A unit of talking speed, abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200
milliLampsons. The eponymous Butler Lampson (a CS theorist and
systems implementor highly regarded among hackers) goes at 1000. A
few people speak faster. This unit is sometimes used to compare the
(sometimes widely disparate) rates at which people can generate ideas
and actually emit them in speech. For example, noted computer
architect C. Gordon Bell (designer of the {PDP-11}) is said, with
some awe, to think at about 1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is
frequently reduced to fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to
keep up with his speeding brain.
[glossary]