Peer Pressure

[pozorvlak]

xi: Hello?

xi: Anyone out there?

xi: Hello? 10 11 101 111 1011 1101
welcome_bot: EHLO xi 2 01 21 12 201 111 221 102 212
xi: Um, 2001 1101 1011 2111 1211 2021 2221 2102 1202?

***** Welcome to #milkywaysentiences *****

You are logged in as "xi". To alter this name, use the command /nick.

betelgeuse: hi xi
sirius_b: hi xi
xi: hi!
hdbi8ow: asl
xi:

Comments

[pozorvlak]

I trust the influences on this story are so transparent as to not need stating, but if you haven't already you should really watch They're Made Out Of Meat.

I wrote a small script to generate the numbers (which can count as today's PeCoWriMo offering), but you may wish to try working out what they mean before reading the code - it should be very easy.

[andrewducker]

They should probably read it too:
http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

[pozorvlak]

I deliberately didn't link to the short story, because I think the film is better :-) Partly because of the excellent soundtrack, and partly because I think it was absolutely the right artistic decision to cut the last couple of paragraphs, which I think over-egg the pudding rather.

But yes, much credit should go to Bisson for writing the original story, and I should have mentioned that.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, I can't see the video, because I'm in work. I know there's a couple of variants floating about though. I'll take a look when I get home.

[mejoff]

Touch of Accelerando at the start there as well?

Very nicely done, by the way.

[pozorvlak]

Yes, I loved Accelerando's Matrioshka brain civilisations.

And thank you!

[pozorvlak]

The very beginning also owes a lot to Carl Sagan's Contact, H. Beam Piper's Omnilingual, Sam Hughes' On Digital Extremities, and RFC 2821.

[andrewducker]

I was also reminded of the Galactic Usenet in Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep".

[necaris]

Dude, that's brilliant :-)

[pozorvlak]

Thank you :-)

[shuripentu]

And yet somehow they are all so adorable.

[strawberryfrog]

Element 211? What's the half-life of that?

[pozorvlak]

I was wondering when someone would ask that :-) Most isotopes are stable, but there's one with a half-life of 170 years.

You may wish to have another look at the numbers in lines 4 and 5 :-)

[strawberryfrog]

Spoiler

If 211 is trinary, it comes out to (9 * 2) + (3 * 1) + 1 = 22. Element 22 is titanium.

Unless the digits are in right to left order, in which case it's 2 + (3 * 1) + (9* 1) = 14. Element 14 is Silicon, which is a sensible answer. It also makes lines 4-5 lists of the first few prime numbers :)

[pozorvlak]

Very good. And the half-lives of titanium and silicon are? :-)