🐬 Dean's Newsletter #35

Would have been much better if it was #42 today, but oh well.

May 25, 2021

Towel Day is celebrated every year on 25 May as a tribute to the author Douglas Adams by his fans. On this day, fans openly carry a towel with them, as described in Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to demonstrate their appreciation for the books and the author.

In honor of Towel Day, here are 5 things I’d like to share from Douglas Adams.

📖 The Hitchhikers Guide

I was first exposed to this most famous story from Douglas Adams when I watched the 2005 American movie version. I completely missed the point. I thought it was just some silly teenage space comedy.

Over the 16 years since I’ve come to love it as amazing satire, philosophy, and trend-setting science fiction. After listening and watching a couple of different versions I still think that the 2005 American movie is my favorite.

Here’s a 1985 Letterman interview with Douglas discussing how it all got started:

🚀 Elon’s Story of Hitchhiker’s Guide

If you doubt this book’s effect on humanity, watch this clip and just imagine that the only person it affected was Elon Musk.

In case you haven’t read the book, listened to the radio version, or watched one of the movies here’s the scene he’s talking about.

🔫 Guide Animations

Even now I go back to reference these wonderful animations of The Guide by Shynola from the movie.

😘 The Real Answer is not 42

A bit corny… but still good.

🧐 Foolproof Design Thinking

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

❤️

Thanks for reading.

Be sure to check out my previous posts.

Hit reply and tell me what you enjoyed the most or share something similar you have found.

-Dean

Dean’s Newsletter