Interview with the Colossus of Rhodes

The Interview with the Colossus of Rhodes is an annual interview (nonfiction) with the ὁ Κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος (nonfiction).

History

The Colossus of Rhodes (nonfiction) /roʊdz/ (Ancient Greek: ὁ Κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος ho Kolossòs Rhódios) was a statue of the Greek titan-god of the sun Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BC.

One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, whose son unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC.

Before its destruction in the earthquake of 226 BC, the Colossus of Rhodes had compiled over 230 terabytes of data, making it one of the computationally complex (nonfiction) statues of the ancient world.

Interviews

Despite the physical destruction, most of the statue's software (nonfiction) survived the earthquake.

A team of engineers (several from the Antikythera Team) rebooted the statue's operating system (nonfiction) and spliced in a voice-communications module.

A solar eclipse (nonfiction) occurred during the reboot-and-splice processed. The engineers took fright at this ill omen, and fled.

The statue, left to run unattended, continued to upgrade itself to the point where it could take autonomous actions. Soon the status was making itself available for annual interviews, mainly on call-in talk radio shows.

Date of interviews

Interviews typically occur between late November and the following February.

John Brunner has suggested that the pattern of interviews might relate to meteor shower patterns, but this has not been investigated to date (May 2016).

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Colossus of Rhodes (nonfiction)
• Computational complexity (nonfiction)

Fiction cross-reference

• John Brunner