LOL, OMG, WTF -- or, in pre-digital terms, amazed, stunned, stupefied. Those are my reactions to really big numbers. When I was in Michigan City, we had a computer that was in two big cases against the wall -- 40 megabytes of storage, and they ran the whole newspaper operation. I think my first home computer had something like 60 or 80 mb.
So I was amazed when megabytes weren't enough anymore and we had to start measuring in gigabytes, 1,000 mbs. And this week I am stunned -- just bought a new laptop (laptop, mind you, not a desktop) with 1 terabyte -- that's 1,000 gigabytes. If I'm still alive when the first laptop with 1 petabyte comes out, I fully expect to be stupefied.
Federal debt, same reactions to the progression: million, billion, trillion. I don't know what comes after "stupefied," and I hope we never have to find out.
