OT:Favor needed

[Bill Vermillion]

On Fri, Jan 21 13:49 , while impersonating an expert on the internet, 
Jay R. Ashworth sent this to stdout: 

> On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 12:05:48PM -0500, tom heine wrote:
> > while you are at it, can someone pick a random number for me?

> 42.

Ah, 42.  The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everthing.

And for the inquisitive - this highly edited segment:

   The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

   Warning: Plot details follow.

   The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and
   Everything, as given by the supercomputer Deep Thought to a group of
   mice, is "forty-two". According to the Guide, mice are 3-dimensional
   profiles of a pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent race of beings. They
   built Deep Thought, the second greatest computer of all time and
   space, to tell them the answer to the question of life, the universe
   and everything. After seven and a half million years the computer
   divulges the answer: forty-two.

          "Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show
          for seven and a half million years' work?"
          "I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that
          quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be
          quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what
          the question is."


   ---- and further on ----

   Arthur Dent (as the last human
   to have left the Earth before its destruction, and therefore the
   portion of the computer matrix most likely to hold the question)
   attempts to discover the Question by extracting it from his
   unconscious mind, through pulling Scrabble letters at random out of a
   sack. The result is the sentence "WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU MULTIPLY SIX
   BY NINE".

          "Six by nine. Forty-two."
          "That's it. That's all there is."

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com