https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1721197147943829558
Douglas Adams: In my radio series and the novel I adapted it into, I included a passage about "robots with Genuine People Personalities(tm)" as a cautionary tale and/or spoof of how people thought the future would look back when we still thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea.
Tech Company: At long last, we're debuting electronic digital assistants with Genuine People Personalities(tm), including one based upon famous science fiction author Douglas Adams himself!
sigh
]]>For anyone who wasn't paying attention to the railway press at the time: This is because Richard Branson paid a significant amount of money to name Virgin Rail's fleet of recovery locomotives after the cast of the show. I'm not sure if this was supposed to distract from the PR flak they were getting at the time (their fancy new Pendolinos were crapping out so often that they needed enough recovery locos to name one after almost every major character in the show) or just a bit of self-indulgence on Branson's part because he was a fan of the show.
And the switch from locomotive haulage to multiple-unit operation isn't entirely without its drawbacks, I might add. It's rather complicated the process of increasing capacity when there's unusually high demand, such as when there's a sports game or major concert on, because it's one thing to keep a few spare coaches parked in a shed but quite another to have entire multiple-unit sets in reserve.
]]>Which sounds like absolute fucking utopia compared to the last twenty years or so.
]]>But the point I was trying to make is that if the party of government makes a policy of only abiding by referendums (or is it referenda?) if the result is the one they want, the SNP and the people of Scotland in general are going to be left with two choices: Just putting up with it or resorting to violence.
And I don't think they're likely to pick the first option. Not after the last five years.
]]>I'm glad I was already depressed before all this happened, it must be so much harder to cope if you weren't low-key looking forward to dying anyway.
]]>Then again, so far as I'm aware he hasn't tried fuelling one of his rockets with FOOF and dimethyl mercury, so it's unlikely he's one of your fans.
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