Firefox Crop Circles Prove Intelligent Alien Life

This past weekend, the OSU Linux Users Group descended on a field in Oregon to create a 45,000+ square foot crop circle of Firefox. The photos and write-up are worth checking out.

Bonus geek points for not using GPS

Bonus geek points for using an HP graphing calculator and string instead of GPS. Though I'm not quite sure why the farmers would give permission for parts of their crop to be destroyed (even if he/she's an OSS advocate).

Re:Bonus geek points for not using GPS

I think a field DOS would run you about 640K.

Re:Bonus geek points for not using GPS

Probably something about getting the kids out of the basement, even for just a couple days.

The crops are valueless.

"Though I'm not quite sure why the farmers would give permission for parts of their crop to be destroyed (even if he/she's an OSS advocate)."

Because of the subsidies the crops have been overproduced into worthlessness. In the case of corn it fetches something around $2 per bushel on the open market, but $3 per bushel to grow the stuff. You the taxpayer, well, essentially burn money to keep farmers buzzing around on their big tonka toys feeling productive.

Oh and in the process, devastating the economies and agricultural markets of third world countries causing widespread famine and poverty.

 

Re:The crops are valueless.

You miss the point. By exporting heavily subsidized food the industrialised countries are not only depriving third world countries of farming revenue from export, but as a result also upsetting their trade balance and making it hard for third world farmers to compete even in their own markets. One of the results is that a lot of third world farming have changed from focusing on foodcrops to crops that are higher income because the industrialised countries aren't subsidising them or aren't growing them, such as coffee, tobacco etc.

A significant effect of this is that many third world countries are far more vulnerable to things like drought than they used to be, as their own foodcrops are small to start with, and droughts now for many countries both devastate their revenues - affecting their ability to pay for food imports - and reduce the yields of their already too small food crops. Whereas with mainly food crops, drought would mean reduced exports and revenue, but still leave them with significant food reserves.

There are certainly examples of mismanagement too, such as Zimbabwe, but corruption is rarely a major factor in affecting the levels of food production.

Re:The crops are valueless.

Actually it does. Large scale agriculture, the kind that turns the 3rd world to the 1st world is 100% reliant on trade. If they cannot sell it, they cannot grow very much of it. Ergo, make no money and they cannot develop to the point where they can survive a drought. Ergo, they starve. By so heavily subsidizing 1st world agriculture (like the US and the EU does), they are indeed devastating many economies that could become quite fruitful. And for what? Making sure that 2% of the population will vote for them? This is not a "Well, it's not like we are making the situation worse" scenario, this is a "My neighbours house is on fire, but I don't want to spend a little money for water from my hose" kind of a situation.

Re:WTF Are you talking about you fool?

I suspect an overabundance of sugar in your diet.

August 11th 2006. Corn futures... $2.42 per bushel

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&si d=aIUBO99o5fTw&refer=home [bloomberg.com]

On the open market. What part of the word "subsidies" don't you understand? The "profit" you're getting a cut of is welfare. It's handed to you still warm from the taxpayers wallet.

 

Re:Bonus geek points for not using GPS

I didn't look to close, but it was either grass hay or weat. ~43,000 square feet = 1 acre. 1 acre = what, like 60 bushels of wheat? A bushel of wheat is probably under $4. Even if the crop was completely unsalvagable, which is unlikely, the farmer is out $240 gross proffit. After associated costs per acre (seed, fuel, time, etc...) the farmer is probably turning $40 per acre if he's lucky.

Not exactly a huge loss, or anti-green movement.

-Rick

Re:Bonus geek points for not using GPS

The article says it was oats, and wikipedia lists a typical yield as 100 bushels an acre, and a quick Google search indicates a per bushel average price for oats around the $1.50 mark, so it seems like it's even lower. Considering the large unfilled parts of the symbol, even if all of the stomped on parts are unsalvageble the real lost revenue would be unlikely to be more than half that.

auto generated crop circle...

Not implying that this is, but... how hard would it be to make a web gadget that would auto-generate an image of a crop circle based on a simple 2-color bitmap.... (image only, don't want something that hacks into automated tractors)...

Re:auto generated crop circle...

Check this worth1000 contest [worth1000.com], a few entries are oustanding. Mid-to-high level Photoshoppery, but not outstandingly hard stuff.

At least these make sense.

It makes sense that geeks would be the ones making crop circles. Aliens surely have better things to do.

The Aliens use open source?

Maybe that's how Jeff Goldblum uploaded the virus to the mothership [imdb.com]...

Oblig. M. Night Shyamlam

"I see crop circles..."

Permission

While it may be fun and games, doing this without permission causes great losses to farm land. It can cost on the order of tens of thousands of dollars in damage when people go out in hopes of creating one of these hoaxes.

Glad they got permission for this one.

Oregonian Entertainment

I guess that's how you amuse yourself when you live in Idaho's Portugal [youtube.com].

This proves what life?

It proves a collection of browser zealots have plenty of free time and not much else to do with it. I mean, cool advertising, but some extraterrestrial's gotta be laughing at us.

Interstellar Support

Just goes to prove that aliens are for OSS too...

Bonus for getting permission from the farmer.

Otherwise, I'd have to suggest the perpetrators be sentenced to muck-out a feedlot or two.

"Use Open-Source on My FARM!?! That's what did more damage to my oats than a hailstorm followed by locusts last year!"

When asked for a reaction...

... this is what Fifo had to say... [imageshack.us]

Just what Firefox needs

This makes the local news (and maybe gets picked up somewhere), and a few pissed off IE6 users might hear "Firefox, firefox, firefox" a few more times. And that might be all it takes for a few hundred more converts.

Nice to see...

Nice to see at least someone wearing a kilt.

Also, as for the naysayers, I suspect the farmer gave permission because:
- that many people milling around the farm would have been noticed
- taking off a light plane AND a Robinson R22 helo off the farm would certainly get noticed by the farmer.

Re:Nice to see...

The farmer DID give permission. It says so right in the write up. She seemed really excited to have us and was sad that her husband was out of the state and might not see it before the circle goes away.

So much fun!

This was probably the most fun I ever had in my life. And now it's on slashdot! It can't get any better!

I challenge others to come up with other ways to creatively promote the stuff they love. Try and beat this! muahahaha. :)

TAKE BACK THE [insert your geek-dom here].

Re:So much fun!

Hey, which one are you in the photos? Also, there was a GIRL present? A REAL one??
Thanks,
--Ponga

P.S. - Nice work!!

Re:So much fun!

me and gordonel!

*does the girl geek dance*

the girl geek dance?

I think most of us here are only familiar with girls dancing when there is a pole involved.

In related news ...

... one Washington farmer reported a complete loss after IE enthusiasts recreated a blue screen of death across his soybean field.

Re:In related news ...

one Washington farmer reported a complete loss after IE enthusiasts recreated a blue screen of death across his soybean field.

Sure, anyone can flood a field with water!

trigger happy photographer

man, talk about beating the magic out something - that's a hell of a lot of pictures.

    but I guess sometimes it's just really hard to decide between posting this shot [oregonstate.edu] or this one [oregonstate.edu] on your website.

In other news...

The multiple T1 internet connection that keeps students and faculty plugged in to the net was lost for over four hours, says an OSU student. Apparently after half an hour without it caused mass hysteria. People fled to the "out of doors" in droves, and hospitals are reporting epidemic level cases of sunburn. Back to you Burnie...

Best arial shots here

If you dont want to bother looking through all the pics (lots!) - here are the best arial shots: http://lug.oregonstate.edu/gallery/firefox-crop-ci rcle?page=12 [oregonstate.edu]

Missing component

Isn't the tail in the logo supposed to be on fire?

OMG!

Look at the size of that thing! It's almost as big as Firefox' memory footprint!

Google Satellite Image

"Maybe the google earth cameras picked it up! "

Hope they will soon!

The location of the crop circle is somewhere in the vicinity of here [google.com]

Re:Google Satellite Image

Google does not own a network of satellites

    Oh man, I think it's hilarious that you believe that. Sure... Google doesn't own a network of satellites, and they're not watching you right now either, and they're not building lasers on the moon either... Hey, whatever lets you sleep at night dude.

Re:Google Satellite Image

and they're not building lasers on the moon either

I'd always wondered what they needed that moon base [google.com] for!

Vulcan captain: "Prepare for landing+First Contact

...by uninstalling IE they've shown to everyone in orbit that finally this world is ready."

(See Star Trek VIII [imdb.com] for details...)

Not that intelligent

If the aliens were really intelligent, they would have left an Opera circle [lylix.net].

Raise your hand!...

Will all virgins please raise their hands... http://lug.oregonstate.edu/gallery/firefox-crop-ci rcle/img_5374_1 [oregonstate.edu]

Enthusiastic users

Really awesome stunt. Would any MSIE users do something like this to show their enthusiasm for the product? Probably not. This stunt is somewhat the same principle as when geeks on Linux meetings bring their penguins with them in all shapes and sizes. I mean, you don't see MS Windows users arrive with big amounts of glass...

Hoax

Crop Circles are a hoax, the Aliens who made them told me so.

It's a small world...

I was in the pattern at McMinville yesterday and a blue & white supercub departed to the east. They said where they were going a few times but I couldn't understand the word until today -- "Amity"! I should have followed them!

Crop Circle Wallpaper

For anyone too lazy to do it themselves, I've made 1600x1200 and 1280x1024 [digitalaura.net] wallpaper files of the cropcircle image.

pfuh - would have a meaning if it had added:

would be better if it had added: " get firefox now "

convert those aliens in space to some good Earth technology...
It'll make us invincible for them too since its memory footprint will be too big for their computer ;)

Intelligent Aliens?

The verdict is still out on whether the OSULUG perpetrators had any form of intelligence, let alone a life ;-)

For the record, I'm posting this via Bon Echo. I think I've just incriminated myself.

Cool experiment. Aside from brand loyalty. . .

This does little to suggest that genuine crop circles were made by a teams of prankster engineering students.

To create an authentic circle, the makers would have to. . .

1. Create the circle entirely at night without any lighting systems. (In none of the several thousand circles formed have pranksters been observed.)

2. Leave no impressions on the earth at all. (No foot prints or ladder or pole impressions on powder-dry or moist earth.)

3. Create a much more complex formation.

4. Make sure the flattened grains fall in mathematically precise overlapping weaves. (In authentic circles, the multi-layered pattern of the weave is one of the mystifying features.)

5. No plant stalks may be damaged during the process. (Real circles do not interrupt the life-process of the plants; In such formations, the plants eventfully spring back up entirely undamaged.)

6. Bend the stalks, never break them.

7. Create the formation in under 20 minutes. (Probably circles are formed instantaneously, but the only observed time lapse has been by a pilot and photographer flying over an a field without a circle only to see one twenty minutes later on a return flight path).

8. Witness unnumbered black helicopters coming to check things out.

9. Create the phenomenon of seeds from inside a formation growing in a peculiar manner as compared to control seed samples.

Do all of this, and the firefox logo would indeed be special.

-FL

HA HARR VERY PHONEY

BUTT a herd of nerds hardly qualifies as intelligent, nor are they considered a form of actual real life. har har... very phoney!!

tachimeter

someone should have sponsored them a tachimeter, would have made it much easiert.

1024x768 desktop

...found this on Digg yesterday and tweaked the colors in photoshop to make a 10x7 desktop [nmu.edu]. Assuming anyone cares, I can host larger versions as well. Just be sure to specify the exact dimentions you want.

Iconic...

So, I suppose this is now, officially, the world's largest icon?

Re:This is just way cool....

Great pics, especialy the good looking lil geek babe in pic #77. Bonus!

At the moment; viewed 98 times

Close up of tape measure; 73 times

Out of focus closeup of oats; 68 times

Geek guy; 47 times

Well, there you have it guys, you're less interesting than an out of focus picture of oats.

KFG

Re:Error in title

Despite depicting crop circles as a sign of a coming invasion, they actually had almost nothing to do with the usage of the word "Signs" as the title of the film.

Swing Away, Merrill.

And a couple fangirls...

Hey, this was done by fanatic fanGIRLS [google.com] too, you insensitive clod.

Ref [slashdot.org]

Re:What a waste...

Huh? How would this "destroy the environment" any more than actually harvesting the damned oats? Not to mention the plowing and planting of the field to begin with. And if you're against any of that, good luck finding some wild berries to snack on, because nothing you pick up at the local Safeway or buy from Taco Bell has impacted the environment any less. Damned hippies.

Re:What a waste...

How is it destroying the environment? Nothing was damaged other than oat stocks, and provided that the oats were not stomped into oblivion, they may still even be harvestable.

Re:I've been in tighter packed corn fields....

they didn't walk along the rows. They didn't look fat in the pictures that I saw.

Why would a rancher know about corn field? wouldn't that be a farmers job?

Re:I've been in tighter packed corn fields....

This isn't corn. These were oats. Dry as sin oats, growing densely together. It was impossible to step anywhere without knocking some down, because they're so closely packed together, and were already just about falling down under their own weight. It was a choice between making a bunch of trails which would have been seen from the air as an ugly, less dense area, or making one trail.

Re:I've been in tighter packed corn fields....

As a former rancher, you should then know the difference between wheatfields (RTFA, or look at the pics with all of the heads formed on the wheat) and cornfields.

Ahh...I get it! I guess that is one of the reasons you're a FORMER rancher.

Re:I've been in tighter packed corn fields....

I speak as a former rancher. I know fucking better.

Then you'd also know that there's a difference between a farm and ranch.

Farm = place where plants are grown and harvested
Ranch = place where animals are raised

I grew up on a horse ranch. What animals did you raise? btw, the circle was done in an Oat Field!