I give you fair warning. This one is complicated. You better pay attention. You better read slowly. This posting is not for people who are skim readers. You hear that, Penny?
Years ago I was wandering through the halls of congress when, to my complete surprise, I saw a long-time congressman is a corner behind a statue in a fetal position crying uncontrollably.
At that time in my own political awareness I was still admiring of members of congress, so I went over, got down on my hands and knees, and asked if there was anything I could do to relieve his pain.
It took him a moment to get over his anguish and he stammered out, We can’t spend enough money. We are spending billions of dollars as fast as we can but it is not enough. Billions and billions just won’t do but, since it is the biggest possible bunching of money that there is, our hands are tied. It is so awfully frustrating!
In my naiveté I tried to console him by saying, You are not limited to billions. Beyond billions are trillions. A trillion is 1,000 billion. The best part is you do not have to tell your constituents (folks back home) that you spent 1,000 of anything. When you spend one trillion you can look them right in their gullible faces and say you spent one. They will thank you for being frugal and keep electing you till the cows come home.
Boy, did I make a big mistake! He face lit up and he sprang to his feet and ran off down the Hallowed Halls of Congress shouting, Eureka! Eureka! I’ve found it! I’ve found a trillion and it’s only one!
Senator Archimedes has been reelected many times since. I see his smiling face on CSPAN all the time. As for me, he never even sent me a Thank You Card.
Since you, my dear reader, are sly, cunning and alert you are saying to yourself, What does all of this have to do with the Subject of this Blog Posting... “Don’t Tell Congress”?
Please allow me to explain...
The other day I was watching TV and I heard mention that our rulers are building a facility in Utah to store all the information that they are gathering about everything we say to each other. The report said that the facility would have the capacity to store 5 Zettabytes.
Never having heard the word Zettabyte before I wrongly assumed it was the next step above Terabyte and that would make it 1,000 Terabytes.
Boy was I wrong! Here is how it lays out...
- Above a Terabyte (12 zeros) is a Petabyte which is 1,000 Terabytes.
- Above a Petabyte (15 zeros) is an Exabyte which is 1,000 Petabytes.
- Above an Exabyte (18 zeros) is a Zettabyte which is 1,000 Exabytes.
You guessed it. A Zettabyte is 21 zeros. Or for those of you who want to confuse the rest of us even more, a Zettabyte in 1 million Terabytes, I think.
Long before we get to 5 Zettabytes we have bitten off more that the Good Ole USofA can chew.
I looked up the Monetary Equivalents of Computer Byte Bunches...
- A Megabyte would be a Million expressed in Dollars
- A Gigabyte would be a Billion expressed in Dollars
- A Terabyte would be a Trillion expressed in Dollars
- A Petabyte would be a Quadrillion expressed in Dollars
- A Exabyte would be a Quintillion expressed in Dollars
- A Zettabyte would be a Sextillion expressed in Dollars
Do you get my drift? More importantly, do you get my concern? Do you understand why the Smartfella is downright scared?
Please Don’t Tell Any Of Your Representatives In Congress That There Is Such A Thing As A Sextillion!!!
Can’t you just hear Senator Foghorn looking surprised because someone objected to him spending 5 Sextillion Dollars. Why, son. Look here, son. Don’t get so hot under the collar. It’s only 5.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
