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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams. 1979 (onward). A book. A radio play. A trilogy in five parts. An operating style.

STYLISTIC INFLUENCE ACKNOWLEDGED
The prose voice of this wiki — deadpan, footnoted, occasionally self-contradicting, always serious-looking — is, to a degree the editor will not disclose, influenced by Douglas Adams. The wiki asks for no forgiveness for this, merely recognition.
CONTENTS
  1. Overview
  2. Influence on This Wiki
  3. Key Concepts
  4. Philosophy
  5. See Also

Overview

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy began as a 1978 BBC radio comedy, became a 1979 novel, and expanded across sequels, a television series, a film, a stage show, a computer game, and a now-perpetual state of cultural presence.[1] Its author, Douglas Adams (1952–2001), practiced a specific kind of humor: take something absurd, state it with the gravity of a footnoted encyclopedia, and let the gap between tone and content do the work.

This is, it turns out, also the editorial voice of BurbridgeBuilds.

Influence on This Wiki

Several techniques widely associated with Adams appear throughout this wiki:

  • Authoritative tone for absurd content. The IBBQ's Severity Scale is pure Adams.
  • Footnotes that double as jokes. See any page.
  • Sudden specificity. "Seven years," "14 people," "$847." Specifics make the absurd feel true.
  • Sincere engagement with silly premises. The Council of Builds is taken entirely seriously on this wiki. It is also entirely unserious. Both things at once.
  • Warm nihilism. The work matters and the universe doesn't care. Both are true. Build anyway.

Key Concepts

  • 42 — The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The question itself is, famously, unclear.
  • Don't Panic — The first words of the Guide. Possibly the most useful two-word rule in distributed systems.
  • The Towel — Per the Guide, "the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." A short essay on preparedness.

Philosophy

Adams's worldview, as it appears in the Guide, is useful to builders for reasons not initially obvious:

  1. Most things are bureaucracies in funny hats.
  2. The universe is too large to be optimized.
  3. Preparation is usually more important than speed.
  4. The answer is often 42, and that is not an answer, and that is the point.
  5. Build things anyway. The universe still notices. Also, you'll know.
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." — Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

References

  1. Adams, D. (1979–1992). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (et al.). Pan Books / various.
CATEGORIES:PursuitsLiterary References