Welcome to Babelmeister?

[max1mike]

shouldn't that be babblemeister?...unless you're talking about an old tower

[jetset]

Well, apparently the Almighty was worried about the power of the unity of mankind in speaking a common language, which they were following the Great Flood and the subsequent construction of the tower, and he therefore said, "Come, let us go down and confound their speech."

He did - and we've been at each others' throats ever since

That Old Testament God did some strange stuff.

So IMO the 'Babel' title is spot on - it helps if we all understand what others are saying.

[chayton]

Although some people won't get the reference - the first thing I thought was the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brain wave energy, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain, the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language: the speech you hear decodes the brain wave matrix.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing".
"But," says man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys. But this did not stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme for his best selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up for God. Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

(Douglas Adams was an absolute genius!)

[Surasanji]

Although some people won't get the reference - the first thing I thought was the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.



(Douglas Adams was an absolute genius!)

It appears I'm in the good company of a hoopy frood who knows where their towel is!

[KasinoKing]

Although some people won't get the reference - the first thing I thought was the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brain wave energy, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain, the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language: the speech you hear decodes the brain wave matrix.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing".
"But," says man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys. But this did not stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme for his best selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up for God. Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

(Douglas Adams was an absolute genius!)

Read the book and saw the UK TV version - absolutely one of the best stories ever written!
Literally a laugh on every page!

KK

[chayton]

It's a hilarious book - I actually quite liked the movie too, although they couldn't put ALL the funny stuff from the book in it.

About a hundred years ago someone game me a HGTG Commodore 64 game, I tried to play it but didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do.

[KasinoKing]

It's a hilarious book - I actually quite liked the movie too, although they couldn't put ALL the funny stuff from the book in it.

About a hundred years ago someone game me a HGTG Commodore 64 game, I tried to play it but didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do.

Probably hook up with Zaphod Beeblebrox and go looking for Slarty Bardfast...

KK