Douglas Adams: UNIX Geek?
I think I've discovered something just now...
Any self-respecting geek knows the meaning behind the number 42. However, does anybody know WHY 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and EVERYTHING?
I don't think anybody truly knows--or, dare I say, KNEW.
Any self-respecting geek also knows (about) the ASCII table. A geek MIGHT know that "ASCII" stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange", and that it was (at one point) a rival of EBCDIC (IBM's own encoding set, which is nearly extinct today). A raving lunatic would know that "EBCDIC" stands for "Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code". *whistles innocently* But, that's beside the point.
Any self-respecting geek ALSO knows the meaning of the word "splat". To the rest of the world, it is known as an asterisk, or a star: *. (char star, I choose you!) In UNIX, the splat is used as a wildcard to select, well, everything. For example, typing ls -l * on a (*sh) command line would bring up a long-format directory listing of EVERYTHING in the directory. Typing rm -rf * would forcefully delete (remove) everything--including subdirectories--in the directory. Furthermore, typing chmod 700 * would make everything in the directory accessible only by the owner of each and every file. The splat can ALSO be used in conjunction with other characters to match a rough pattern. For example, typing ls -l f* would bring up a long-format directory listing of all files beginning with the lower-case letter 'f'. If there were files named "foo", "fnord", or "farquad", they would all show up in the directory listing.
"What are you getting at?" you might ask. Do I need to put the pieces together for you and deduct that 2 + 2 = 5? Oh, very well, then. Pay attention.
The binary ASCII code for the "splat" character (*) is 101010. In decimal, 101010 is 42. BOTH the "splat" (from UNIX) and the number 42 (from D. Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide, which will soon be a MOVIE! [official movie announcement]) mean--more or less--"everything". BOTH are also--more or less--equivalent to each other.
Was Douglas Adams, then, a UNIX geek? Did he have an interest in ASCII? Did the inventors of ASCII throw this in to the mix for the truly pathetic to discover? Or is this a mere coincidence?
The world may never know...
Remember: less is more than more!
Any self-respecting geek knows the meaning behind the number 42. However, does anybody know WHY 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and EVERYTHING?
I don't think anybody truly knows--or, dare I say, KNEW.
Any self-respecting geek also knows (about) the ASCII table. A geek MIGHT know that "ASCII" stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange", and that it was (at one point) a rival of EBCDIC (IBM's own encoding set, which is nearly extinct today). A raving lunatic would know that "EBCDIC" stands for "Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code". *whistles innocently* But, that's beside the point.
Any self-respecting geek ALSO knows the meaning of the word "splat". To the rest of the world, it is known as an asterisk, or a star: *. (char star, I choose you!) In UNIX, the splat is used as a wildcard to select, well, everything. For example, typing ls -l * on a (*sh) command line would bring up a long-format directory listing of EVERYTHING in the directory. Typing rm -rf * would forcefully delete (remove) everything--including subdirectories--in the directory. Furthermore, typing chmod 700 * would make everything in the directory accessible only by the owner of each and every file. The splat can ALSO be used in conjunction with other characters to match a rough pattern. For example, typing ls -l f* would bring up a long-format directory listing of all files beginning with the lower-case letter 'f'. If there were files named "foo", "fnord", or "farquad", they would all show up in the directory listing.
"What are you getting at?" you might ask. Do I need to put the pieces together for you and deduct that 2 + 2 = 5? Oh, very well, then. Pay attention.
The binary ASCII code for the "splat" character (*) is 101010. In decimal, 101010 is 42. BOTH the "splat" (from UNIX) and the number 42 (from D. Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide, which will soon be a MOVIE! [official movie announcement]) mean--more or less--"everything". BOTH are also--more or less--equivalent to each other.
Was Douglas Adams, then, a UNIX geek? Did he have an interest in ASCII? Did the inventors of ASCII throw this in to the mix for the truly pathetic to discover? Or is this a mere coincidence?
The world may never know...
Remember: less is more than more!