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1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#91

Post by dcminter »

shoto_io wrote: post #63
dcminter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He posted (on his own usenet fan group) the following: "The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story." But of course nobody is an entirely reliable narrator, and cer…

Of course, no one wants to believe this. Me neither. I recently turned 42. And, I finally had the guts to start my own business... it's gotta mean something!

If I remember rightly Adams played guitar with Pink Floyd to celebrate his 42nd birthday. Beat that!

Congratulations & good luck. I'm sure it will take you to interesting places!

Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#92

Post by dcminter »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #42

Also off-topic: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I read both the books and they were good. There was a short lived British TV series starting Stephen Mangan that was great and seemed at least partially based on some events and descriptions in the books, and two seasons of a US TV series on Netflix that was off-the-fucking-wall crazy in a not-quite-Douglas-Adams way, and unique to the point that I was pleasant…

The interesting thing (to me) about the first Dirk Gently book is that it was largely a repurposed Dr Who script - in which version Reg was a retired time lord. Such a fun angle on the story!

Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#93

Post by avaldes »

hathawsh wrote: post #18
OnACoffeeBreak wrote: post #14

This is off-topic, but I've always wanted to bring this up with fellow geeks... Integer code of the asterisk ('*') ASCII character is 42, which, is the answer to life, the universe and everything. The asterisk character is used as a wildcard character to indicate anything and everything. Adams never revealed the origin of 42. [0] So, just because we really don't know, I'd like to think it originates with ASCII table…

That's a good one. My favorite is this one: - F is the 6th letter of the alphabet. - I is the 9th letter of the alphabet. - S is the 19th letter of the alphabet. - H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. 6 + 9 + 19 + 8 = 42. IOW, the dolphins probably manipulated the experiment so that humans would give them more fish.

Michael Drosnin furiously taking notes

Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#94

Post by lproven »

dcminter wrote: post #92
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #42

Also off-topic: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I read both the books and they were good. There was a short lived British TV series starting Stephen Mangan that was great and seemed at least partially based on some events and descriptions in the books, and two seasons of a US TV series on Netflix that was off-the-fucking-wall crazy in a not-quite-Douglas-Adams way, and unique to the point that I was pleasant…

The interesting thing (to me) about the first Dirk Gently book is that it was largely a repurposed Dr Who script - in which version Reg was a retired time lord. Such a fun angle on the story!

The 3rd Hitchhiker novel, "Life, the Universe, and Everything", is also a repurposed Dr Who script: "Dr Who and the Krikkitmen".

Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#95

Post by lproven »

OnACoffeeBreak wrote: post #14

This is off-topic, but I've always wanted to bring this up with fellow geeks... Integer code of the asterisk ('*') ASCII character is 42, which, is the answer to life, the universe and everything. The asterisk character is used as a wildcard character to indicate anything and everything. Adams never revealed the origin of 42. [0] So, just because we really don't know, I'd like to think it originates with ASCII table…

No, it isn't, because it was written in 1977, almost before the microcomputer – and until the Mac, Adams hated computers.

It's not a binary joke, either.

However, if you add together the numbers on all the faces of a pair of normal 6-sided dice...

Re: 1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

#96

Post by dcminter »

lproven wrote: post #94
dcminter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing (to me) about the first Dirk Gently book is that it was largely a repurposed Dr Who script - in which version Reg was a retired time lord. Such a fun angle on the story!

The 3rd Hitchhiker novel, "Life, the Universe, and Everything", is also a repurposed Dr Who script: "Dr Who and the Krikkitmen".

Heh, which reminds me, it's my head-canon that the sofa in LtU&E is the same one that's in Dirk Gently and in City of Death. Given that it's flotsam in the space time continuum it seems perfectly reasonable :)
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