Can we please take a moment to appreciate this lovely piece of code?

This is one of the things that made the 90s so great. It's too bad that it remains so unappreciated.

Code:

float Q_rsqrt( float number )
{
        long i;
        float x2, y;
        const float threehalfs = 1.5F;
 
        x2 = number * 0.5F;
        y  = number;
        i  = * ( long * ) &y;                      // evil floating point bit level hacking
        i  = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 );              // what the ****?
        y  = * ( float * ) &i;
        y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );  // 1st iteration
//      y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );  // 2nd iteration, this can be removed
 
        return y;