Almost everything that can’t-prove-he’s-not-Iron-Man Elon Musk does, muses, or tweets makes the nerd news. Maybe it’s that we’re all waiting for him to save the (simulated) world. Maybe it’s that his many companies are doing inspiring things both extra-terrestrially and terrestrially. Or maybe it’s because Musk constantly hints at an intensely geeky side of him that we rarely get to see, and so we’re always looking.
Case-in-point: When his son asked him what his favorite animal was, he didn’t say something like a cheetah or a shark or a red panda (objectively the best animal). No, he went way nerdier:
My son recently asked what my favorite animal was. Well, of course … https://t.co/hpTniMe1mF
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2016
That’s right, Musk’s favorite animal is the “the stupidest creature in the entire universe”: The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s an animals so stupid, that it believes if you can’t see it, it can’t see you. Therefore, the best way to deal with the beast — head-on would be a bad idea, given it has “several dozen tungsten-carbide Vast-Pain claws, skin like a motorway, and breath like a 747” — is by putting a towel over your head. You can’t see it, so it must not be able to see you, and you slink away.
Or, according to the old Hitchhiker’s Guide PC game, you can simply carve your name into the stone where the beast carves all its victims’ names. Since the name wouldn’t be there without you having already been eaten, you are free to go. Problem solved. I imagine the same kind of problem solving goes on at SpaceX.
What do you think? What is your favorite fictional animal? Let us know in the comments below.
Images: Nerdist
