Monday, September 22, 2008

The Question

Bear with me. This combines almost all geekery into one thing.

I just noticed that, in leet, "42" is "AR". As anyone who would be likely to actually read this probably knows, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Since the question was answered by an advanced computer, it isn't unthinkable that it would answer in leet. So let's take it that the answer is "AR."

There are a couple possibilities for the sorts of questions that could lead to that. While the self-referential "From what state did the 42nd President of the United States hale?" makes me giggle a little, I prefer the idea that the true creator is a fan of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and, therefore, the question is virtually every pirate joke ever!

5 comments:

Die Anyway said...

Arrrrrr.... ye low down scurvy land lubber. That wouldst be "hail" and not "hale".

I get the 4=A replacement but how did 2=R come about? One of my geocaching acquaintances goes by the name c4ch3m3ifuc4n, which was easy enough to figure out but I don't think I would get very far with serious leet.

tjh

Jon Harmon said...

Wow, it's even worse. I had "hail," and "corrected" it to "hale." Oops.

It's more often |2 that's used as R. For example, this:
|2 4 |\| |) 0 |\/| would be "random" in the really lame uber-leet that I can't understand (leet really got it's start by people not typing with more than the numpad while playing games like Quake, and thus trying to figure out how many letters they could type without moving their hand either off their numpad or off their mouse; using characters that aren't on the numpad just means you're wasting time).

Anyhoo, thanks for the correction, especially the wording thereof. Given that I went a bit... shall we say overboard... at a friend's Talk Like a Pirate Day party, I really should have gotten that right...

Die Anyway said...

Hey Jon, you have a fan. :-)

A little odd but take what you can get.

tjh

Jon Harmon said...

I noticed! I'm sure it's a way to advertise his own blog, but hey, whatever. It's better than just having you and my sister! :)

Die Anyway said...

Well, you are way ahead of me. I'm not even sure I want my sister reading my blog... not that I've posted anything to it in a loooong time. Somehow being a radical atheist is not an endearing quality.