h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Regarding Sirius Cybernetics Corporation:

"...it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."


Compare "Sirius Cybernetics" with a certain... well known... eem, software giant...

Hehe - incredibly prophetic, in more ways than one as it turned out, as DNA was later an avid fan of the Macintosh and that other company was not even around back then - at least not in any publicly conscious way.

Actually I think DNA had a pretty jaded view of technology in general, many of the bits that tickle me are when he gets to have a dig at it:

Motto of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation: Go Stick Your Head in a Pig

Arthur's worry about operating his digital watch

Eddie's "alternate" persona - we all feel like our computers have that one enabled at times! - "Who said that? Come on, I'm waiting... I can wait all day if necessary..."

The encounter between Marvin and the Frogstar robot - my favourite set piece, pure genius! - "...What a depressingly stupid machine"

Nutrimatic drinks dispenser - "However, nobody knows quite why it does this [complex spectral analysis of the subject's tongue, etc], since it invariably delivers a cup of something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea"

The black ship and its black illuminating control panel

The hilarious sequence in the radio series where Ford and Zarniwoop(?? was it? not sure) stumble across an ancient spaceport, where the flight is "delayed" because the automatic pilot has not received the consignment of complimentary lemon-soaked paper napkins, even though civilisation has collapsed and gone in the meantime. Actually there's a great throwaway joke in that bit:

Ford: Hundreds of old ships! They must be thousands of years old!
Zarniwoop: Yeah, one look and they'd fall apart
Ford: Yeah, I mean, just look at that one!
SFX: Creeeeeaaaakkkkkrrrummmbleefallingapartnoise

How 'bout the encounter between Marvin and the Police Spacecraft? Marvin telling a computer in a spacecraft his life story, with the result of the computer comitting suicide.
(thus saving the whole bunch from being shot by a kill-o-zap gun in the computer banks area on Magratea...)
Which reminds me: Where do all those names of things come from, like 'kill-o-zap', 'stun-o-kill' and more like that?