“I really didn’t foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course – the computer industry didn’t even foresee that the century was going to end.”
In his seminal work, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams imagined an intergalactic and interactive guide to, well, Life, The Universe, and Everything. In his series of novels (“the increasingly inappropriately-named Hitchhiker’s trilogy”), Douglas forecast an electronic guide whose entries were made by writers travelling all over the galaxy. In his own words:
“You’ll be able to read and write to the Guide wherever you are … when you write in something as simple as ‘The coffee here is lousy!’ the Guide will know exactly what to do with that information and where to put it. And if you see, a few seconds later, a note which says ‘Yes, but the cheesecake is good‘ it might be worth looking round the other tables to see who you’ve just made contact with.”
Douglas helped launch the H2G2 website to meet that need, but sadly did not live to see his idea reach full fruition. The internet, to my knowledge, has not quite yet reached intergalactic proportions, but I think Wikipedia comes very close to fulfilling some of the ideas that he had 30 years ago.
While searching for something else, I discovered recently that the BBC has taken over H2G2. It is run very much like Wikipedia, with individual writers submitting their own informative articles explaining whatever it is they’re most interested in at the moment. But British. And funny.
Here’s H2G2’s entry on Douglas. And here’s Wikipedia’s. Five years ago, I wrote about my encounter with Douglas.
I commented on the other blog, but I’m curious – what did you think of the movie?
Comment by Sean Tubbs — May 23, 2006 @ 9:02 pm
I liked it. I know many fans found things not to like, but I made the adjustment a long time ago that a movie is a different creature than an original book/comic/radio show. As a standalone film, I think HGTTG really stands up.
My kids — who had no familiarity with previous versions — wanted to see the film because of the ads. I took the whole family and from the very beginning — singing dolphins flying up into space — they loved it! My oldest daughter became a fan because of the film and has since read all of the books and even built a nearly life-sized Marvin (film version).
Last week we saw Terri Allard in concert, and as Terri began singing the first lines of “How many roads must a man walk down…?”, two of my kids grabbed my arms and proclaimed: “42!”
In my household, HGTTG — The Film has made a whole new generation of Douglas Adams fans, and for that I am grateful.
Comment by semi — May 24, 2006 @ 1:06 am