664, Neighbor of the Beast
Today, while having lunch with some of my coworkers in the cafeteria, and discussing the relative nature of history, one of them mentioned reading about the translation of the oldest known manuscript of the book of revelation, in which the number of the beast is cited as "616" rather than the long-accepted "666".
Hilarity ensued.
"616?"
"Yeah."
"Not 666?"
"Not anymore."
"That's going to create quite a stir in the headbanger world, you know?"
"I know. Expect long lineups at the tattoo parlors. 'Hey man, can you make this middle number look more like a 1? No? Uh, can you just make the whole thing into a big gnarly bat with horns or something then?'"
"All the satanists are going to be trying to renegotiate their phone numbers, too."
"Wow, I bet 616 is actually a real area code and stuff. All this time people were avoiding assigning 666 to things, and now it's all mixed up."
"People with 616 house numbers suddenly changing them."
"Imagine the customer service calls. 'TV tell me my number have Satan in it! You give me new number now!'"
"Oh man, it just occurred to me. Speaking of headbangers. All the heavy metal album covers and song names — if this pans out, those are just going to seem dumb."
"'Dude, that was made all the way back when the Number of the Beast was still 666. Crazy.'"
"Yeah, there's that Iron Maiden album, and a bunch of others, too. Tons of them."
"I guess they'll just have to reprint them. Or at least change the number on new printings."
"Yeah."
"Wait a minute. No, the Iron Maiden album was actually just called 'Number of the Beast', right? So they're okay."
"No changes, then."
"Yup."
"Dude, Iron Maiden were smart."
"No doubt. They saw this coming, so they copied by reference rather than copying by value."
"Oh my god, that's too funny. I'm going to use that in my next architecture review."
"I know right? Would that be funny or what? In your best Bill and Ted voice, 'And remembering what we learned from Iron Maiden in the great Number of the Beast dilemma of 2005, we opted to pass a pointer to the address on this method invocation rather than the address itself. . . .'"
"It'll be the NOTB design principle."
"'Copy by value? Dude, that guy should have known better!'"
"Number of the beast, man."
"Number of the beast."
Hilarity ensued.
"616?"
"Yeah."
"Not 666?"
"Not anymore."
"That's going to create quite a stir in the headbanger world, you know?"
"I know. Expect long lineups at the tattoo parlors. 'Hey man, can you make this middle number look more like a 1? No? Uh, can you just make the whole thing into a big gnarly bat with horns or something then?'"
"All the satanists are going to be trying to renegotiate their phone numbers, too."
"Wow, I bet 616 is actually a real area code and stuff. All this time people were avoiding assigning 666 to things, and now it's all mixed up."
"People with 616 house numbers suddenly changing them."
"Imagine the customer service calls. 'TV tell me my number have Satan in it! You give me new number now!'"
"Oh man, it just occurred to me. Speaking of headbangers. All the heavy metal album covers and song names — if this pans out, those are just going to seem dumb."
"'Dude, that was made all the way back when the Number of the Beast was still 666. Crazy.'"
"Yeah, there's that Iron Maiden album, and a bunch of others, too. Tons of them."
"I guess they'll just have to reprint them. Or at least change the number on new printings."
"Yeah."
"Wait a minute. No, the Iron Maiden album was actually just called 'Number of the Beast', right? So they're okay."
"No changes, then."
"Yup."
"Dude, Iron Maiden were smart."
"No doubt. They saw this coming, so they copied by reference rather than copying by value."
"Oh my god, that's too funny. I'm going to use that in my next architecture review."
"I know right? Would that be funny or what? In your best Bill and Ted voice, 'And remembering what we learned from Iron Maiden in the great Number of the Beast dilemma of 2005, we opted to pass a pointer to the address on this method invocation rather than the address itself. . . .'"
"It'll be the NOTB design principle."
"'Copy by value? Dude, that guy should have known better!'"
"Number of the beast, man."
"Number of the beast."