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Columnist and Society

Digging into the return of an 80-year-old meme, the turbo-encabulator

A retro meme that fondly satirises absurd technical language is still bringing engineers joy, finds Annalee Newitz, who is ready for the crypto version

By Annalee Newitz

22 June 2022

Corporate style. Blueprint, Sketch. Vector engineering illustration. Cover, flyer

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Bubushonok/Getty Images

A COUPLE of weeks ago, I stumbled across a strange video on YouTube called “SANS ICS HyperEncabulator”. In it, a suave man in a suit explained this new “cybersecurity” machine, gesturing at an impressive refrigerator-sized device, hailing its ability to be “sinosinclastic without sacrificing both normative reality and AI-informed modalities”. He then explained that a previous generation of this device, the retro-encabulator, was made with “prefabulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing”. Not so with the HyperEncabulator! Unlike its predecessors, he said, the HyperEncabulator “operates totally under the principle of colonic effluvium expulsion”.

I had to know more. After …

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