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Douglas Adams Remembered By Those Who Knew Him

Posted by Zonk on from the rotating-in-his-grave dept.

John "Widgett" Robinson writes "IGN FilmForce tapped a bunch of folks who knew and worked with Douglas Adams, asking them to share some stories of their time with the man himself. They've posted the results as an article that includes responses from Pythoner Terry Jones, author Neil Gaiman, actor Stephen Fry, Rutle Neil Innes, zoologist Mark Carwardine, and Monkee Michael Nesmith. I've never heard any of these stories before, so the thing winds up being a unique tribute to a very cool frood."

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:coincidence? by torinth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    or a perfect time to publish an article.

    It's called cross-promotion, and companies that are completely unaffiliated "cash in" on it all the time. You see, because of the publicity and marketing driven by the movie, there is presently a market of people interested in facts about Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide, British Comedy, Old Science Fiction, and who knows what else.

    Any editor worth his salt would consider running stories that capitalize on that interest. The interest is bigger than it was two years ago, and bigger than it will be in six months. It would be idiotic not to run stories like this if you have access to them. It's not "disingenious", people want to read about things like this right now!

  2. Only things I remember... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In a talk Douglas pointed out that W W W is 9 syllables, 6 more than what the abbreviation stands for 'World Wide Web' He suggested calling it "Triple-U"

    Also a question of who inspired Ford Prefect, it wasn't Eric Idle (as I'd guessed, from his minor involvement with the Pythons) but a college roommate, whose name he didn't give.

    There's my minor nuggets.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Re:rememberance and full article mirror by donarb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Adams did the closing keynote at the Apple Developer Conference in 1997. He told a great story about how Microsoft wanted his opinion as a writer on using the latest/greatest version of Word. He talked about how most word processors were not conducive to the writing process (cutting/pasting story snippets, notes in the margins, organizing plot outlines, etc). He tried to explain to the pointy heads in Redmond about the features that would turn Word into something that writers could use (as opposed to what business people use). The response he got is that it would be difficult to add those features because they wouldn't have enough key combos for all of them.