I was thinking about how to try the famous Houdini experiment, of trying to signal back after death. At first I thought of trying to make cats dance or something, but realized that something like cats, would be hard to control. Then I thought "toothpicks". Toss a toothpick a few times, and if it lands on a negative angle, it's a 0....a positive angle, it's a 1, and 0 angle is undef. Then look for a morse code Z or something in the binary sequence. A Z is "dash dash dot dot"...so 1100110011001100 may be a sign from ME.. :-)

maybe I will make the Swiss super-collider blink a Z on it's sensors. :-)

Now... where does Perl come into this? :-) Ok, if you guys out there see a 2-on, 2-off pattern in some debugging output, it's ME. :-) Now, the only problem, is how do you know the difference between 2 dashs from 1 long dash? A timing sync will occur every so often, like 11111111111111111111111010101010101010101010100000000000000000000000000000 will occaisionally be sent, so you can get the 1, 0 timing.

Would anyone care to collaborate on a Houdini module? :-)

In more serious terms, :-), what would be the best way to initiate binary communication with an unknown world/entity? Is sending a morse Z the best way? Maybe SOS is better...bwaha ha ) :-)

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth My Petition to the Great Cosmic Conciousness
  • Comment on Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Mar 28, 2009 at 20:32 UTC
[reply]
      That book link is great, anyone have a wget command to get it all? It's like 103 images, but no download tarball?

      P.S.

      But, I guess my model has somewhat different constraints. One of the biggest differences, is since I'm trying to communicate with people I already know exist( not unknown aliens), I can assume they understand morse code.....at least recognize a dit-dah pattern sequence. It's actually quite unique sound to listen to old morse code....

      So that greatly simplifies the amount of work to detect a pattern, because you know the intelligence level of the entities at the other end.

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth My Petition to the Great Cosmic Conciousness
[reply]

        An LWP::Simple script will fetch it. This is just the pages of the paper I cited, but should extend for the whole thing: 

        perl -MLWP::Simple 
-E"getstore 
qq[http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cache/seri/ASPC./0047/600/0000${
+_}.000.gif], 
qq[bk${_}.gif] for 103..115"

        [download]
        Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
        "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
        In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.
by dHarry (Abbot) on Mar 30, 2009 at 11:22 UTC
[reply]
[reply]
Re: Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.
by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Mar 29, 2009 at 22:12 UTC

    I dunno... are you planning to, like, go somewhere soon? ...

    (And if you are, and need someone to look after your kitty...)

[reply]
        what time is any time?
[reply]
Re: Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.
by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Mar 30, 2009 at 14:32 UTC

    “Everybody wants to go to heaven ... just don't wanna go right now.”

[reply]

        Let's not forget the "non-physical" pain! Or can all pain be classified as "physical"? Heaven... I have my doubts. I'm not religious... except for maybe Perl:) For me Heaven is an illusion and hell could be right here on earth;) I'm not even convinced we have a soul. In fact I'm getting more and more convinced that we have none. You seem to be preoccupied by death lately, I wish you strength brother.

[reply]

        Dunno, Perl does that to me sometimes.

        But I have this terrible feeling that I would get to the ... (ahem) ... perly gates and discover that they needed someone in technical support.

        (Technical support departments, as we all know, are always located in the basement. Uh oh...)

Re: Somewhat OT: Designing the Houdini After-death communication experiment.
by Sec (Monk) on Apr 01, 2009 at 15:37 UTC
    # Is sending a morse Z the best way? I thought it was agreed that sending a sequence of prime numbers was a good approach of signaling intelligence.

    Or am I just remembering a popular novel/film there? :-)

[reply]
[reply]

Back to Meditations