SMBC Comics Forum

LordRetard wrote:

Lethal Interjection wrote:Also, self awarded megapoints (0.000209) for my awesome quoting.

I think you should be taken to the megapoint courts for this gratuitous display.

I only gave myself some because it was a little bit of work just so I didn't double (or quadruple) post. I think they were deserved.

Also, my copy of the book, which I just checked said, "What do you get when you multiply six by seven." So there.

Ha! The truth prevails, as it tends to do occasionally.

mountainmage wrote:Ha! The truth prevails, as it tends to do occasionally.

Well, not necessarily. The books aren't the original source. We should probably go back to the original radio show for the final say.

Even though the Radio show was probably awesome, and first, I still consider it to be a rough draft of the books.

mountainmage wrote:Even though the Radio show was probably awesome, and first, I still consider it to be a rough draft of the books.

I somewhat agree. The books have a permanence and accessibility that the radio show does not, even though the show came first. So, while I am interested in the shows as the original ideas of Adams, I do have the opinion that the books drew them together better, and with more cohesiveness than the radio shows did.
Granted, that's without having listened to any of the radio show.

For me I just heard the radio-show first, so that's what stuck in my mind when I think of of HHGTTG. Had I read the books first it may have been the other way around.

Also wikipedia tells me six by nine, which is important because in 6x9=42 in base13. Now I'm not saying your book is wrong, I'm just strongly insinuating it.

Let me look in my copy, too. I highly doubt the book is wrong.

"'All right,' said Benjy. ' What do you get if you multiply six by seven?'" Incontrovertible I say!

That was obviously shooped. We all know how good he is at that.

I wish I was that good.

Well this is odd. But I hear six by nine almost everywhere, not just on wikipedia, and there's the quote by Douglas Adams, making me think it's probably not just some editor's mistake.

Interestingly enough, Urban Dictionary has both.

WRONGNESS ALERT. That is speculating about the question right there, Lethal, while the real question is in the last book. The part you looked up is many books earlier and is just a scene of the mice speculating what to tell people the question is. They eventually decide on "how many paths must a man walk down?" The actual question comes from Arthur's Scrabble set, and Arthur and Ford decide there is just something wrong with the universe and give up. BAM, I didn't even look that shit up, I'm so good.

Too lazy to bother scanning, but I'm looking at my copy of the book right now (Restaurant at the End of the Universe) and it's definitely "what do you get if you multiply six by nine." At the end of chapter 33.

"You mean that's it?" said Ford.

Interesting. I never realized that it was 6x9 with the scrabble set. I guess I just never read it carefully enough.
The problem is that I never assumed that the scrabble set was an actual incidence of them finding the question, but another instance of extreme improbability (drawing out the proper letters and all). I've always felt that the actual question had something to do with the final chapter of Mostly Harmless, where the address for Stavro Mula Beta was 42. Though I've never been able to work anything out from that. And didn't Fenchurch know the answer? Or was that just some other grand revelation.
Either way, I never actually figured that the scrabble set question was the right one.

I see. Well, I did say it's been a while since I've read any of them.

Meh. I haven't read any of them, and I knew the answer(question). I'm not as awesome as Rainbow, I admit. But that TV show (not the movie) was pretty comprehensive on the big quotable moments.

Also: Boo yah!