Penn Jillette’s Surprising Success as a Computer Columnist | Hacker News Reader

Penn Jillette’s Surprising Success as a Computer Columnist

tedium.co

54 pointsKC8ZKF25 comments

Over the years, I've really come to appreciate Penn Jillette as a public person. Always pops up with new interests and insights.

Believe it or not, something about his recent appearance on Rogan inspired me to cut down my drinking. Just the way he made a life of temperance seem aspirationally cool (and not just cool in a Christian rock sort of way)

LOL, "cool as Christian rock" would make for a nice expression!

Penn created Desert Bus...worst computer game ever.

https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/10/4510388/why-teller-created...

That article credits Teller only, in the title, and primarily, in the body. And Desert Bus was a parody, not a game per se.

I would like to see an update of Desert Bus that uses all the latest 3D technology and satellite data like they put in flight simulators.

I mean, Teller referred to it as "a game that just reflects reality", so how real could you make it?

Recreate a real bus, but the most boring one possible.

...Desert Bus 2020

You could probably make a mod for American Truck Simulator VR.

A parody game is still a game.

Here's a Desert Bus playthrough. The player collects 3 points by completing the trip three times, a feat which normally takes 8 hours each way, but the video is at 3x speed, so you see it in "only" 8 hours. Catch the excitement at 2:45:20 as the player scores their first point!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtiHla1dNg

I remember reading that column regularly. One in particular that I recall was a joke he proposed for the (then much less serious) airport security. If I'm remembering correctly, back in the day they wanted you to turn laptops on to show someone that it really was just a computer. Jillette proposed that maybe you should set your autoexec file start the computer saying something along the lines of "bomb detonating in 5...4...3...2...1" to freak them out...or it was something like that. Obviously pre-9/11. You'd probably get detained at the very least (and maybe arrested) if you did something like that these days. Maybe I will be able to find that column again...

Edit: oops, the article mentioned that very incident at the end.

This contextualizes the Hackers cameo a little.

Am I the only one who remembers logging into Penn's public BBS in the late 80s? Each screen would finish with "push any key to proceed to the next screen" followed by "except that one." Ancient history I know, but he's been into computers since the beginning of the PC was.

Was this the Jungle Lord BBS?

One of his buddies is Rob Pike.

Another is Randy Pitchford.

I once got to have dinner with Penn and Rob Pike years ago. I had no idea at the time who Pike was. Looked him up afterwards (this was pre-Wikipedia) and felt like an idiot.

Everyone needs to be taken down a peg from time to time.

I knew someone who rode the Monorail in Seattle next to Jeff Bezos. No idea who he was, even after he introduced himself. Told others they "met someone named Jeff Bozos on the train."

Yep, that sounds about right.

I love his “thurman” idea.... definitely going to use that the next time someone asks me for help with a computer problem. Ehh, maybe only in April since it’s a little mean.

The dial-up BBS Penn and Teller ran around 1990 was quite good.

I was an avid reader of PC/Computing in middle school and vividly remember calling that fake ad number.

I still feel like the duo just cashed in on wrecking the magic of magic by focusing on just revealing the mechanics of how it's done. Obviously, not a problem for dry adults, but there's an in between world of folks who suspend their disbelief and the fun of doing that for the rest of us.

"We demand to be taken seriously!"

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