h a l f b a k e r yBreakfast of runners-up.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
Please log in.
Before you can vote, you need to register.
Please log in or create an account.
|
2018 is apparently the 110th anniversary of the custard
cream biscuit and the 44th anniversary (today as it
happens) of the transmission of the Arecibo telescope
message. Just in case you don't know what that is, it's
a 1679-bit binary signal sent to a star cluster in the
constellation of
Hercules which included the formulae
for amino acids, a diagram of the DNA double helix, the
radio dish itself, the planets of the solar system (which
included Pluto), a human figure and various other
pieces of info.
My proposal is to emboss (or whatever) this message on
an unusually long custard cream. It could easily be
done, it should be done and it has custard in the title
so it must be a good idea. Moreover, being a biscuit it's
a total of four halfbaked ideas, because biscuits are
twice-baked.
[link]
|
| |
...should have been sending out a retraction of Pluto
being a planet (or not). Fibbing to aliens we've never
even met, it's a poor start. |
|
| |
Perhaps they could make the tranformers of street lights emit prime number coded micropulses causing all the light from earth to braodcast a series of primes to any optical observers. |
|
| |
//make the tranformers of street lights emit prime number
coded micropulses // |
|
| |
The problem would be in synchronizing all the lights, all
over the world (assuming that the aliens aren't just parked
in a lay-by near Stoke). |
|
| |
On the other hand, a very slow brightness modulation (say,
±20% over a minute, which people would not notice) could
be synchronized worldwide quite easily. It might be
detectable, possibly. |
|
| |
Incidentally, it is a little-known fact that from 1943 to 1945,
a system was in place to send coded messages to Allied
prisoners of war (specifically, captured airmen) by
modifying the elaborate pattern of embossing on custard
cream biscuits included in Red Cross parcels. The scheme
was proposed by none other than Geoffrey Pyke, of Pykrete
fame. |
|
| |
Over 12,000 packets of specially-commissioned biscuits
(enough to allow a small repertoire of important messages
to be conveyed to prisoners held at some 25-30 camps)
were stockpiled by the War Ministry, to be held in storage
until the need arose. Unfortunately, the storage room in
which they were safeguarded, although kept cool and dry,
was also generously ventilated. When the biscuits were
checked in 1945 (shortly before the end of the war, when it
seemed that they might be needed), all that was found was
a huge pile of shredded paper packets and a two-inch layer
of mouse shit. |
|
| |
I really want that to be true [MB]. |
|
| |
You say that as if it might not be. |
|
| |
It's a two-inch layer of mouse shit. But beautifully crafted. |
|
| |
"I say, Carruthers, these hundreds and thousands the jolly old RAF have sent us aren't quite up to the usual standard ... more like the ones we used to get from the Tuck Shop at Marlborough..." |
|
| |
// assuming that the aliens aren't just parked in a lay-by near Stoke // |
|
| |
Don't be daft, you know perfectly well that they much prefer Cherwell Valley services on the M40. |
|
| |