Talks to Watch

Rockwell Retro Encabulator

7.5M views · Jan 17, 2008 · 2:01 · 1 HN recommender · 18 mentions · discussed 2010–2025

A spoof industrial promo for the Rockwell Retro Encabulator, a deadpan stream of technobabble about an imaginary machine. It is a classic engineering in-joke.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as a joke whenever jargon-heavy or meaningless technical pitches appear, and praises it as a masterclass in technobabble.

“the retroencabultaor video [1] is a masterclass on how to do it.”HN comment, 2020

What Hacker News said 18

Strongly recommendsandreareinaSep 2020

“the retroencabultaor video [1] is a masterclass on how to do it.”

Satirical technobabble video as masterclass of the form

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If you haven't seen it yet, the retroencabultaor video [1] is a masterclass on how to do it. [1] this video

in “When Math Gets Impossibly Hard” · view on HN
JokeharpastumDec 2010

“After you've watched the video (don't go first or it will spoil it)”

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This reminds me a lot of turbo/retroencabulator [1]. After you've watched the video (don't go first or it will spoil it), you can check out the wikipedia article.[2] [1] this video [2] link

in “Git in layman's terms: isomorphic contours in source-code phase space” · view on HN
Jokevox_mollisNov 2015
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The reported poor performance of both red mercury nuclear devices and the ADE 651 are due to the integrators' failure to power them with the output of a properly-calibrated Turboencabulator. Ref: link this video

JokeHCIdivision17Feb 2016
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Rockwell Automation did some work to modernize this with the ironically named retro-encabulator [0]. It follows the same principles, but uses the off-the-shelf parts we've come to appreciate from RA affiliates. GE was the main supplier of this updated version [1], and reviews show that its performance was excellent in the field. [0] this video [1] link EDIT: There's quite a lot of controversy convering this area of reseach in the following decades. A more technical overview [2] on the turbo-encabulator's operations is discussed in an article covering Chrysler's tulmultuous efforts to apply it to their automotive line. The short of it is that despite being an impressive leap forward in technology, if mass produced it would generate dangerous quantities of DHMO [3]. It just goes to show how a small unexpected side effect can derail even well researched technical solutions. [2] link [3] link

in “The Turbo-Encabulator in Industry (1944)” · view on HN
JokehawktheslayerDec 2020

“this classic engineering video”

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This was excellent to watch, though the whole time it made me think of this classic engineering video: this video

in “1937 film explains how a car differential works” · view on HN
JokeaeoleonnFeb 2021
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So cringe-inducing! "best in breed" "pre-integrated" "...unlocks intelligence ingrained in..." such presentations remind me of Rockwell's Retro Encabulator: this video

in “Judge: Citibank isn't entitled to $500M it sent to various creditors last August” · view on HN
JokeajcpApr 2021
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> Supposedly he was doing collars (split-strike conversions) to make this money, but it just seemed implausible to me at the time, since I traded options. I figured he just punted futures, nice and easy way to sorta hug the index (I hadn't seen his "returns"), maybe Martingale it and get lucky until you're not so lucky. For all I know you might as well be talking about a Rockwell Retro Encabulator[1] 1. this video

JokewhalesaladJun 2021
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> As a result, we propose regularizing plain Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) networks by searching for the optimal combination/cocktail of 13 regularization techniques for each dataset using a joint optimization over the decision on which regularizers to apply and their subsidiary hyperparameters. Pardon? this video

in “Regularization is all you need: simple neural nets can excel on tabular data” · view on HN
JokemyrandomcommentJan 2022

“Here is the fun take”

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Here is the fun take - this video And the original - link Also curious as this was on Twitter the other day...how social mixed if this is the OPs reason for sharing.

Jokelondons_exploreMar 2023
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The obvious way to subvert this is by infiltrating the expert pool. Send in your own guys, who will vote to give all the money to you for inventing the critical retro encabulator[1]. I think the only defence is to make the expert pool large (ie. thousands of people), with a good chunk from academia, and have the expert pool anonymous, with the 'votes' of each expert also anonymous (so they can't go to their boss and show how they voted entirely for their own company). And finally, have some system to throw out the 20% highest and lowest votes before taking an average of the rest. [1]: this video

in “How the EU CHIPS Act Could Build “Innovation Capacity” in Europe” · view on HN
JokeefitzMay 2023

“Reminded me of the Rockwell Encabulator”

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Hahaha "The first step of Byzantine Fault Tolerance is tolerance" omg. That cracked me up. Reminded me of the Rockwell Encabulator: this video

in “A guidance language for controlling LLMs” · view on HN
JokehyperdimensionJul 2023

“(my favorite version) It's an old engineering in-joke.”

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He used the Retro Encabulator to generate this text. this video (my favorite version) It's an old engineering in-joke. Edit: oops, thought your comment was a reply to 'mindcrime. I'm keeping it here though for the lucky (very lucky in this case) 10,000.

JokedleeftinkSep 2023
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I'm okay with jargon, but the ratio can be off sometimes. When the ratio becomes too skewed, there's risk of side-fumbling or even encabuloration [0]. [0]: this video

in “Should Ethereum be okay with enshrining more things in the protocol?” · view on HN
JokepwatsonwailesOct 2023
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Nah, they need Rockwell Automation's retro encabulator. The inverse reactive current it produces (designed for use in unilateral phase detractors) should also be capable of automatically synchronising cardinal gram meters. My guess would be that the gram meters have become unsynchronised. this video

in “NASA can't open its asteroid capsule” · view on HN
JokekibwenDec 2023

“the famous Rockwell Retro Encabulator”

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The video is good, but I couldn't help but draw a parallel to the famous Rockwell Retro Encabulator: this video

in “Hyundai Uni Wheel electric drive system could revolutionize EV design” · view on HN
Joke_fizz_buzz_Jan 2024
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But that is my point, ChatGPT connected the rockwell retro encabulator[0] in reverse, which will of course make the resonance tank split capacitor bridge oscillate out of sync with the active input bias triodes. This will of course immediately fry the dual-bifet transistor driver stage. Not sure why they call this AI. [0] this video

in “AI 'hallucinated' fake legal cases filed to B.C. court in Canadian first” · view on HN
JokeparanoidrobotApr 2025

“You could also go down the Turbo Encabulator rabbit hole”

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There are youtube channels with old TV Ads. Some of those will be non-existant. You could also go down the Turbo Encabulator rabbit hole: link this video

in “Tunarr: Create and configure live TV channels from media on your servers” · view on HN
Joken1xis10tDec 2025
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Indeed, complexity (both cyclomatic and post-frontal) must be reduced such that the two spurving bearings make a direct line with the panametric fan. For more details consult this instructional video: this video

in “Show HN: Stop AI scrapers from hammering your self-hosted blog (using porn)” · view on HN