this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
878 points (95.6% liked)
Comic Strips
23272 readers
1227 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
π Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
ποΈ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
𧬠Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
π½οΈ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
π Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
β Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
β Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
π¬ Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 π) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 π) will be removed.
-
π΄ββ οΈ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
SΓ, por favor [Spanish/EspaΓ±ol]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
πΏ Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Isn't that actually canon though? Cause the first book says the answer to the life, universe, and everything is 42, but then what is the question? And I think in the second book they answer that the question is 6x7
Edit: I was wrong, its actually 6x9. Which means Litterbox Comics only read the first book and is a poser and a fake fan. Probably only watched the movie sigh /s
In my defense of failing to remember the correct question, it has been awhile since I read the books.
W H A T D O Y O U G E T I F Y O U M U L T I P L Y S I X B Y N I N E
Remember, that's where they ran out of tiles. It could have been 'ninety' or 'nine minus 2' or in base-13.
Doing the Lord's work.
Personally I blame travel scrabble for that one.
oh thank you. i'm getting tired of being the only one saying that.
I didn't read it, but I think SPOILER ALERT that it was 6x9 and than they were like "oh I always knew something was wrong", or something like that.
Not sure though.
They got that question by drawing pieces from a set of scrabble tiles IIRC, and I just realised that Douglas Adams basically predicted LLMs.
Yes. And then someone pointed out that 6Γ9 = 42 in base 13. To which DNA replied, "I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13."
https://alienencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan
The reason, or at least a significant part of the reason, if not the complete reason, that Arthur derives that question in particular is because he's a result of the corruption of the calculation caused by the arrival of the B Ark of Golgafrinchams on Earth.
If Arthur had actually been a six foot tall Earth-ape descendant as described by the guide, his brain would have contained the actual answer rather than something almost but not quite totally unlike the true question.
But then the universe would have popped out of existence and been replaced by a more complicated one.
Again.
So we got lucky there.
Spot on.
Also: Knowledge of the answer precludes knowledge the question. Peak knew that.
the question in the book is 6Γ9, because of course it is
Earth was destroyed before it finished calculating. Of course the Question, as expressed by Arthur (who was part of said calculation), was wrong.
Never mind the issue of corrupted data from Ark B...
6 by 9, right?
No, the question ends up being "what is 6x9", which they then surmise would explain why everything is all screwed up.
Corrected from 8 to 9, it's been a while since I've read it lol.
you have an off-by-one error
Thanks, fixed. Broken in any multi-universe.
6x9 IIRC. Itβs not supposed to make sense.