Big Thinkers - Douglas Adams [Author]
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Big Thinkers is a former ZDTV (later TechTV) television program. It featured a half-hour interview with a "big thinker" in science, technology, and other fields. Interviews were filmed in a 16:9 format and intercut with public domain material from the Prelinger Archives. This archival footage (mostly film clips from the 1940's and 50's) was used to create visual metaphors highlighting the speaker's points.
This episode features Douglas Adams. He was an English author, dramatist, and musician. He is best known as the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Hitchhiker's began on radio, and developed into a "trilogy" of five books (which sold more than fifteen million copies during his lifetime) as well as a television series, a comic book series, a radio play, a computer game, and a feature film that was completed after Adams' death. Toward the end of his life he was a sought-after lecturer on topics including technology and the environment.
(Text from Wikipedia)
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His books literally made my life worth living.
He gave me the gift of utter and complete absurdity. I found hitchikers on a sunday evening, PBS, in the 80’s. Sometime later, I read the trilogy and was blown away. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life and no one had to get nailed to a tree for it. He was truly a brilliant incredible human being and as crazy as it sounds I’ve missed him since the day he left.
I loved the book series myself.
Here I am answering you 10 years later. :-)
6/3/23
When I was in college, majoring in English and reading all kinds of "serious" literature, somebody handed me The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and said, "You need to take a break."
Almost four decades later I remember the recipriverse exclusion principle: "a number that can only be defined as something other than itself." Remarkably, I managed to read my assignments, too.
It's sad to think I am now older than Adams was when he passed away. (He was older than me.) But I am so grateful he left his knowledge--and especially his humor--with us.
Why are you sad to grow older than adams? Do you wish you had died before you reached that point?
I'm disabled and live on disability and Medicare . I just turned 64 but I will say some of the best times of my life happened when I was dirt poor! Having money is so nice but you can still be happy without a lot
Love all his books,his dirk gently ones are seriously underrated .#excellent author
it is quite expensive for poor indians
I feel privileged to have been able to experience this brilliant radio series from the age of 10 even though I was born in 96.
Show's its legacy will live on forever.
Make sure you have listened to the unedited originals. The NPR broadcasts had little bits snipped out that made no sense to do so.
Hitch Hikers Saved My Childhood. In the 80s All The Books We HAD to read at School were about Nuclear War. I Discovered Hitch Hikers at School and it was a book that made me laugh. then the Radio show was repeated on radio 4, then the TV show came out. I have read everything DA wrote and it still makes me laugh
He talks about what he'll be like as an old man at the end, but eight days later he died at the tender age of 49. Sad. ;'(
the background music is killing this
I enjoyed it.
What a gift this interview is. Very odd that ppl are complaining about the music. Expressing one's inner Marvin I suppose.
@@jimbowayoutub2 no, it’s because the music is very distracting.
Thank you England for giving the world such an amazingly spirit.
I was so thrilled to watch this interview, but was stunned at the end to find out that he died on my birthday. Now, on my birthday, I will reminded that it is also a very sad day.
Yes yes, the music is irritating, but I could still have watched this for another couple of hours. It's fascinating to hear him talk.
H2G2 was actually the best website I've come across, I would spend my time chuckling over it. I had to give it up because it was taking up too much time!
I miss him on a daily basis. Can you imagine what he'd have said about smart phones? It's the fucking Guide, it actually is, and it's sitting next to me on the window ledge charging...
I know this is like 6 years old but I had to reply and said you’re right , it really is incredible. The smart phone, iPhone etc. you really have everything in your pocket. It is like the Guide.
I wholeheartedly concur with this post. Smartphones are the GUIDE. It’s amazing. Just a decade after he kicked the bucket. And H2G2 was the forerunner of Wikipedia too. We do owe him so much. 😢
I really loved Douglas Adams description of being an old man because that resonates with me and where I am in my life, my son can attest to my long bouts of "burbling" And also to the complete lack of any coherent lucidity.
Alas, he did noy live long enough to be an old man...
This is a beautiful story.
Great guy. Shame about the continuous annoying music overlaid on the interview.
Delete your comment..
Now its all I hear!*!
LOL! The need to point out the completely obvious.. indeed.
Love.
agreed... after being irritated by the intro... the music overlay told me, give up, this is crap. I have no idea what he's saying because the music is screaming at me.
The total lack of worthwhile interviews of Adams on the internet makes me intensely sad.
What a great mind. What a great loss.
He left us too soon 😢
Last chance to see. Who's like this anymore.
there for the same reason the music is there, and the jump cuts to footballers and dogs, the producers think we'd be bored just listening to a person talk. even a person as fascinating as Douglas was. I'd rather just hear him speak with no music and flashy graphics.
5:58 "The ideas we have about what the future will tend to be like formulate the way we move forward, so it's very important that we have the most positive view of what the future will be. So you have to look where you actually want to go, not where you're frightened that you might end up. So, umm, if we allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the "Blade Runner," view of the future, where everything looks like a rusty Los Angeles, that's what we'll get. But on the other hand, if we see the technologies that are coming along at the moment, those things that we're actively involved in creating, and using, and thinking-creatively and constructively-about, in the best possible way, then we're more likely to get something great coming out of it." One of my challenges to myself: I really like the detail with which he ponders.
i love douglas adams laugh. it's full, it's loud, it's sincere and just a touch sardonic and sadistic.
Yeah, it's a very late-90s/early 2000's style... kind of "Hey, look at us! We have achieved... Video Toaster!" At the time it was really hip, but now it looks sort of dated. And the "fun calypso" music just sounds like something out of Super Mario World.
This is a really interesting style of documentary.
Really apt for the subject.
I remember Adams was dead slow getting each book written and generally was chained to a word processor in a cabin by his publisher to get them finished. can you imagine how that would work today?
I do not think we would have had Red Dwarf if we had not had Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy come first.
Douglas Adams was a genius!
When I first got the internet, I couldn't wait to look up the meaning of life thinking someone might know, of course the answer was 42!
@ken kennedy DNA's work. Study it, good choice.. good journey! Share and enjoy.
🖖🧙♂️🐸🧙♀️👍
There's actually two forms of Rugby in the UK. Rugby League and Rugby Union. The original form, Rugby League, is the chosen sport in expensive private schools. Which has led to it being called 'a game for hooligans played by gentlemen'. So Rugby Union players claim that Rugby Union is a game for hooligans played by hooligans.
the guide is wikipedia on an ipad.
In a couple of the Doctor Who episodes the Doctor explains to his companions that they can understand every human and alien language with the aid of the Tardis translation circuit.
17:03 Presumably he was following in his Grandma's footsteps (07:55) by caring for (or in his case, by drawing attention to) animals in trouble.
You notices very easy the pro-future mode in Douglas Adams interview, a view we lost now, you notice Mr Adams died BEFORE 9/11 and the dark decade following it.
My father learnt to know Doug Adams as in the 1970ies. Adams was a man full of positive ideas.
I am so happy to have discovered his books. Even if it may have been dumb luck, it is nice that the opportunity for greatness remained in the face of every potential disaster. One more guy I wished I had met, because his outlook on life affected mine so deeply.
What a great man!
Forever missed...!
13:29. We got there, 20 odd years later.. but STILL have boxes. Douglas would have found this as infuriating as ever 😊 I am glad he lived long enough to see the birth of the Internet. I do wonder what he would have made of 2022’s version.
0:45 I don't know why they'd say sci-fi and comedy don't go together. Woody Allen's movie Bananas came out in 1971. That's one obvious example. I also remember Huey, Dewey and Louie in the 1972 movie Silent Running. Funny scene. And in The Life of Brian, 1979, there was a hilarious alien chase scene.
6/3/23, 11:16 p.m.
One of the things Douglas Adams words do not need is a shit breakbeat in the background.
Fantastic interview with an amazing forward thinker. Thank you for sharing.
What's with all of the black and white clips of him laughing?
great, but really annoying background music!
I normally love watching videos of Douglas Adams, but someone did everything they could to make this video unpleasant.
❤❤❤
Everyone has their own shoe horizon.
There are a few bits here which I hadn’t heard before or didn’t make it into The Salmon of Doubt, and which made the infuriating editing and background noisic just about tolerable.
He would have been on twitter and everything.
That could have been life-changing. I don't have a Twitter account, but for the daily musings and observations of Douglas Adams I would have had to create one. He had the sneakiest way of making you think, while you were under the impression that it was merely entertainment. Loved that man.
The music on this is beyond ridiculous.
Back then they were in the Disappointment Phase of technology. Nowadays we are in the Power grab phase
Genius
You know, I have tremendous respect for Iain M Banks. But nevertheless Douglas Adams is the one who wrote my Bible...
Well, computers are now nearly omnipresent and certainly taken for granted, but... they still don't work. Windows 8 doesn't, I know that much, I'm using it right now and I still want to break something.
They don't work well but at least they're tediously polite about it
Endearing self-deprecatory sense of humour. What an irony he collapsed in his gym while pumping iron !
Note from 2024:
Technology is still very much in development,... as evidenced by the fact that it comes in even fancier boxes.
And nobody's quite sure, who is working for whom, or why.
You should really see the digital watches, though,... except watches have become passe and redundant.
But, don't panic.
Nice to know the inspiration for Howard Dent learning to fly was an actual bird that did the opposite.
Howard Dent? It's Arthur Dent
I have starship titanic on original cds -
Last chance to see
who is the chief fantasist today
Couldn't you buy 1/2 of a brand new Chevy Nova in the mid 70s for $1500?
The music is incredibly distracting. I had to quit watching.
So brilliant & handsome, wish I had been born earlier so I could've married the guy.
The production and music is so cheesey and terrible, I hope I can find the unedited talking head interview somewhere on RUclips or elsewhere.
Your calculation needs rectifying. Such a statement can cause mass panic.
The surprising fact, (MAN, instead of “The Earth…What a dull name”), is observed.
But if 5:22 - 6:40 and 12:40 - 12:52 were true,
then Man would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that explanation is true.
!
@Mark Morris ~ Yes we all know the stereotypical American doesn't do irony very well. But surly you should have picked up on the fact that dying whilst in the effort to try and keep fit is in fact ironic.
@Williamottelucas You've not really understood.
Always be in the disappointed stage more so for apple fans.
What he would have been able to have done if he had lived.
I think he would be working with Elon Musk.
What a decorative nose indeed.
Iron is kind of irony.
0:50 : "...Interested in the way comedy and science fiction could be out together (...) and every body told me it couldn't be done, and here's why if it could be done it would have been done already..."
Well it was done more than twenty years before he did. Stanislaw Lem wrote Star Diaries in 1957, and they are far funnier than anything Adams ever wrote (and better Science Fiction too BTW)
Bet he drinks
good grief... that musical intro is SERIOUSLY off-putting. Who on earth thought that would be a good idea?
Background noise and annoying filming technique. Good speaker, but a big thinker?
Douglas Adams was wrong, cause the answer was 43!
No I'm not an American.
Where is the irony?.... Are you an American?
Rugby is no way in hell as intense as American football.
+spicecrop Good lord - where on earth did that come from?
It's hardly intense because they stop every time somebody falls down.
boring
the dog said, "I bit off more than I could chew and chewed it anyway." ~ tenderbastard
the dog said, "I liked what he said but didn't understand it." ~ tenderbastard