I have to be honest with you about something: for someone who makes his living producing content on the internet, I’m not sure I really have any idea why some things become popular online and others don’t. Sometimes I think I know, and then something will happen that will remind me that my ignorance is as vast and lush as the Tennessee Valley. Sometimes that something is lousy, like a post I was hoping would be popular, not taking off. And sometimes that something is wonderful and unexpected, like a silly reel I made about storing data on a salami going viral.
It’s true! As of this writing, a short video I made about encoding some computer data onto a slice of salami has had over 1.5 million views, 116,000 likes, and has been shared 104,000 times. How does someone predict something like that?
It’s literally a silly joke I had in my head, and it wouldn’t leave, so I had to just sit down and shoot it. This was one take, with my kid holding the camera. Have you seen it? Here, you can watch it, just so you get the context:
View this post on Instagram
It’s pretty goofy, of course. It was the sort of thing that I feared maybe only I found funny, but I felt like I had to do it anyway, so I made that web-based interface for the laptop and wrote a BASIC program for the Apple II side, and rigged up a couple of salami-reading hardware units and now people are accusing me of being AI or actually believing I have encoded data into a slice of salami, or, even better, believing I have encoded data into salami, but also that I have done it in a stupid way, because they’re smarter.
You know, the internet.
Anyway, it’s so absurd and improbable that this silly thing has taken off, so to celebrate, we made a limited-edition shirt! (Note: This is a pre-order, meaning you have until the 19th of December to order it, and then we’ll print it and ship it in the new year). 
It’s a sort of lo-fi, one-color shirt, and yes, that typeface is the actual Apple II character set, so no worries there.
The text, of course, comes from the first string of text ever transmitted by salami, AUTOPIAN IS THE BEST, but with one error, making it AUTOPIAN IS THE BENT.
What a weird world, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m positively delighted, and the fact that this bit of nonsense blew up so much gives me so much hope for the internet and the world in general! Plus, I’ve just about convinced myself that this is actually possible. Because of dilipids, you see.
Anyway, why not get a shirt and show the world you were in on the ground floor of the salami data-storage revolution!
This brings a whole new meaning to the computer term “Links”
I don’t really wear T-shirts, but this shirt and the They Might Be Giants Homestar/Homsar shirt are really tempting me to change that.
What happens to the data as the salami ages? It wasn’t perfect at the start of this test. But as the salami ages, does it get worse? Do you have to store the salami in a very cold data center, that maybe shouldn’t be too dry? I would love a follow-up article about how well it holds up over time.
I was astonished how reasonably well old VHS tapes still played over a decade after recordings were made. And the tapes had spent several summers in less than ideal conditions in a non-climate-controlled garage.
I’ve seen enough whimsical and improbable tech experiments come up on Hackaday or YouTube that I was entirely prepared to believe Jason had actually found some way to write, then read encoded information on salami. Not in a useful way, but enough to say he did it.
I actually didn’t even think that he might have faked it all. I just assumed Jason spent weeks of time figuring out how to do this useless thing. it completely matched his persona for me 🙂
Same here. This is EXACTLY the type of nonsense he would figure out.
As a young child, before I got my first Apple ][+, I remember eating chunks from the red plastic wrapped Hebrew National tube of salami that could usually be found in my parents’ coldcuts and cheeses drawer of the fridge. For whatever reason, the idea of that now makes me want to retch just like the thought of rum and coke does due to an unfortunate incident in my 17th year.
Rum is evil. I arrived late to a company Christmas party and the only thing left to drink was a heavily rum-based punch. The first serving tasted awful and then after that, I didn’t care. I called in sick the next day.
But, I remember a photo in a Car and Driver article that had a poster in the background that said “The liver is evil. It must be punished.” It was probably a John Phillips article.
For years I used to think the same, then I had some good rum. I think the problem wasn’t rum per see but that some brands of rum are awful.
Rum like pretty much any other liquor is, at its core, imperfect vodka. Some brands are more imperfect than others.
Yeah, I hated rum in college when all anyone had was Malibu or captain morgan. Then I tried a nice Jamaican rum and I was fully converted
Appleton (Jamaican) rum is what did it for me. Some years ago Total Wine had a crazy deal of I think it was like $10 for a 1.75L of either white or gold rum. The reviews were good and I figured at that price WTH so I got one of each. And damn was it was GOOD!
I went to a tropical themed restaurant with my now-wife and had something with Smith and Cross and I was hooked
Well yeah, I’m sure your now wife is amazing.
Oh, you meant by the rum…
Read “Dalai Lama” in headline. Had another cup of coffee.
Whad ar u googling about?
Sorry it’s hard to post in Yiddish
שרייבן אין יידיש איז בכלל נישט קיין פראבלעם
I’ll take ‘bent’ Autiopian everyday, and twice on Sunday,
Beautiful. “Autopian is the bent” is the “All your base are belong to us” of the 21st century.
Your mistake was treating salami as a magnetic medium when it is obviously optical. I’ll let you know the results of my laser experiments as soon as I can get to the deli.
Its.obviously a cylinder. Torch’s mistake was not going retro enough:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_cylinder
You are the mad scientist in the room. Well done sir – do you ship to Scotland?
As soon as I have $25 I’m in
So no data centers? Just huge deli sections of Krogers? I’m here for that.
OK, I’m in. Best of all, it says I can “split your purchase into monthly installments for orders over $0.01”. So – that’s $25/0.01 – 2,500 payments. I don’t have to pay this off until 2233! Next, you should do Autopian ‘Nduja pajamas and Guanciale boxers! This is the bent!
I think that’s what the infinite number of mathematicians that walk into a bar do while they are waiting for their two beers.
What was a story you thought was going to do good but didn’t?
Did I just wander into a Xiaflex ad?
Google it yourself, I’m not putting links here.
I did google it.
Make it seitan instead of salami and add the words “Hail Seitan” and I’ll order a shirt (or two) in XL.
I prefer kielbasa
Here in the city of Tracy, it’s Linguica. Also open mic bullfights.
https://www.ttownmedia.com/tracy_press/our_town/tracy-s-bullfight-tradition-continues/article_351445f8-6dcb-11e8-8c03-376b981c2229.html
Fascinating. I had no idea bullfights were held anywhere in the US. Though there seem to be unexpectedly low levels of rust for a town called “Tracy”.
Well it’s sort of to bull fighting what flag football is to football. Except the bulls don’t know that and have real horns. Also the bulls learn from experience.
They used to let anyone who wanted get in the ring with the bull, but apparently that’s not done anymore.
Saw a video today of people in inflatable ball suits in with bulls getting shoved all over the place. It was weird
Oh tons of bullfights in the US just a different kind of bull.
Bulls on parade
Tracy is in California’s central valley, well away from the ocean and snow.
The Tracy Lords approve the ramming of a good bull.
Come to think about it you could make an actual disc out of carne asada.
Without reading the article, I pictured a bull, standing infornt of a brick wall and holding a microphone, saying “So, what’s the deal with matadors?”
Kielbasa lets you store near infinite amounts of data. It’s the original block chain.
And the best pizza topping you can’t get on a pizza. IMHO better than pepperoni.
There are a few pizza places in NYC that do a crayfish and andouille with goat cheese pizza on a New Haven style crust that is probably my favorite.
You can if you DIY. You can even make a dark rye crust and top it with sauerkraut too.
Well it’s a linked list, but when moved to disk, say a pizza, it’s converted into an array.
Oddly enough, that format has hard sectors baked in and the data must be consumed in one sector slices.
Torch I went to order one but you stopped one size short. Now I’m not saying salami fans don’t wear sizes small and medium it’s just my experience they are fans of a different salami.
Your homophobic “joke” isn’t nearly as clever as you imagined.
Actually I was thinking women but I if I have offended anyone from the gay community that has a small penis I apologize.
Sure you were.
You’ve demonstrated before what a bigot you are.
As you are doing now. In fact very little of my day is spent thinking of the gay community. But my gay friends think I’m a hoot.
One is reminded of the old adage about never actually wanting to see how the sausage is made– nor how the binary codes are implanted in the salami.
Although now you have me curious how a set of thin-sliced, and grease-impregnated, salami slivers perform if swapped in for the main journal bearings in a Ford-
Cleveland. Because nobody knows meat-in-casings like Cleveland.
Buy one for everyone in your coterie and it’ll truly be a meating of the minds!
What would you call a group of people who make decisions about how to manage a mononymed singer’s fan club?
.
.
.
.
A Cher coterie board
If they took a stand supporting going back to the use of a certain herb, they’d advertise as “If I Could Turn Back Thyme.”
That right there is some sage advice.
Oh basil my heart! Given that this is cumin from The King, I feel like such a big dill.
I’d give it all to toot
That’s might be the best pun torture:payoff ratio I’ve ever seen. Well played.
Wrap one of these and put it under the tree and you’re playing hide the salami with a loved one.
Get bent is what happens when Torch and deer collide.
To be honest none of Touches vehicles go fast enough to actually hit a deer, or cause damage.
And yet it has happened twice wit h the Pao
Torch was parked and the deer hit him.
That’s funny I don’t care who you are.
Yes but think about it. It was repairable. I think a person could actually beat up the Pao as to make it a loss.
I put in my order today because Autopian really is the bent!