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New Trailer For Upcoming Hitchhiker's Episodes
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Sep 11, 2004 07:16 PM
from the stuff-to-cram-in-your-ear dept.
from the stuff-to-cram-in-your-ear dept.
Cally writes "I just heard a new programme trailer on BBC Radio 4 for the the
first time. Some familiar voices... it's Arthur! It's Ford! It's the
new radio
series of Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy!
The first broadcast
goes out on Tuesday 21st September at 6:30pm (UK summertime, which is
an hour off UTC.) Douglas Adams wrote the books in parallel with the two original radio series, which are still regarded as the definitive manifestation of HH-erdom. Hearing Mark Wing-Davey and Simon Jones' voices speaking new
words - albeit new words from 'Life, The Universe and Everything' -
is a spooky feeling. I just hope the sad death of Peter Jones does not
detract from the final result.
Let's hope the Beeb's live streaming media setup can cope with the mother of all Slashdottings!"
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42 (Score:5, Funny)
You think I am kidding? You think I am kidding? Alright. Try it.
Re:42 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:42 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:42 (Score:2)
Re:42 (Score:4, Interesting)
-a
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Re:42 (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:42 (Score:4, Interesting)
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This is exciting (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is exciting (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This is exciting (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way, the BBC are also running another HHGTTG competition [bbc.co.uk], which I submitted a story about, but alas, it got rejected. You have to write a new entry for Earth in exactly 264 words (262 more than "Mostly Harmless". UK residents only again, though luck America (and anywhere else for that matter).
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Douglas Adams Cameo (Score:2)
BTM
Re:Douglas Adams Cameo (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Douglas Adams Cameo (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Douglas Adams Cameo (Score:4, Interesting)
Just saying, it's not like he recorded the voice part specifically for this project. He did it in the mid-nineties for something almost entirely unrelated.
Triv
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Re:Douglas Adams Cameo (Score:2)
Marvin at peace (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds great (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't wait. The more I listen to his stuff, the more I wish Mr. Adams had not prematurely left this world.
By the way, was it just me or did the voice of Agrajag sound suspiciously like Douglas Adams himself?
I've listend to a number of his books on tape that he read himself, and it sounds very much like Mr. Adams.
Re:Sounds great (Score:5, Informative)
Adams' voice in radio Hitchhiker [bbc.co.uk]
Parent
Re:Sounds great (Score:2)
Re:Sounds great (Score:5, Funny)
$DEITY, that book turned me into the geek I am today!
Parent
UTC? (Score:2)
Re:UTC? (Score:2)
Re:UTC? (Score:5, Informative)
I assume this is a joke, but for anyone actually interested in time standards (or for those of you who think GMT and UTC mean the same thing), there was a really good discussion in the gnu arch mailing list about this recently. It's a pretty long thread, but very insightful.
s/GMT/UTC/ [gnu.org].
Short answer: UTC is based on an atomic clock while GMT is based on the speed of earth rotation (which apparently varies). UTC adds and omits leap seconds to stay within about 0.9 seconds of GMT.
Parent
Re:UTC? (Score:5, Informative)
The politics of international time are dominated by the French, and they took advantage of the changes required by more accurate clocks and also more accurate means of measuring Earth rotation to get "Greenwich" out of the name. Technically, a time system implies a longitude system, and the zero point of longitude implied by IAT/UTC is about 100 meters to the East of the zero longitude strip at Greenwich.
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Where's David Dixon? (Score:2)
Re:Where's David Dixon? (Score:3, Informative)
Please, NPR...LICENSE THIS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please, NPR...LICENSE THIS!!! (Score:4, Informative)
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Is this new? (Score:2)
No it's not -- it's several months old (Score:3, Informative)
I've just listened to it now and it sounds exactly the same to me. It's essentially a collection of miscellaneous clips spliced together.
Improbability engine (Score:5, Funny)
Original Series (Score:2)
--Chris
Re:Original Series (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Original Series (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry... (Score:3, Funny)
Great, but only streaming? (Score:2)
Either free or pay...
Mostly Harmless (Score:4, Funny)
mother of all /.ings (Score:2, Funny)
Has anyone thought to warn them? I'd like to get a chance to hear it without our taking out the beebs servers... it might be nice send them a noth warning them they
just a thought.
Re:mother of all /.ings (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think they've got too much to worry about
Parent
Re:mother of all /.ings (Score:4, Funny)
Warning the BBC that a horde of geeks will be connecting to listen to this series is like warning the Pope that a lot of people will be going to the Christmas mass.
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Douglas Adams was my hero (Score:2)
When a genius dies, his work lives on, but you will never resurrect him.
Re:But this isn't something new (Score:3)
If you had heard the first two radio series and read the first two books know that they are not the same. They are two different media, and what works for one will not necessarily work for the other.
They might do an excellent job of adapting his book, but it will not be a new Adams work. So I refuse to
There is nothing like Radio 4 (Score:5, Interesting)
Having a nationwide radio station that you can turn on at any time of the day or night with a 99% certainty of finding something intellectually stimulating and enjoyable can't be beat. (The other 1% is "The Archers")
For those furriners who don't entirely grok what Radio 4 actually is, it's:
For example, driving several hundred miles each week for a job, I found myself listening to a regular program on vegetables - specifically, the ones you eat. Now I am a geek of the burger+coke variety, and frankly I don't care about this subject one jot. However the program was compulsive listening - it went into depth about, for instance, how the brussels sprout came to be cultivated with lots of (genuinely) interesting historical context.
Listening to radio 4 is rather like visiting a huge combined university, experimental theatre, and comedy club, and wandering blindfolded through the halls, randomly stopping to listen in various rooms.
And I miss it. Thank goodness for web streaming.
Re:There is nothing like Radio 4 (Score:4, Funny)
Douglas Adams said that there are two things that a Brit misses when living in California: oxygen and irony.
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Re:There is nothing like Radio 4 (Score:3, Interesting)
The alternative is you can move back to Britain, like I did after 7 years in the US. Not that I dislike living in the US (I enjoyed my time greatly and wouldn't miss it for anything), but the British Isles is my home, and there
Inspiration (Score:5, Interesting)
So to set the scene, HHGTTG was, and possibly still is, the most scientifically friendly work of humour to hit the big time in the last six thousand years. At the time most computers were adressed with punched cards and Adams intuitively understood that a decent computer would look like a WiFi tablet pc hooked to the internet. Something which he described as a book of all known knowledge of the universe with "dont panic" scribed in large friendly letters on the cover - QED.
Even better Adams was of the radical (at that time) opinion that no one was going to tell him "the answer to life the universe and everything", it was patently clear that this was either too vague a question or that you had to figure out the answer step by step for yourself. His attitude was new because it anticeded a movement begun in the sixties to seek answers from gurus or to define oneself entirely in terms of opposition to the "establishment" - Adams rejected that and used humour to point out that it is your job (possibly your entire reason for existing) to figure out things for yourself.
Twenty years after its first incarnation its not going to set the world on fire and probably wont punch the buttons of the future like it did first time around. After all, today we are, the brands we purchase, and watchers of three simultaneous tv channels, and what we are, is clearly defined by what we are not. (If I got that wrong then feel free to explain what is going on these days...). However I have high hopes for this new series of HHGTTG because it was written by a man who liked technology and respectfully took the proverbial micky out of fashion and accepted wisdom.
Remarkably for those cynics amongst us who say that radical youth becomes conservative conservatives without changing a single idea over the passage of time, Adams mockeries still ring true to me in middle age. It is also sobering to realise that his entire lifes work is more or less defined by something like six months work in 1978, and whatever it was, 9 radio programs. This is probably the most important reason to get hold of the radio stream - as an experience the radio play is an order of magnitude more powerfull than the books.
Let me be the first to welcome our new overlord radio transmissions....
And there is a video too ! (Score:5, Informative)
Come on slashdot, the server's still up, what are you waiting for ?
Re:Radio Recordings? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dear America (Score:3)
Mos Def is an actor, you muppet, not just a rapper. It is possible for a person to have more than one skill or talent in this world, you know. As for the visual side, it's been conceived, designed, built and shot by Brits, so if you don't like the visual style, don't blame America, ffs.
Ok, it's probably just a small part of Britain you're speaking for there, but
Re:Mirror (Score:3, Informative)