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Douglas Adams' 61st birthday doodle by Google
- yskchu 14y agoClicking on the keypad displays different images; anyone worked out the others? Here's an excerpt from the Guardian: The doodle features many of the touchstones of Adams's popular writing. It displays a cup of tea - a reference to one of his Dirk Gently detective novels, called The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. It also shows a towel, an item Adams wrote was essential when travelling in space). With a click of a lift door on the doodle, one of Adams's most enduring characters from the Hitchhiker novels, Marvin the paranoid android, is revealed. There are many references to the Hitchhiker's Guide. With many clicks, some of Adams's best fictional inventions, including the Babel Fish, which can be inserted in your ear to translate any language, are on show. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/11/douglas-adams-celebrated-google-doodle http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/11/douglas-adams-ce...
- mediumdeviation 14y agoThe sequence of images that appear on the Guide are a reference to: - The Babel Fish - Earth's entry in the Guide - "Mostly Harmless" - "There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. Its knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" - The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster - the effects of drinking which is "similar to having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick." - The Infinite Improbability Drive - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjbtZ4NgtdA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjbtZ4NgtdA - The creation myth of the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI. They believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being known as the Great Green Arkleseizure - Mankind are only the third most intelligent species on the planet. Dolphins are more intelligent than man, and mice are more intelligent than dolphins - Towels are a hitchhiker's best friend - Earth being demolished by Vogons - The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything - 42, as calculated by Deep Thought All of which comes from the Hitchhiker's Guide novels.
- simonh 14y agoI think it's more likely the cup of tea is the one used as a Brownean random motion generator for the infinite improbability drive.
- Uncompetative 14y agoBrownian Motion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion
- cstuder 14y agoI am kinda disappointed though, that the door doesn't sigh and thanks you for opening it and get's rather ecstatic when you close it again.
- daveasdf 14y agoI am not seeing it from here. (Australia, GMT+10 time-zone). However it is available from the Google doodle archives at: http://www.google.com/doodles/douglas-adams-61st-birthday http://www.google.com/doodles/douglas-adams-61st-birthday
- ComputerGuru 14y agoThat one is static... The actual doodle is interactive. Try http://google.com/ncr http://google.com/ncr (requires JS)
- charlieok 14y agoNot for me it isn't
- UntitledNo4 14y agohttp://google.co.uk http://google.co.uk works for me.
- nwh 14y agoSame.
- radio4fan 14y agoI'm not seeing it in Spain either. Though going to http://google..co.uk http://google..co.uk does the trick.
- ComputerGuru 14y agoOCD/loyalist nitpick: His name is Douglas, not Doug. AFAIK, he did not use that nickname. Can someone please change the title from "Doug Adams' 61st birthday.." to "Douglas Adams' 61st birthday..."? EDIT: Fixed. Thank you, OP.
- merraksh 14y agoGood point, thanks. Updated.
- charlieok 14y agoPick up a tablet (Android!), connect it to Wikipedia and google's Translate service, and you're a few steps closer to Douglas Adams' universe than he had the opportunity to see. Wikipedia launched just a few months before his death. He actually started a project along similar lines: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/webhead/2005/05/galaxy_quest.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/webhead/2005/05/gal...
- 616c 14y agoHe had a good idea of what he wanted as well. http://www.h2g2.com/douglas_adams/ http://www.h2g2.com/douglas_adams/
- anonymous 14y agoEven Douglas Adams couldn't foresee The Deletionists - people erasing parts of an encyclopaedia with nearly infinite space, because they're not worth knowing about. Or the "I undid your edit, because I don't believe you're right and I have a username, while you don't"-ists. In a way, we surpassed his vision by a large margin, though I don't doubt he always knew we would.
- a1k0n 14y agoOne could argue the editor's paring down of Earth's entry in the Guide to "mostly harmless" is an instance of exactly the same thing.
- youngerdryas 14y agoActually he changed to "mostly harmless" from "harmless" if I remember correctly.
- Adaptive 14y agoFor those that remember the original tv series (based on the books, of course, which were in fact originally a radio play), you will remember the shockingly bad special effects (themselves outdone only by Tom Baker era Dr. Who effects in terms of sheer awful). The one exception to the BBC standard guy-in-a-bad-rubber-suit effects in terms of quality was the animation of the HHGG screens. I was shocked to find out that they were, in fact, all animated by hand. I've seen a doc about this, can't find it online now. Here's a brief clip of an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynMCvdkp0M#t=2m20s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynMCvdkp0M#t=2m20s By hand... Reverse-Skueomorphism before it was cool.
- mpclark 14y agoI have a lovely babel fish graphic from this awaiting framing. The artist, Rod Lord, was selling the original artwork on eBay a few years ago. Looks like you can still buy prints: http://www.rodlord.com/H2G2PRINTS/PAGES/prints1.htm http://www.rodlord.com/H2G2PRINTS/PAGES/prints1.htm
- akiselev 14y agoI think that was intentional. You can see some of the same pattern in the 2000s movie (most of the setting was decent but just look at the Vogons)
- snogglethorpe 14y agoHmm, really? I remember the original TV series mainly as being completely, utterly, awesome. The effects weren't particularly sophisticated, but they fit well enough, and never detracted. You didn't really notice them. This is more than just a good story distracting one from the visuals, I think; the effects guys did a pretty good job with their limited means, and often those primitive effects really managed to communicate the atmosphere and feeling intended. They did this much better than Dr Who's effects ever did, in my experience: With Dr Who, one almost always had the feeling "ok, this is some guys on a soundstage", but with HHGttG, often it somehow really did seem like they were stowed away on a Vogon spaceship. I'm not really sure how they managed to pull it off as well as they did, though I suppose even in the category of "low budget BBC SF efx" there's a range of budgets... .. and the hand-drawn "computer" animations were great. Together with the incredible music, they were a real highlight. There were some lowlights, of course; I remember the scenes on the Heart of Gold as being pretty bad. [Watching your clip really brings back the memories of the complete bliss of watching that on TV way back when... just hearing the music sends chills down my spine... :]
- malloreon 14y agoShouldn't the letters in "Don't Panic" be green?
- etfb 14y agoOnly large and friendly, according to The Book.
- aquarin 14y agoInteresting is that the "Don't panic" is localized for the viewer. In my case in Bulgarian.
- mixmax 14y agoDouglas Adams is the only author I've come across who has used recursion in fiction. "in short, all the paraphernalia common to all restaurants where little expense has been spared to give the impression that no expense has been spared." The man was a litterary genius.
- monsterix 14y agoDid you mean litterary or literary?
- biggfoot 14y agoYeah. Litterary sounds like ... litter. That can't be good.
- gsk 14y agoHeinlein has used it. "By His Bootstraps" is quite enjoyable for it's recursive time paradoxes.
- phreeza 14y agoPhilip K Dick also did a kind of recursion in The Man in the High Castle, where in the story there is another story being written, which is basically the different version of the original story.
- nopassrecover 14y agoWitty, but doesn't seem particularly recursive (no more than language generally).
- yesbabyyes 14y agoMichael Ende's The Neverending Story is quite self-referential. Actually, I think there are many examples of recursion in literature. Not that any of it takes away from Douglas Adams' genius.
- Derbasti 14y agoWow, this is probably the best doodle I have ever seen. Or maybe I just love Douglas Adams so much.
- larholm 14y agoI really liked this, except the fact that - for me - it was translated into Danish. I have only read Douglas' works in English, and the phrase is "Don't Panic" - it's not "Undgå Panik", which is a lousy translation that literally means Avoid Panic. Sometimes this geolocalization goes too far.
- Sharlin 14y agoUm... As far as the Internet can tell me, the Danish translation of HHGG indeed seems to use "Undgå panik", so Google does it right.
- adaml_623 14y ago"The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened ' it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned" - Douglas Adams on 'Break the Science Barrier with Richard Dawkins', Channel 4, Equinox Series, 1996
- ck2 14y agoOhh the depressed robot is in there! The little screen can also show several things with very clever references - in fact I have not seen it repeat yet! BBC series was so much better than the movie. Hey Google - your earth is spinning in the wrong direction! It's always left-to-right when it's facing north->south. Several of those little screens are incorrect. Unless maybe this is Earth2 and they screwed up the rotation or something.
- jgeorge 14y agoI had to doublecheck. The only differences in Earth2 were the rarity of three-leaf clovers, peculiarly low sales of pecan-flavored ice cream, and an extra Tricia MacMillan.
- codeulike 14y agoI highly recommend The Salmon Of Doubt - half of the book is his collected essays and newspaper columns, and he had lots of fascinating ideas about technology, science, atheism and art.
- danso 14y agoI remember picking up "Salmon in Doubt" at the bookstore and reading the cover notes which referenced Adams's passing. I thought it was all meant to be a satire because I hadn't heard that Adams had actually died and he seemed too young. Even 61 is too young
- sp332 14y agoDoes anyone know a place to play the Infocom game online? The original is here http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html but it requires java, and the BBC's illustrated version http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml doesn't work anymore. Oh well you can always download an emulator and the original Apple II disk images! http://www.virtualapple.org/hitchhikersguidetothegalaxydisk.html http://www.virtualapple.org/hitchhikersguidetothegalaxydisk....
- JackpotDen 14y agoToday's not towel day. They done goofed.
- WayneDB 14y agoI can't stand the way that Google just gloms their brand onto every item of geek/popular culture.
- expralitemonk 14y agoI met him at a book signing at the Boulder Book Store in the mid 90's. He walked to the front of the audience, and said "I'm feeling a bit wobbly today. I was recently in Texas and asked my friend: What do you do for fun in Texas?" At this point I thought he was going to say, "And we got really drunk." But he said "So we went shopping for cowboy boots." And he proudly showed us his boots.
- alffranco 14y agoHey.. On the towel sequence, the boot is moving the wrong way relative to the wind in the sail(towel).