Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/20/powerpoint-is-turing-complete.html
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Between this and RPGs written completely in excel, it’s starting to make more and more sense that Microsoft purchased Minecraft…
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Cool. Now implement a virtual machine within a .ppt file that is capable of running PowerPoint. Then we can have animated Word-Art turtles all the way down.
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You’re thinking too small. We need a virtual machine simulated by a mechanical chain simulated by a series of water-gates simulated by a pipe organ simulated by a .ppt file.
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is the .ppt file running on Minecraft?
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Ah yes but can you build a redstone computer capable of running Excel? Because if you can, the Singularity is here.
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Slide that talked about .ppt immunity to syntax errors had a typo/grammatical error (“your” instead of “you’re”). There is a universal law that covers this, I believe.
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i love cellular automata. those were some of the first things i learned how to make when i started to program!
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More worrisome: can you build a Redstone missile capable of running Excel? Because if you can, World War Three is here.
Disclaimer: actual Redstone missile may not be capable of running Excel.
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Me, before watching this video:
What’s the big deal? I learned VBA in 1997.
Me, after watching this video:
Holy shit, that is the most awesome new programming language. I am quitting my day job.
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Noticed that too. I am really hoping that is an easter egg.
One of Charles Stross’s Laundry novels (The Jennifer Morgue, I think) contains a scene in which a Powerpoint presentation executes lethal code in the heads of unwary observers and ushers in entities from another dimension. One of the great strengths of the series is its take on the evil lurking behind the banalities of office culture (Excel, performance reviews, expense reports, holiday parties, etc).
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Ha! This reminded me of that too! 
And yeah, it was The Jennifer Morgue, my personal favorite Stross novel.
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Allowing the world to be taken over by a billion small Chinese girls?
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Nah, only a few hundred thousand.
are you seriously taking anything that comes out of SIGBOVIK at face value? That’s like believing stuff that’s said at BAHfest, or in the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Granted, maybe it is Turing-complete - I got lost watching the video - but I’d want something more trustworthy than something from a parody conference released on April 1.
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