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Don?t Panic - Towel Day 2008
2008-05-25 13:08:00 Carry a towel with you today in honor of the late Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxy series.
By: Geeks of Doom
International Towel Day - May 25th - A tribute to Douglas Adams
2008-05-09 10:08:00 A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a st...
Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams, on the purpose of things, and a certain
2008-03-13 23:08:00 I just stumbled upon this, by browsing through a couple of other Dawkins-related videos on YouTube. I didn’t know such a thing even existed, though I knew Dawkins and Adams were friends, of course. Anyway, if you’re a fan of either, you’ll love this: While not very well known compared to others, this was always one ...
By: Way of the Mind
Douglas Adams Quotes Illustrated
2007-12-30 00:55:00 Disjointed post of Douglas Adams quotes ahead. It reflects the cloud in my head today very well... Or maybe she decided that an evening with your old tutor would be blisteringly dull and opted for the more exhilarating course of washing her hair instead. Dear me, I know what I would have done. It's only lack of hair that forces me to pursue such a hectic social round these days. If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to u...
By: GorillaSushi
Quote of the Day: Douglas Adams
2007-11-23 09:52:00 “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” Douglas Adams, “Last Chance to See” English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)
Guía del autoestopista galáctico
2007-08-22 21:45:00 En los remotos e inexplorados confines del arcaico extremo occidental de la espiral de la galaxia, brilla un pequeño y despreciable sol amarillento.En su órbita, a una distancia aproximada de ciento cincuenta millones de kilómetros, gira un pequeño planeta totalmente insignificante de color azul verdoso cuyos pobladores, descendientes de los simios, son tan asombrosamente primitivos que aún creen que los relojes de lectura directa son de muy buen gusto.Este planeta tiene, o mejor dicho, tenía el problema siguiente: la mayoría de sus habitantes eran infelices durante casi todo el tiempo. Muchas soluciones se sugirieron para tal problema, pero la mayor parte de ellas se referían principalmente a los movimientos de pequeños trozos de papel verde; cosa extraña, ya que los pequeños trozos de papel verde no eran precisamente quienes se sentían infelices.De manera que persistió el problema; muchos eran humildes y la mayoría se consideraban miserables, incluso los que poseían relojes de lec...
The Origin of God - Douglas Adams
2007-08-06 03:08:00 I absolutely love Douglas Adams, his works, and his ideas. This speech he gave to Magdelene College Cambridge, in September of 1998.Won't spoil any details for you. It's quite good, and even rather amusing, thanks to his particular style.As an additional note, you might notice that he played Arther Dent in the original radio show.
By: A Fox's Thoughts
The 123rd page 4 the 5th Paragraph
2007-07-29 10:24:00 Yet another Tagged post. As njaan says, vaayichittu kaaryamilla ( no good to read).This time, I was tagged by attributions ( Damn! I never can remember whether it is attribution with an 's' or without). Sorry! Was tagged by her a month ago. Before NC, actually. But, I saw his tag before hers. 5 minutes before.So. The rules:1. Name the person (of course with the link) who tagged you.2. Describe what you are asked to do, in this case publish 5th paragraph of page 123 of the book you are currently reading. (if the page does not have 5th paragraph, take the last paragraph. And if the book doesn?t have page no. 123, take the last page.)3.Tag five people.Ha! that was easy. Copy, paste.OK. I'm reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The complete series in one paperback volume. Written by Douglas Adams.The 5th para of the 123rd page is this:"Do you want me to kick you?" said Ford.It's a swell book. One I enjoyed reading. Really clever. All 5 of the novels. But I'm not sure D...
Last Chance to See: Douglas Adams on Shifting Baselines [Shifting Baselines
2007-07-05 19:32:00 From the author of The HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy came a wonderful book: Last Chance to See. Published in 1990, Douglas Adams (in photo) and zoologist Mark Carwardine head off with the BBC to make radio programs about some of the world’s rarest species. Adams poses as the science novice, commentator, and wary traveler: I didn’t notice that I was being set upon by a pickpocket, which I am glad of, because I like to work only with professionals. I realize I am about 17 years late in this discovery, but better late than never (thank you KAB). Many of the animals Adams and Cawardine are still on the brink. At least one is now extinct: the Yangtze River dolphin disappeared last year (in part due to idiot visitors to China, such as the ones who wrote to Douglas and Mark, who ate pregnant Yantze dolphins during their visits). But most of the tiny populations still exist, in many cases, as Adams points out, thanks to the willpower of only a few individuals. Doug... |
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