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The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
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“Technology is the word we use to
describe things we don’t understand.” "The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" originally
was a 1978 BBC radio series, written by Douglas Adams, which
first premiered in the US on PBS radio in 1980. The
subsequent TV show (available on DVD) recreates the insight and beauty of the
radio broadcast with visuals that were precognizant and beyond “state of the
art.” The book of the same name was actually a transcript of the
original audio. The book pales by comparison to the original radio
episodes because of the genius of the audio effects. (The 2005
movie version was an abomination.) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Quotes Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President
should on no account be allowed to do the job. The history of warfare
is similarly subdivided, although here the phases are Retribution,
Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus: Anticipation: I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother. Diplomacy: I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext
that your brother did it. Numbers written on
restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same
mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any
other parts of the Universe. The major difference
between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong
is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually
turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in
a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of
asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother
told me when I was young!" Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to
learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so. If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not
round it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the
universe? The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this:
Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do
not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces
of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took
the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got
held in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation
died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put
back by years. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the
possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own set of laws. Bypasses are devices
that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other
people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point
C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so
great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there
and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so
keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out
where the hell they wanted to be. Bistromathics is simply a revolutionary new way of
understanding the behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that
space was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space,
and that time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in
time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute but depend on the
observer's movement in restaurants. Chapter 1 It looked like something resembling white marble, which was
probably what it was: something resembling white marble. Obviously, the subject of death was in the air, but more as
something to be avoided than harped upon. This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this:
most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the
time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these
were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper
that were unhappy. Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of
the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a
small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of
roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little
blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive
that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ... The first nonabsolute number is the number of people
for whom the table is reserved. This will vary during the course of the
first three telephone calls to the restaurant, and then bear no apparent
relation to the number of people who actually turn up, or to the number of
people who subsequently join them after the show/match/party/gig, or to the
number of people who leave when they see who else has turned up. There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers
exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has
already happened. What I like about deadlines is the lovely whooshing sound they
make as they rush past. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely,
mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down
the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. |