This changes everything!

August 6, 2004 10:35 AM

I just ordered mine. [via Kevin Rose]
posted by tranquileye (46 comments total)

Links to Windows Media file.
posted by tranquileye at 10:41 AM on August 6, 2004

if only with they had encapsulated the sinusoid decrustulator in something other than orthoganal modulated windows media, which really hoovers the engorged priapal member.
posted by quonsar at 10:42 AM on August 6, 2004

Let me get this straight, every seventh conductor is being connected by a non-reversible tremiopipe to the differential girdle spring on the up end of the grammameters?

IT'S ABOUT TIME.
posted by Peter H at 10:48 AM on August 6, 2004

(great link, maybe one of the best laughs I've had in weeks thanks thanks)
posted by Peter H at 10:49 AM on August 6, 2004

My dad works at Rockwell - I could probably get you guys a special MeFi discount on these things if you order three or more.

(Great link, btw.)
posted by kickingtheground at 10:51 AM on August 6, 2004

wtf? oh, and what quonsar said.
posted by shoepal at 10:57 AM on August 6, 2004

BRILLIANT!

(The sad thing is, you know that announcer guy is so good at that, because he makes his living doing it for real on product reels like that. OK, maybe not sad, if he likes his job, but still...)
posted by LairBob at 11:15 AM on August 6, 2004

I swore this was fake until the end, until the real copyright notice and date stamp. This should be used in marketing course to show when industry jargon gets to be too much. It no longer sounds like english about 30 seconds in.
posted by mathowie at 11:18 AM on August 6, 2004

I, for one, welcome our retro-incabulatory unilateral phase detractors.
posted by chicobangs at 11:22 AM on August 6, 2004

Also: Nice tie.
posted by chicobangs at 11:24 AM on August 6, 2004

Call me Mister Skeptical, but this just reeks of a gag reel that was shot on the set of an actual product promo shoot.

I can just imagine the writer and the director sitting behind the camera during the real shoot, commenting on how well this announcer is handling some of the complex jargon. A lightbulb goes off over their heads, the writer hunkers down, scribbling wildly, then thrusts the paper at the voice guy. "Let's see what you can do with this version."

And then, as they say on that other (currently commercially controversial) link farm, hilarity ensues...
posted by baltimore at 11:27 AM on August 6, 2004

This is definitely fake. "Surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing"? That's not jargon, it's gibberish.
posted by jpoulos at 11:35 AM on August 6, 2004

Is he reading that off a teleprompter, or did he memorize it?
posted by gottabefunky at 11:36 AM on August 6, 2004

googled several of the terms he uses, to no avail. 99% sure he's taking the piss. if not, can someone please explain it in layman's terms?
posted by jcruelty at 11:38 AM on August 6, 2004

My guess is it was done by the guys at Rockwell as a joke for a company outing, or something. I work in super-high-tech, and our Marketing dept does spoof films like this all the time.
posted by jpoulos at 11:39 AM on August 6, 2004

I laughed until I cried--I have to deal with press releases for high-tech widgets almost every day, and this cut really close to home.
posted by adamrice at 11:41 AM on August 6, 2004

Thanks, jpoulos. I really had some doubts...
posted by jpburns at 11:43 AM on August 6, 2004

The encabulator joke dates back to the mid-40s, apparently.
posted by O9scar at 11:44 AM on August 6, 2004

Yeah, I have to agree with jpoulos. This is too well done to match my off-the-cuff scenario. But it's definitely a fake....
posted by baltimore at 11:45 AM on August 6, 2004

I, for one, don't understand what new functionality Rockwell's retro-encabulator includes beyond that which GE's turbo-encabulator successfully implemented in 1944.
posted by Etaoin Shrdlu at 11:47 AM on August 6, 2004

This is definitely fake.

jpolous wins the captain obvious cap!!! yay horray!
posted by Satapher at 11:52 AM on August 6, 2004

And what O9scar said...
posted by Etaoin Shrdlu at 11:52 AM on August 6, 2004

You need this to power a bananaphone, right?
posted by Kwantsar at 11:53 AM on August 6, 2004

encabulator

malleable logarithmic casing

verdict: awesome engineering in-joke. kinda like how comedians have "the aristocrats"
posted by taumeson at 11:56 AM on August 6, 2004

This is definitely fake.

This thread is obviously a highly sophisticated double bluff metacomedy which is completely over my head. Either that or there are some REALLY STUPID PEOPLE on the loose.

I loved the video. Those Rockwell guys and their retro-encabulator! Haw haw!
posted by chrid at 12:10 PM on August 6, 2004

I hear Social Text has ordered a gross of them.

It's amazing how gullible people are in this supposedly hip and sophisticated crowd. Or, what chrid said.
posted by languagehat at 12:16 PM on August 6, 2004

See also "The Computer Dinner" sketch with an early version of Cookie Monster eating a talking comptuer using pseudo computer lingo. It's on the DVD Muppets Magic
posted by Outlawyr at 12:35 PM on August 6, 2004

A malleable logarithmic casing, as we all know, is an absolute necessity for time travel.
posted by paddbear at 12:37 PM on August 6, 2004

Oh, who doesn't own an interositer these days?
posted by mzanatta at 12:42 PM on August 6, 2004

Thanks, jpoulos. I really had some doubts...
Perfect day to post this, TGIF. Use to distribute these products and even wired the panels...aw the automation industry. Understood his spell until the end…expected the guy to pitch a smaller unit.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:53 PM on August 6, 2004

This is one of those posts that sorts the geeks from the nerds.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:07 PM on August 6, 2004

This was written by the same guys who wrote Star Trek: Voyager.
posted by PigAlien at 1:07 PM on August 6, 2004

Oh, thomcat, with his ability to successfully navigate his lingual cavity through that hyperjargonic sesquipedalian minefield, I'm sure that announcer has no familiarity whatsoever with small units.
posted by chicobangs at 1:09 PM on August 6, 2004

to successfully navigate his lingual cavity through that hyperjargonic sesquipedalian minefield

Could never repeat him, yet that's easy compared to navigating the wiring panels’ PLCs to the components. Even the designing engineers were impressed watching it done.
What size do you think the PLC’s CPU is and the quantity of Input/Output being used in the control panel?
posted by thomcatspike at 1:19 PM on August 6, 2004

...so fitted that ambafasant lunar wayne shaft, that side fumbling was effectively prevented...

I always hate fumbling on my ambafasant lunar wayne shaft!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:28 PM on August 6, 2004

Oh, we don't use retro-encabulators any more. The capacitive directance coupling is so 1945. Besides, you just can't get good prefabulated amulite any more, and that just ruins the magneto-reluctance qualities of the lotus-0-delta winding. We've kept the hydrocoptic marzelvanes, but the ambifacient lunar waneshaft is now used in a positive side fumbling configuration with a single-ended girdlespring. Now the logarithmic malleable casing is made of standard tetryliodohexamine.
posted by leapfrog at 1:52 PM on August 6, 2004

What size do you think the PLC’s CPU is and the quantity of Input/Output being used in the control panel?

From the width of the tie... I'd say at least eight inches. Maybe nine.
posted by chicobangs at 2:03 PM on August 6, 2004

Harrumph! Fnord, I say!

SMIB
~eFrog
posted by erratic frog at 2:09 PM on August 6, 2004

Hydrocoptic marzelvanes are all well and good but does it have LRF support?
posted by islander at 2:21 PM on August 6, 2004

We've kept the hydrocoptic marzelvanes, but the ambifacient lunar waneshaft is now used in a positive side fumbling configuration with a single-ended girdlespring.

Karl H. Marx on a bicycle, man, that'll make you blow the starboard power coupling for sure! Even the simplest idiot knows that you need a *differential* girdlespring, or at least a Philbin-compensated one rated to at least 28.3 kilogrignrs, to keep the plasma flow buffers from transducing into phased oscillations*. I mean, come on, next you'll be saying that you don't need to grease the Markov chain on this mythical contraption of yours.

*which would of course cause a cascade reaction in the secondary control photonics, forcing the user to reconfigure the main deflector array to emit a stream of yakkoton particles or suffer the consequences... it's situations like that that will make you glad you hired a union encabulator technician.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:33 PM on August 6, 2004

Beautiful. Back in the early 1900's there was a group of mathematicians who only wanted to do math and not deal with the questions from the other academics. They came up with Nicolas Bourbaki , a fake name for the group to publish their papers under. They eventually found a mumbling double-talker to give lectures on their theorems and deductions. Of course hilarity developed when other academics claimed to follow and understand a talk by the great Bourbaki.

Geek or nerd? Back when I was on college radio, my radio name was Nicolas Bourbaki. I was the product of a great professor for my math history course.

Double speak is the best and a highly difficult thing to do.
This is a great thread, thanks for all the extra links!
posted by fluffycreature at 3:46 PM on August 6, 2004

ok, but ... it vibrates?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:06 PM on August 6, 2004

I hear Social Text has ordered a gross of them.

Funniest line on the thread, IMHO, but also a very "in" joke. Beautiful, really...
posted by drywall at 8:29 PM on August 6, 2004

Based on this, this joke goes back to the early '40s.
posted by crunchland at 9:43 PM on August 6, 2004

shit. just like O9scar and Etaoin Shrdlu pointed out hours ago.
posted by crunchland at 9:45 PM on August 6, 2004

This was the best post ever.
posted by snarfodox at 11:05 PM on August 6, 2004