The KILLION

[prog]

When I was a child I once read "The Killion" by Ian Frazier [link to a contemporary Usenet transcription] in an in-flight magazine during one of the many three-hour plane rides I took with my parents. Too young to see that it was a humor piece, I took it at face value, and my horror and fascination with it would linger for a long time after. I just suddenly thought of it again this morning, perhaps for the first time in 20 years.

A) This article is hilarious.

B) Goodness me, I'm now realizing that for years afterward I thought that some of the jokey "facts" it states with a straight face were true, probably long after I remembered where I learned them. These included "a zillion" being an integer like any other, and that all computers ever made had "a governor" installed to prevent them from working with dangerously high numbers.

Comments

I died laughing

[taskboy3000.livejournal.com]

It's like the Monte Python routine where the Brits invented a joke so funny, it could kill. This joke was then weaponized for use in WWII against the Germans. It was translated into German and given to British soliders who couldn't understand the language.

More importantly, the description of computer internals in that article is 100% accurate. Computers really do have a series of colored wires that go from one connection to another. God help us all.

Re: I died laughing

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

"Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"

Sounds a bit like "killohertz", the deadliest frequency...