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Hitch-Hackers Guide To the Galaxy
An anonymous reader writes "Jay Beale, of Bastille Linux fame, has written a hacking puzzle short story based on Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It's called Hitch-Hackers Guide to the Galaxy. The short story is pretty funny and the puzzle lets you have some quick fun with web hacking. There are prizes for best technical answer and most creative (while technically correct) answer."
Ix
"and what was he called before??"
Ford Prefect's original name is only pronounceable in an obscure Betelgeusian dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster of Gal./Sid.Year 03758 which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. Ford's father was the only man on the entire planet to survive the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster, by an extraordinary coincidence that he was never able satisfactorily to explain. The whole episode is shrouded in deep mystery: in fact no one ever knew what Hrung was nor why is had chosen to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven particularly. Ford's father, magnanimously waving aside the clouds of suspicion that had inevitably settled around him, came to live on Betelgeuse Five where he both fathered and uncled Ford; in memory of his now dead race he christened him in the ancient Praxibetel tongue. Because Ford never learned to say his original name, his father eventually died of shame, which is still a terminal disease in some parts of the Galaxy. The other kids at school nicknamed him IX, which in the language of Betelgeuse Five translates as 'boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven'.