Comment by nullhole 13 hours ago
Don't have much to add except to mention again that the magic number for TIF is 42, and it's 42 because of the meaning of 42:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210108174645/https://www.adobe...
Bytes 2-3
An arbitrary but carefully chosen number (42) that further identifies the file as a TIFF fileHindsight is 20/20 and I loved TFA and I don't want to ruin it but... that comment was there from 2007 and the Wikipedia user bio was pretty clear since the beginning (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Scarlsen&old...)
Perfectly pure happiness:
"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story." from the man himself[1]
...but let us not ruin a good story with the truth. Remember why earth was built. The "real" answer might then be flowing in the ether.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27...
And interestingly, the person he replies to is taviso [0][1]
Talk pages aren’t valid sources in general. In this case the author is dead and an established expert having published in the field, so I guess it’s fine, but I wouldn’t bet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p...
42 is an extremely non-special number. Does anyone know if it appeared in the CS field before Douglas Addams "invented" it?
42 even shows up in the late mr. Carlsen's obituary. [1]
[1]https://www.mountainviewtacoma.com/obituaries/stephen-carlse...
And here is the author himself confirming that in the Wikipedia talk page for TIFF! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:TIFF/Archive_1#h-Source_f...