{"id":10528,"date":"2025-07-01T14:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T22:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/?p=10528"},"modified":"2025-09-06T14:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:55:27","slug":"killing-children-at-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/?p=10528","title":{"rendered":"Killing Children at 42*"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Well this came out 42 years ago. I guess that means it&#8217;s the secret of the universe today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3161902100\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=1358682450\/transparent=true\/\" seamless><a href=\"https:\/\/gravelvoice.bandcamp.com\/album\/certain-death\">Certain Death by Killing Children<\/a><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy\">*<em>The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a class=\"mw-file-description\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Answer_to_Life.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/5\/56\/Answer_to_Life.png\/250px-Answer_to_Life.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Main article:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#The_Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything_is_42\">Phrases from The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy \u00a7&nbsp;The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number 42 is, in&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(novel)\">The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy<\/a><\/em>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Douglas_Adams\">Douglas Adams<\/a>, the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything_(42)\">Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything<\/a>&#8220;, calculated by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Deep_Thought_(The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)\">an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought<\/a>&nbsp;over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named &#8220;Earth&#8221;. The Ultimate Question &#8220;What do you get when you multiply six by nine&#8221;<sup><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/42_(number)#cite_note-21\">[20]<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;is found by Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect in the second book of the series,&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Restaurant_at_the_End_of_the_Universe\">The Restaurant at the End of the Universe<\/a><\/em>. This appeared first in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radio_play\">radio play<\/a>&nbsp;and later in the novelization of&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy\">The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fourth book in the series, the novel&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish\">So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish<\/a><\/em>, contains 42 chapters. According to the novel&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mostly_Harmless\">Mostly Harmless<\/a><\/em>, 42 is the street address of Stavromula Beta. In 1994, Adams created the&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/42_Puzzle\">42 Puzzle<\/a><\/em>, a game based on the number 42. Adams says he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Reasoning\">picked the number<\/a>&nbsp;simply as a joke, with no deeper meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google_Search\">Google<\/a>&nbsp;also has a calculator&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google_Easter_Egg\">easter egg<\/a>&nbsp;when one searches &#8220;the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.&#8221; Once typed (all in lowercase), the calculator answers with the number 42.<sup><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/42_(number)#cite_note-22\">[21]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well this came out 42 years ago. I guess that means it&#8217;s the secret of the universe today. Certain Death by Killing Children *The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy Main article:&nbsp;Phrases from The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy \u00a7&nbsp;The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42 The number 42 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/?p=10528\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Killing Children at 42*&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10529,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10528\/revisions\/10529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcolburn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}