Paul Jay's Ponderings

There's some crazy code from chickenscratch that SlashDot is currently talking about. Looks a bit interesting, but I can't quite figure it out. Somebody did get two lines of text out of the top and bottom portions, but the middle and encrypted parts of the text still boggle the mind...

Supposedly the image is a fax to Symmetry magazine of a page that Fermilab got sent in the mail. Mail is posted from Chicago... But you know what would make it even more funny, is if the postage date would coincide closely with the O'Hare UFO sighting. Now that would be funny.

Imagine if SETI could never get a signal, but "noise" in some various instrument reading particle counts in an accelerator was actually part of some transmission mechanism we don't yet know about. That would be funny, but I don't know if any aliens would be as blunt as to drop off mail through regular postage at an airport to get a message across. (Provided aliens even bother coming by this planet - if they can reach it.) As for the encryption? Crop glyphs aren't exactly in plain english either, but rather puzzle-like. Aliens coming by to drop off a hastily scribbled note to give a stronger clue would make for a funny work of fiction or such. But why not just email the thing?

Labels: code, fermilab, message, random, strange