This is a formicarium (one of those glass-walled ant colony things) designed to appeal to people who harbour fantasies of being an all-powerful deity.The formicarium is built along standard lines, except for a tiny, ant-proportioned altar, underneath a picture of you. The novel thing is the food supply for the ants, which contains microscopic quantities of iron. Then, when you're feeling at your most egocentric and despotic, you can tap the glass of the formicarium with your magnetised wand and watch as a passing ant stops and falls to the ground in obeisance, drawn closer to the glass by your god-like power. When this isn't enough, turn on the electromagnet hidden under the altar - <bzzzt!> "Ha ha! look at them flock towards my image in devotion! Look at them scurry towards me - They're like ants! mwahahahaHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!"-- hippo, Mar 08 2010 Sandkings http://www.youtube....=A2OfzYxZV08#t=2m0s"Sandkings" was made into an episode of the 'Twilight Zone'-esque programme "The Outer Limits" [Jinbish, Mar 08 2010] behave_20beehive_20hairdo I think it would be best to have both. [xenzag, Mar 08 2010] Tibetan Ant Painting Tibetan_20Ant_20PaintingThe Dali Lama would not approve. [RayfordSteele, Mar 08 2010] Ants magnetic fields http://www.newscien...ss-to-get-home.html [rcarty, Mar 11 2010] E.O. Wilson: Lord of the Ants http://www.youtube....watch?v=wKbj3ZDmvdU [rcarty, Mar 15 2010] I wonder whether it's possible to get an ant to hold a charge, if so, you could have one colony positively charged, and the other negatively charged, and when they wage holy war on each other to prove their worthyness (and to gain access to the Manna Jam) the sparks will fly and many an ant will be ensmiteified, earning itself its very own place in Ant Valhalla.
Does anyone remember a (Hugo Prize winner - I think) science fiction story about a man who likes exotic pets, only he gets them to fight one another and invites his friends around to watch and take bets. One day, he's at the exotic pet emporium and is offered a huge formicarium populated by 3 colonies of ant-like creatures that build tiny sculptures of his face on the front of their little ant-castles...
[edit] Aha - found it "Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin..."When Simon Kress returned to his home planet of Baldur from an offworld business trip, he was amused to find that his tank of Earth piranhas had cannibalized themselves into extinction, and of the two exotic animals that roamed his estate, only one remained. Now, in search of some new pets to satisfy his cruel pursuit of amusement, Simon finds a new shop in the city where he is intrigued by a new lifeform he has never heard of before ... a collection of multi-colored sandkings. The curator explains that the insect-like animals, no larger than Simon's fingernails, are not insects, but animals with a highly-evolved hive intelligence capable of staging wars between the different colors, and even religion--in the form of worship of their owner. The curator's warning to Simon about the regularity of their feeding, unfortunately, was not taken seriously.... "-- zen_tom, Mar 08 2010 How strange... I was thinking of an "ant" idea this very weekend. Anticipation?
Excellent notion + (see link for it's hairdo companion idea)-- xenzag, Mar 08 2010 now that I've stopped laughing - here's a bun to lay on my altar!! +-- xandram, Mar 08 2010 //I wonder whether it's possible to get an ant to hold a charge, if so, you could have one colony positively charged, and the other negatively charged//
I've thought for a while about proposing a Kelvin's Thunderstorm made of ants.
Unfortunately I have no idea how this would work.-- Wrongfellow, Mar 08 2010 (+) "They are ants Micheal. They 'are' ants."
hmm diamagnetants...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 08 2010 What if you are already an all-powerful God-like Entity ?-- 8th of 7, Mar 08 2010 then you could do the same thing, but with the Borg.-- FlyingToaster, Mar 08 2010 Ah, you mean 'Q'.
What a loser ...-- 8th of 7, Mar 08 2010 [2 fries] The marketing blurb for this might borrow from your suggestion: "MagnAnts" - or something...-- hippo, Mar 09 2010 //Do food-bound worship systems have dieties ?//
Maybe, maybe not, but deities certainly have food-bound worship systems:
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)-- zen_tom, Mar 09 2010 The Halfbakery version of that would be the new kitchen gadget for Catholics: "The Transubstantiationator! - turns any foodstuff into the body of Christ!"-- hippo, Mar 09 2010 Of course it would appeal to a wider market if it had a dial to allow you to select your deity or prophet of choice, be it Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha or whoever else.-- Wrongfellow, Mar 09 2010 "Dial M for Mohammed"-- zen_tom, Mar 09 2010 I think the Transubstantiationator would be very useful for transplants, if the donors were able to avoid rejection of this kind of flesh ...-- Aristotle, Mar 11 2010 Interesting point - can transubstantiation transform things not just into "the flesh of Christ", but into "specific body parts of Christ"? I don't know.-- hippo, Mar 11 2010 //can transubstantiation transform things not just into "the flesh of Christ", but into "specific body parts of Christ"? //Well, there's the blood, obviously.(I've always found this ritual cannibalism rather creepy)-- coprocephalous, Mar 11 2010 The trouble being that tissue rejection would no longer be merely a biological matter.
"Nurse, patient is showing high white blood count, could be tissue rejection." "The patient knowingly rejects the liver of Christ?! Witch! Burn him!" etc-- zen_tom, Mar 11 2010 //"Dial M for Mohammed"// Potentially the most incendiary comment I've ever seen on the hb, z_t. Take a bow that man!-- DrBob, Mar 11 2010 I read that as "fornicarium," and was sorely disappointed.-- Cuit_au_Four, Mar 12 2010 "they're like ants!"
tee hee
+-- nomocrow, Mar 12 2010 "Fourmi(s)" is French for ant(s); funny story behind that, too. For you see, it was the French who were the first to discover, crystalize, and synthesize methanoic acid in large amounts. In the mid 1800s, they noticed that it was present in significant quantities in the venoms of bees and ants (these organisms were, themselves, assigned to genera and species by Frankish scientists in the era of Charlemagne). Anyways, the French correctly assigned the name "formic acid" to the compound. The English "formylic acid," a festinately contrived knockoff, has seen little use in contrast to the superior Franconomer.-- Cuit_au_Four, Mar 12 2010 random, halfbakery