Happy Towel Day

An anonymous reader writes "While Douglas Adams continues his attempt to set a new record for the longest extended lunch break, geeks all over the universe pay tribute to the beloved author by celebrating the tenth edition of Towel Day. Towel Day is more alive than ever. This year Richard Dawkins, one of Adams' best friends, has tweeted a Towel Day reminder to his numerous followers. The CERN Bulletin has published an article on Towel Day. There has been TV coverage and there will be a radio interview. The Military Republic of the Deltan Imperium, a newly formed micronation, has recognized Towel Day as an official holiday. In Hungary several hundreds of hitchhiker fans want to have a picnic together in a park. And there's a concert, a free downloadable nerdrap album, a free game being released, the list goes on and on."

I missed my chance.

[dsavi]

Reason #453 to not live in a time zone other than the US: I never remember Towel Day until someone in America reminds me, during the afternoon.

Thanks!!!!

[irreverant]

So long, and thanks for all the fish / So sad that it should come to this / We tried to warn you all, but, oh, dear / You may not share out intellect / Which might explain your disrespect / For all the natural wonders that grow around you / So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish! The world's about to be destroyed / There's no point getting all annoyed / Lie back and let the planet dissolve around you / Despite those nets of tuna fleets / We thought that most of you were sweet / Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women / So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish!/ If I had just one last wish / I would like a tasty fish!/ If we could just change one thing / We would all have learnt to sing!/ Come one and all / Man and mammal / Side by side / In life's great gene pool!/ So long, so long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long and thanks for all the fish! And Carry a Towel

Dawkins

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Sorry, but I don't believe that Richard Dawkins exists.

<grin>

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[uglyduckling]

If, as a non-stamp collector, you invested considerable amounts of time in investigating stamp collecting, try to find flaws in the activities of stamp collectors, holding meetings to espouse the value of not collecting stamps, constructing straw-man arguments to illustrate the futility of stamp collecting, trying to assert that the bad behaviour of a given stamp collector ought to cause the whole of philately to be outlawed, wrote several books asserting that the possibility that a letter could be sent without requiring a stamp 'proves' that stamps do not in fact exist, etc., etc., etc., then - yes - I would describe your 'not collecting stamps' as a hobby, if not an obsession.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this stamp collecting lead to wars, genocide, terrorism, assaults on human rights, genital mutilation, suppression of women and suppression of free speech? Opposing that might be a good hobby then.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy is flawed. A stamp is something you can pickup and hold. God is not. A better analogy is the Emperor's New Clothes. Something you can't see, but everyone behaves like they can.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[Yvan256]

In the end, the last war on earth is going to be FSM followers vs IPU followers.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[hargrand]

I don't think philosophies need to be proved. Yet Dawkins seems to believe that atheistic rationalism reigns supreme among philophies. If that's the case, then by appealing to rationalism, logic should be able to prove that rationalism is correct. Show me the proof.

I guess when he's done with that, he can appeal to rationalism to prove to me that he exists.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[mattack2]

while arguing from and promoting a philosophy that cannot be proven (atheism).

Which is why I think that everyone should be agnostic. (Yes, I realize that that largely would then make the term meaningless.)

Sure, if we pretend that there is an invisible man in the sky that controls the universe, he *could* make the universe exactly as it is now... So even though I don't believe that that invisible man exists, I do understand the theoretical possibility (and consider myself atheist AND agnostic).

Now, if all of the people that do believe in the invisible man would realize the same thing (that the universe could be the result of natural phenomena), then presumably a lot of the bad things mentioned in other posts would not happen/have happened.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[Sir_Lewk]

My neighbour has some sort of hippy spirituality thing going on. She does meditation, won't eat animals, all of that junk. I'm sure you are familar with the type.

Religion can cause harm, but so can anything else that humans feel strongly about. My neighbour has not caused any harm with her own little brand of religion, so suggesting that those things be universally connected to religion seems to be in error.

In other words, the existence of atrocities committed by religion does not indicate all religions cause atrocities.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[Jedi Alec]

Even though these are small things, religion causes shops to close on sundays. Religion is given all sorts of exceptions(imagine anyone else wanting to make a ton of noise on a sunday morning). Religion sneaks into laws all the time.

You can be religious as much as you want, but for some reason those who are constantly feel the need to press their superstitions on the rest of us, starting with their children who will then do the same, ad infinitum.

Re:Idle's the right place for this...

[hargrand]

Except I never claimed to be particularly tolerant; I'm not ... at least not in the way you and the politically correct crowd want. The whole notion of tolerance has been co-opted by people of your ilk who don't want to be held accountable for your bad decisions. You preach tolerance on the one hand, and expect that the world bow down on the altar of tolerance and when some chose not to, when they have the audacity to disagree with you, you get up on your high horse and shout "blasphemy!" as you have so aptly demonstrated. Thank you for your example. You serve your cause well.