42 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
# Hello world
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This is a plain markdown file containing a few lines
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of text. It is part of a project guiding you through your
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first few steps with the version control system Git.
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## The number 42
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In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a group of
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hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to
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the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the
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supercomputer Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes
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Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which
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turns out to be 42. Deep Thought points out that the answer seems
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meaningless because the beings who instructed it never actually knew
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what the Question was.
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When asked to produce The Ultimate Question, Deep Thought says that it
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cannot; however, it can help to design an even more powerful computer
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that can. This new computer will incorporate living beings into the
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"computational matrix" and will run for ten million years. It is
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revealed as being the planet Earth, with its pan-dimensional creators
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assuming the form of white lab mice to observe its running. The
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process is hindered after eight million years by the unexpected
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arrival on Earth of the Golgafrinchans and is then ruined completely,
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five minutes prior to completion, when the Earth is destroyed by the
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Vogons to make way for a new Hyperspace Bypass. In "The Restaurant at
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the End of the Universe", this is revealed to have been a ruse: the
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Vogons had been hired to destroy the Earth by a consortium of
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psychiatrists, led by Gag Halfrunt, who feared for the loss of their
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careers when the ultimate question became known.
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Lacking a real question, the mice decide not to go through the whole
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thing again and settle for the out-of-thin-air suggestion "How many
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roads must a man walk down?" from Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the
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Wind".
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## References / Further Reading
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- https://missing.csail.mit.edu/2020/version-control/
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- 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
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