
Today is Towel Day - Patient0
http://towelday.org/
======
overcast
I'll probably be burned at the stake for this. I'm about 3/4 of the way
through the entire Hitchhikers Guide series, and I'm just not enjoying it at
all. I understand it is supposed to be humorous, and full of satire. But the
scatterbrained events, nonsensical plot, and one dimensional characters, just
ruin it for me. I don't get the appeal, and I watch a fair amount of British
comedies, and movies.

~~~
maxaf
My personal impression is that a reader steeped in soul-crushing dysfunction
in his or her daily life will enjoy The Guide with gusto not achievable by
those whose lives resemble nirvana.

~~~
overcast
Excuse me if I'm missing interweb sarcasm. But how are young children, who are
more of the latter, enjoying it more than adults? I'd rather just watch Brazil
for that!

~~~
studentrob
Children's lives are entirely run by adults. They love to envision a world
where that isn't true, as do the rest of us

~~~
ArkyBeagle
I keep waiting for the adults, and they never show up.

~~~
studentrob
Yes, we're all children. Don't let the adults know or they'll stop working so
hard

------
mbrundle
I know I'm hanging out on the right site when a link like this gets promoted
to the top spot. : )

A quick note to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy newcomers, your mileage may
vary depending on your background. I read all the books when I was a kid, and
absolutely loved them. And when the most recent film came out, a bunch of
engineer friends and I went to see it. Me and the other British friend howled
with laughter throughout, but the two other (from India and Brunei) looked
utterly baffled. So, it may, based on this limited sample, play better to
those with a British sense of humour...

~~~
Aelinsaar
As an American, I think it's worth investing in the necessary background in
British culture to appreciate the humor. If you don't, you miss out on Douglas
Adams of course, but also the incredible and varied world of panel shows,
everything that the alumni of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' ever touched
(Fawlty Towers!!!), and so on.

As a kid, Douglas Adams was my first major introduction to British humor, and
questions about "what does that mean exactly?" drove me to learn a lot more
about it.

~~~
sevensor
Also from the States, I read the _Hitchhiker 's Guide_ when I was eleven and
laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Predictably, I delight in the Pythons and
their works. And Eddie Izzard, who seems to mine the same vein. But the reason
I'm posting this is not to reminisce. It's that, out of sheer coincidence and
for reasons having nothing at all to do with British humour, I'm carrying a
towel around today.

~~~
mbrundle
I've noticed that brit humour seems to appeal to a particular subset of
Americans. Not quite sure how to define the ones that appreciate it most, but
regardless, it's great to have them in the brit humour appreciation club. Glad
to know that someone else out there gets us crazy people, when the rest of the
world doesn't. : )

------
studentrob
My favorite line is the one about British sandwiches.. [1]

> There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich
> interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful
> that only foreigners do.

> “Make ’em dry” is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective
> national consciousness, “make ’em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers
> fresh, do it by washing ’em once a week.”

I ate some sandwiches in the UK. They were dry and rubbery

[1] [https://norighttobelieve.wordpress.com/tag/douglas-
adams/](https://norighttobelieve.wordpress.com/tag/douglas-adams/)

~~~
jeffwass
One of my favourite lines from the first book :

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

~~~
nlh
Similarly, my favorite line of all is:

"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and
miss."

(I've forgotten which book it's from)

~~~
milkey_mouse
Might as well be from Toy Story

------
Slackwise
If you want to keep track of similar geeky events, I maintain and curate a
"Geeky Events" Google Calendar:

[https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=9t07jqib63if4...](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=9t07jqib63if4kecndchr1nk74@group.calendar.google.com)

Let me know if there's anything I'm missing.

~~~
bcraven
That looks brilliant but I am struggling to get it into my Google Calendar
using the "Other Calendars > Add from URL" option. Do you have any advice?

~~~
Slackwise
Does the button in the bottom-right of the page work?

~~~
bcraven
Aha! Yes thank you. Crikey that is not obvious...

~~~
Slackwise
You're not the first. I shared this with many people and many seem to miss the
button.

It's arguably bad UI, as I'd imagine most people would expect functional
buttons to be at the top of a full-page UI, and not shoved down to where you
usually have a status bar or footer. The coloring and flat design doesn't help
either, as it looks like some sort of badge rather than a button.

------
mdip
I've been a huge fan of Douglas Adams since I read the Hitchhiker's series in
High School.

My personal recommendation is to grab the audiobook version that's read by the
Douglas himself. As an American, there's a little bit lost between
British/American English and some of the humor is missed (sometimes changes
are even made -- in the American version of the book that I have "Biscuit" is
replaced with "Cookie"). I'm an audiobook junkie (speed reading has killed
reading fiction for me) and I usually stay away from books narrated by the
author because the quality of the narration suffers. Such was not the case
with Adams' narrations -- they're excellent and I picked up on several things
that I missed from my original (several) readings.

I was very sad when he passed -- a heart attack while working out that was
probably complicated by his legendary drinking. It was almost sadder when the
latest book came out as evidence that nobody could pull off that series but
Adams.

The books and the author are endlessly quotable (and recognized by nearly
every programmer I've ever worked with), but my favorite of his -- from the
Dirk Gently series -- is "Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the
undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we
may not eff it after all." I use it every time a project is proposed that
someone thinks is "nuts" or "impossible" and it sits on the background of my
Visual Studio code editor as a reminder. :)

~~~
studentrob
> "Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to
> grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

That's awesome. I need to find time to reread these. Thanks for sharing

------
cyberferret
Way back in the day when offices had 'on hold' music on their phone systems,
we had the Hitchikers Guide radio show on regular rotation on our hold system
for years. Customer would actually get angry when a worker took them OFF hold
and ask to be put back on so they didn't miss the next bit. Others were
completely mystified and ask us what the heck they had been listening to.

Alas, our office was broken into one day, and about the only thing the thieves
took was the little CD player hooked into our phone system next to the
reception desk that played the series which we had on CDs (the thieves also
took the CD boxed set after smashing one of the discs on the floor - making
the stolen set basically worthless). Sad day.

------
mjlee
Douglas Adams on David Letterman (14 February 1985):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF2fZ2iOXhk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF2fZ2iOXhk)

The interview contains a version of one my favourite stories of his starting
at 2:55. The whole video is worth watching.

~~~
vidarh
There's a Snopes entry dedicated to variations of that story:

[http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/cookies.asp](http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/cookies.asp)

~~~
mjlee
Like all of the best stories, the truth is probably somewhere in between the
fantastic and the more plausible. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the
sake of comedy.

------
d99kris
I didn't know the origin before - as in why May 25th - but the Wikipedia
article provided the background, and even the original proposal via Web
Archive:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20020424065309/http://systemtool...](https://web.archive.org/web/20020424065309/http://systemtoolbox.com/bfarticle.php?content_id=46)

Edit: To save the unknowing a link click, May 25th was two weeks after Douglas
Adams' passing.

------
Sarkie
Douglas Adams' grave has bouquets of pens & is often strewn with tiny gifts:
#TowelDay

[https://twitter.com/peachesanscream/status/73542173543307673...](https://twitter.com/peachesanscream/status/735421735433076736)

------
haikuginger
H2G2 is interesting to me - in general, over the last decade, there's been a
growth in the popularity of "nerd culture". A lot of this has led to "nerd
content" actually becoming less targeted (see: Big Bang Theory, recent seasons
of Doctor Who). I find H2G2 fascinating because, as far as I can tell, it
remains known only by those who were or would have been participants in nerd
culture before it became a big thing.

------
smhenderson
Well I'm just glad it's not Thursday. I could never get the hang of
Thursdays...

~~~
nedsma
“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I
never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

------
CiPHPerCoder
Remember how 42 is the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?
And how everyone's searching for the Ultimate Question? I think I've figured
it out.

According to Prak, it is impossible for both The Answer and The Question to be
known in the same universe; should someone know both the question and the
answer, the universe would cease to exist and would be replaced by something
more bizarre and inexplicable. The narrator teases the reader that another
theory states that this has already happened before.

I posit that the Ultimate Question is, "How many times have the Ultimate
Question and Ultimate Answer been known, and thusly the universe been
eradicated and replaced by something more bizarre and inexplicable?"

Answer: Forty-two.

[https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2013/10/ultimate-
question-...](https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2013/10/ultimate-question-
douglas-adams)

~~~
studentrob
That can't be it, we're still here. Quit guessing! ;-)

~~~
Razengan
But _were_ we [past tense of still] here? Or did we come into existence in
this new universe created by the above commenter?

~~~
studentrob
Hmm ok I'll bite. If that's happened, then the number is ever-increasing and
can't be known, because the moment you ask the question, the number increments
and the answer changes

Sounds like quantum stuff which would be right up Douglas Adams' alley. Cool
theory, CiPHPerCoder! I'd agree you've nailed it

~~~
Razengan
Another possibility is that the Answer to the Question is a new universe.

~~~
studentrob
Ah, good one. You people are smart

------
cyberferret
Damn, missed it again. I am only glad that Towel Day falls on a Thursday next
year... then at least I will have an excuse to not get the hang of it...

As upsetting as the recent death of great musicians and authors have been, no
one's death hit me as hard as DNA's did. The thought of no more Svlad Cjelli
stories always fills me with sadness.

------
imgabe
I recently started carrying around a handkerchief. It's more useful than I
would have thought, like a miniature towel.

~~~
nihonde
Every man in Japan carries a small towel. I always think of Douglas Adams.

------
jpa5n
Its worth remembering Doug Adam's book on endangered species he wrote late in
life: [http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-
Adams/dp/03453...](http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-
Adams/dp/0345371984)

Fondly remember meeting him briefly at the big bookstore near ULU in London to
sign it when it was released.

Sometimes I regret I gave it to my then-girlfried ;)

~~~
cyberferret
That book was a great read. I am heartened to hear recently that the Kakapo
seems to be making a comeback in New Zealand...

~~~
amatix
During the filming of the TV series of Last Chance to See (with Stephen Fry)
this happened
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY)
with a Kakapo named Sirocco and he then became quite the internet celebrity:
[https://www.facebook.com/siroccokakapo](https://www.facebook.com/siroccokakapo)

------
Patient0
I'm very much enjoying listening to the original radio series:
[http://www.induceddyslexia.com/hitchhiker.htm](http://www.induceddyslexia.com/hitchhiker.htm)

~~~
tudorw
there used to be a constantly looped broadcast of this on a shoutcast stream,
to fully appreciate the genius, I highly recommend listening to it twice in a
row, or more! The stream stopped around the same time towel day began :( I've
always wondered whether it was respect, or Mr A was running it, after all, he
was fairly into this digital stuff :)

------
JustSomeNobody
I never, ever travel without a towel. It is the first thing I pack. Not a
large towel, mind you, but a towel nonetheless. It has been used countless
times while on those trips.

------
Aelinsaar
Always... and I mean ALWAYS know where your towel is. [https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/91/9d/2c/919d2cc01...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/91/9d/2c/919d2cc01ef766a4ce93bd9e29cf4766.jpg)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Startup idea: always connected towels with GPS modules.

~~~
sangnoir
I guess RFID-tagged towels[1] is a start...

1\. [https://www.tnooz.com/article/when-pilfered-hotel-towels-
bec...](https://www.tnooz.com/article/when-pilfered-hotel-towels-become-
tracking-devices/)

------
lernerslaw
I did not know about this. It immediately made me think of South Park.

~~~
beefsack
If you haven't yet read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd do so when
you've got the chance.

~~~
smhenderson
“A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most
massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker 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 vapors; you can
sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of
Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft 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 avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a
mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't
see you); 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.”

 _― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy_

~~~
mattmanser
You can't omit the second paragraph when quoting that, it's the punchline:

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if
a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with
him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a
toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of
string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the
strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other
items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will
think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy,
rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still knows
where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

~~~
smhenderson
Agreed, thanks for filling the gap. For what's worth I just copy/pasted from a
HHG quote site...

[https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3078186-the-
hitchhiker...](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3078186-the-hitchhiker-s-
guide-to-the-galaxy)

------
thebigspacefuck
My coworker has had a towel hanging from his cubicle for months. Today I ask
him why.

------
yoodenvranx
Douglas Adams is pretty much the only "celebrity" whose death really touched
me.

I am a big fan of his work and thinking about all the books he did not get a
chance to write tears me up even now.

~~~
davrosthedalek
That, and Pratchett.

~~~
andmarios
And today isn't just _towel day_, it is also _wear the lilac day_, a day to
remember Pratchett and raise awareness about alzheimer. :/

------
jim-greer
My kids don't quite get Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy yet, but they enjoyed
making a Don't Panic towel to take to school.

[https://twitter.com/jimgreer/status/735497227183919104](https://twitter.com/jimgreer/status/735497227183919104)

~~~
jim-greer
Some paper towels were harmed in the making of this video.

[http://imgur.com/d7lnT7Q](http://imgur.com/d7lnT7Q)

------
qwertyuiop924
Funny. Today is the day Pratchett fans wear the lilac. Actually, I'm wearing
one right now.

------
okket
Indeed: "Celebrating towel day at #RIPE72 !!"

[https://twitter.com/nnimpuno/status/735400708967665664](https://twitter.com/nnimpuno/status/735400708967665664)

------
candeira
Silly brag. I often work out of a local library where the blinds don't work,
so I always carry a towel in my bag which I use to block the sun.

I always know where my towel is. Every day is Towel Day for me.

Thank you, Douglas Adams!

------
imrehg
Also from the Hitchhiker's Guide, "Don't Panic" is pretty much one of the most
helpful advices ever. Remembering it saved my ass multiple times in a hectic
trip just last week...

------
sandebert
Not that it's super important or anything, but Sweden and Switzerland are
different countries. :-)

------
igl
You wanna get high?

------
aft42
aft42 checkin' in - towel in hand :-)

------
kolapuriya
Belgium says : deal with it, you hoopy froop.

French : Fait comme, espece de heuapy freaup.

Nederlands : U bent een froopy hoop.

Long live the King - Long live Belgium.

I'm sorry : I'm talking complete bollocks. It is friday night.+

