Douglas Adams (a few days late)

This past Monday marked a point when a certain insignificant planet had circled its primary star some 61 times since the date on which a particular novelist had been born.

Douglas Adams sense of humor was uniquely zany and pointed. Amusingly, I found this quote of his to be on-point for a discussion at my job a month back.

A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.
Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again.

So, when the manager was talking about the gesture-controlled radio system (for automobiles) that he had seen at the Consumer Electronics Showcase, I asked if they would require the user to sit perfectly still...