Sunday, April 5, 2009

Weekend chores and pranks

It was dark and snowy on Wednesday. Today, it was sunny and in the upper 60s. Such a dramatic change injects a lot of energy into people, and we were no exception.

The kid's room is now ready -- wallpapered, all electrical sockets have been childproofed, drapes are up, and all other adornments are adorned. The attachments needed to mount the used bike rack we got for my car have been obtained and the rack is successfully attached. We even cleaned up the yard a bit -- mowed the grass, ripped out a lot of blackberries, and mulched it all. I also got some mounting hardware for my traffic signal and painted it all (Ace Hardware appliance paint -- spray paint mixed with epoxy -- is excellent stuff).

I also got a small bike ride in and did a bit of swimming in Port Orchard. No distance; this was more of an acclimatization exercise -- the air may have been 68°F, but the water is still around 47°F. I can definitely feel the difference since last November. Back in November, it would take me about 3 minutes to acclimate myself to the cold; now, it's up to 8-10 minutes and the cold is still noticeable.

Anyway, while riding back from Port Orchard on my bike, I thought of an interesting prank. North Korea claims that it successfully launched the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite, though everyone knows that it was really a failed missile test. They claim that it's orbiting every 104 minutes and broadcasting patriotic songs on 470 MHz (that's UHF TV channel 14, should you want to try picking it up on your rabbit ears). Alas, nobody has actually heard anything on this frequency.

Which got me thinking...

What would people do if I set up a transmitter on this frequency and blasted "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il" on it, fading it in and out every 104 minutes? What kind of rationalizations would folks make? How quickly would the hoax be discovered?

On that last question: my guess is fairly quickly, but that wouldn't stop a new group of conspiracy theorists from forming their own cute new clique.

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