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Hitchhiker's Guide Turns 30

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hah-i'm-still-older dept.

XaN-ASMoDi writes "Yesterday saw the 30th anniversary of the very first broadcast of Douglas Adam's seminal work, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", to mark this, Mark Vernon has written an article for the BBC News Magazine on the answer to The Question. 'It's 30 years since Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy made its debut on BBC radio, but its most famous mystery is still waiting to be resolved...'"

17 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. The proper way to celibrate by edwardpickman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Raise a pan galactic gargle blaster to the late Douglas Adams for 30 years of bizarre geek humor.

    1. Re:The proper way to celibrate by Icarus1919 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're absolutely right. Kurt Vonnegut was funny for all the same reasons.

    2. Re:The proper way to celibrate by BeerCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      Raise a pan galactic gargle blaster to the late Douglas Adams for 30 years of bizarre geek humor. I agree, besides, I haven't been hit in the head with a lemon peel wrapped brick in ages...... "It's unpleasantly like being drunk"

      "What's so unpleasant about being drunk"

      "Ask a glass of water"
      --
      "She's furniture with a pulse"
  2. Rubbish article by hairykrishna · · Score: 4, Funny

    The guy seems to miss the point entirely, make vague spiritual overtones and I wonder if has even read the books. Was he one of the scriptwriters for the hitchikers movie?

    --
    "Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
  3. The meaning of the answer is obvious by LecheryJesus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Its the average IQ of a creationist.

    Flame away :P

    --
    Jesus was an invention of the Romans - watch "The Pharmacractic Inquisition" for something more credible...
    1. Re:The meaning of the answer is obvious by LecheryJesus · · Score: 1, Funny

      Or it could be the answer a creationist will give you when presented with the question:

      "What is 6 x 9?"

      Despite all logical reasoning, they insist that it's 42 because "THAT'S WHAT THE BOOK SAYS IT IS"

      --
      Jesus was an invention of the Romans - watch "The Pharmacractic Inquisition" for something more credible...
  4. Actually... by uxbn_kuribo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Call me when the series turns 42.

    --
    No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
  5. 42nd Post ! by Dave21212 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I tried to post the answer, but the lameness filter won't allow it.

    --
    "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
  6. only 30? by davidwr · · Score: 3, Funny

    The copyrights should expire just after dinner.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  7. Re:It's not the ultimate meaning... by LordGlenn · · Score: 2, Funny

    so, 5 is not a prime number?

  8. Re:It's not the ultimate meaning... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently not. In a BBC article celebrating 30 years of Hitchhikers, they report that Adams apparently refuted that suggestion:

    I don't write jokes in base 13. Well, maybe the true meaning of that sentence wasn't that he didn't use base 13, but that he didn't mean it as joke ...
    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  9. Other news by Jabbrwokk · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The 30th anniversary celebrations were accompanied by Vogon poetry readings over BBC radio. In other news, the suicide rate rose sharply across London and surrounding areas..."

  10. Re:It's not the ultimate meaning... by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 4, Funny

    Belgium, man!

    Disconcertingly, the person who many years ago thought it would be a laugh to choose the username 'Ford Prefect' for this new 'Slashdot' thing is now, erm...

    Living in Belgium.

    Having a disgustingly rude swear-word as part of my address is great, of course. It's just that hardly anyone recognises it as such. :-(

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  11. Re:Maybe my memory's failing me... by tverbeek · · Score: 3, Funny

    But nobody writes jokes in base 13.
    I do. They're so funny that one of my jokes plus 79 cents will pay for a 1-dollar bus fare.
    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  12. Re:It's not the ultimate meaning... by tverbeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    When I was in middle school I devised a rule set for determining the most "random"* number between 0 and 100. The guiding principle was that it had to be a number with no obvious significance. Any number with a strong popular "meaning" was out, so no 13, 52, 69. It couldn't be particularly large or small, so anything less than 10 or greater than 90 was out. Multiples of 10 were out, as were their immediate neighbors. So were numbers halfway between multiples of 10. Or numbers in the 50s or 60s (too close to the overall midpoint). Even numbers (and digits) were insufficiently odd, and composite numbers in general seemed a little too derivative. This left only two qualifying numbers, and 73 was too close to 3/4 for my tastes. So I concluded that 37 is the most "random" number.

    And no, it's not part of my ATM PIN. :)

    *Note: I said "random" not random. I know there's a difference.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  13. Most famous mystery? by Foehg · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why all this hubbub about the question? I'm still waiting for the REAL suspense to be resolved... who sustained a minor injury on their forearm?

  14. Re:It's not the ultimate meaning... by Prof.Phreak · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is correct. According to every official source...

    But the very fact that it appeared to him out of thin air may indicate that it has cosmic significance that DNA wasn't aware of.

    --

    "If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy