. . . .and written by Douglas Adams in 1979, long before we had access to personal computers, the internet and those pesky help files. How did he know that we'd get peculiar answers to questions we asked on the internet, because we didn't really know what was the right question to ask? The man was a genius. For those who aren't already fans of "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy", in the story it's an intergalactic encyclopaedia with "Don't Panic" written on the cover. Within the story, Deep Thought (the biggest computer in the universe) is asked for the answer to " The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything". After months of processor time, it produces the answer - 42. Hence the dialogue below. -----Original Message----- From: Andy Micklethwaite [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 10 November 2014 13:33 To: Nick Higton; [email protected]; 'Christine Benson'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] WILSON - Harding Beck That's the same computer used to generate topics for computer help files :-) Andy. At 11:00 10/11/2014, Nick Higton via wrote: >Or, as written in "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" >"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." >"But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the >Universe and Everything," howled Loonquawl. >"Yes," said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, >"but what actually is it?" >A slow stupefied silence crept over the men as they stared at the >computer and then at each other. >"Well, you know, it's just Everything . Everything ..." offered Phouchg >weakly. >"Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you know what the question >actually is, you'll know what the answer means."