biographies Oct08

Henry David Thoreau
july 12, 1817 – may 6, 1862
American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, sage writer and philosopher
best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state
his writings on natural history and philosophy anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism

Douglas Noël Adams
march 11, 1952 – may 11, 2001
English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician
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, a television series (which was adapted for live thetre), a comic book series, a computer game, and a feature film
other written works include the Dirk Gently novels, co-writing two Liff books and Last Chance to See
Adams originated the idea for the computer game Starship Titanic
a posthumous collection of material was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002
Adams was an environmental activist, a self-described 'radical atheist', and a lover of fast cars, cameras, the Macintosh computer, and other 'techno gizmos'
he wrote about such topics as e-mail and Usenet before they became widely known