.
" Naw, we organize a mission to have "Don't Panic!" etched into the face of the asteroid in deep relief."
Or better yet.... "PANIC!". Lol.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So this is it, we're going to die.
:wq
But if I'm not mistaken and I don't believe I am the B Ark was the 1st ship to be launched.
cL0h
Strange, the tags worked in preview.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
...hundreds were injured as a small group of Mr. Adams' most maniacal supporters assaulted the proceedings by reading from "The Collected Works of Vogon Poetry", but those ruffians were quickly subdued by an improbable number of monkeys who wanted their copies of Hamlet to be read.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Bugger went and died on my 18th birthday, that's not really fair.
fitting maybe, but damned annoying for the rest of us !
Why does Level 42 have a website?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
he's going to have a little trouble, seeing as a future breakfast cereal is going to put a patent on the name "2001 DA42" about 500 years ago...
...the asteroid was immediately demolished, to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
Where's my towel???
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
You're right, everyone celebrates Douglas Adams life in their own way. I worked at a bar in Ottawa, Canada called Zaphod Beeblebrox for a while. Its a very popular place thats been around for quite a few years now. :)
They even had the Pan Galactic Gargleblaster on the drink menu
I reject your reality and substitute my own
..oh, I mean, for the asteroids. :)
There's already one named after Gene Roddenberry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4659_Roddenberry - and another after Isaac Asimov - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5020_Asimov . Douglas Adams certainly also deserves one.
spoiler alert mother fucker
The current distance from Earth (as of 25 Jan 2005) is about 1.734 AU (equals about 259 402 932 kilometers or 161 185 509 miles).
The asteroid in inclined about 1.73 degrees from Earth's orbit. It lines outside of the orbit of Mars with a Semimajor axis of about 2.41 AU. As of 26 Jan 2006 12:30 UTC, it was located approximately:
2001 DA42 is currently a very dim object: with a apparent visual magnitude of approximately 20.4. That is about 360 times fainter than Pluto. You will not be able to visually see 2001 DA42 with your typical "bark yard telescope".
Around March 2005 DA42 will peak at about magnitude 19. Around May 2009 it will peak at about 18.5. Around June 2013 it will peak at about 18.0. That is about as bright as 2001 DA42 typically gets.
chongo (was here)
The was an asteroid named AurtherDent, the day before Douglass Adams died.
I got the books (all 5) for Christmas and I've read two of them since then. I have to say it's one book no one should ever miss.
It goes no where what so ever, makes no sense, has very little character developement, but it's perfect just how it is. If there was ever a book which truely ignored all the "rules" and still proved to be better then anything before (or after) HHGG is the book.
Plus you can hear/see the whole thing again in audio and video which changes enough to make it different and intresting.
I like muppets.
You're right, they mostly build statues to people who have power and money and who want to pose for them. Your real heroes who had flaws and who weren't posing as preening saints for PR's sake -- Helen Keller, Edward Howard Armstrong -- either wind up being sanitized against their will (Keller) or mostly forgotten (Armstrong).
The parent story is just a little reminder that, sometimes, science can give the right person that little slice of faux-immortality. Naturalists naming species after fellow naturalists, that kind of thing.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Thats nothing! For christmas my _favorite_ relative had a star named after me.
Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did.
No, not really.
--- My dad's political betting
What would it be hurdling over?
You know that now this asteroid is going to destroy the Earth in an ironic and comedic way. It's inevitable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A559686
Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they give me this lousy asteroid. An asteroid! Me, who has travelled the length and bredth of the universe, and is 4 times older than time itself..
You plastic pal whos fun to be with..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/special/rocknrol l/RockAndRoll.html gives a list of other interplanetary tributes to popular culture heroes - some deceased (Frank Zappa, John Lennon), some aparently still alive (Enya)
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
I'm suprised google didn't hire/buy/aquire it.
I suggest a fifteen-mile-high statue of him throwing a cup.
qntm.org
"If you can read this you're too close?"
I think they should go stick a towel on it.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Yes, but what's the probability of that? It's got to be at least 20,103,385,203,288,200,401 to... *BOOM*
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
And Gary Larson has a louse named after him. I wonder how many other things have been named after famous people? As tributes, I mean--I'm not talking about Newton's Laws of Motion or Einstein's Theory of Relativity here.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
No, wait, what's this button?
Possibly my favourite moment from the entire series. I find myself reciting it in a many situations where something bad is inevitable. It helps to prevent panic.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
I saw Douglas Adams about a week or two before his death at the University of California, Santa Barbara (where he lived). He wasn't there to talk about "The Hitchhiker's Guide" series, or Dirk Gentley. He was there to talk about his last book, "Last Chance to See", about the adventures of a BBC film crew filming the most endangered animals on earth.
I think, based on that talk and talking with a friend of a friend of his, that if you want to honor Douglas Adams, you should work to help save those animals.
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I'd say it is 'mostly harmless'.
But don't listen to me - I'm still dizzy from the party that bumped into the small of my back last night.
Will he be stepping on ants, eating cows, braining rabits, parachuting on whales, and again stepping on ants at the same time?:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Don't forget the /. first-posters....
THINK
I suppose this is as good a place as any to show my Powerbook 3400, autographed by Douglas Adams 6 months before he died. Powerbook We miss him, but obviously, his work lives on.
It was actually a radio crew. Still a shame the radio series has never been released commercially - would make sense if you could divert the profits to the programmes designed to save the Kakapo, Mountain Gorilla, and the last 20 Northern White Rhinos etc. Less than 10 wild NW Rhinos left these days. They're in the middle of an emergency evacutation from DR Congo to Kenya.... http://anotherchancetosee.blogspot.com/2005/01/nor thern-white-rhinos-devastating.html
That's what I get for believing the Amazon.com blub about the book. I never got around to reading it :-(
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
No, a fitting tribute would be for the asteroid now to hit Earth and destroy it. The space would subsequently be used to make way for an Intergalactic Bypass.
jeezus are the editors asleep or what?
this story is YEARS old!!
it was posted here back then too.
Douglas Adams has been dead for quite a while
and the rock was named after him almost 4 years ago!
What that asteroid needs in the Guides cover logo on it with the round face sticking its tounge out at the rest of the universe.
And the big bold letters on it "DON'T PANIC".
Can't wait for the movie this year.
You haven't read the books, have you?
I borrowed a box of CDs with it on my local library. Bunch of pictures within 90ies-like menus and all the speech. Very nice.
So is this the asteriod that will collide and shatter the Earth to make way for the new Intergalatic Freeway? You do know about the Intergalitic Freeway, don't you? :)
I'm gonna need that towel after I meet your sister.
The CDs you had were the Cd-Rom version of the book, including lots of photographs and Douglas Adams READING his book (an augmented audiobook essentially). It's actually out there on the web as a free download, (whether or not it SHOULD be is another question), but its there, and doesn't take long to find with a good Google. The actual radio series was a documentary style narrative from the field, with voice over from the late great Peter "The Book" Jones. Rare to hear any of it. Although "Douglas Adams at the BBC", a CD audio release from last year does have a lot of segments from it. If you'd like to send me some Amazon Associate pocket money, the CD set is available from my site's sidebar...
Oh you must read it, it's wonderful.
Wanna get high??
Your friend,
Towly.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Does it hang in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
For the highway
Fair enough, as it was the only ship to be launched.
However, the A ark and C ark had population assigned to them. They were never launched.
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
Have "Don't Panic" Written on one side of the asteroid in big friendly red letters, on the other "Sorry for the Inconvience" in giant flaming letters. Inside keep a complete copy of his collected works and a hot cup of tea.
Having every existing copy of Jane Austin (only 10,000 dung slinging monkey's required.) translated into sanscrit before the sacremental burning of all other translations might also be fitting... Or it could just be my dislike of her writing showing.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
The movie is full of Americans (using American accents). Only Arthur is a "real" Brit. Before you say "They're aliens! What does it matter?" I ask you: True, but imagine Monty Python done by non-Brits (or reciting Monty Python not using a British accent).
Further investigation quickly established what it was that had happened. A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship's processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite.
--Mostly Harmless, Chapter 1
How about a museum ON a dead rock floating in space? This just cries for colonization- I want an appartment whose last line in the address is 2001DA42....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
seeing as how it too 100 years of science fiction to produce one Douglas Adams, i think naming one asteroid out of millions isn't really "fitting", it seems kinda banal IMHO.
more fitting would be:
- an important deep space probe...
- a science fiction award in his name...
- an environmental activist award in his name (he probably would have liked that better)
- a 1000 ft tall statue decked in neon flames with 1000 mWatt laser-searchlights for eyes on the surface of the moon...
i'm fond of the latter
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Phone sanitizers, you insensitive clod! :-)
Score: i, Imaginary