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Lost...
...Found. Now clean up your SOS sign. | |
Giant SOS signs constructed in stones on the beaches of remote islands are to international sea rescue operations as prank calls are to the 999 emergency services. Indeed, if a passing civilian or commercial ship spots one they are morally obliged to investigate, delaying their passengers/schedule and
potentially endangering their own lives.
You see, in a state of delirious joy at spotting a boat upon the horizon and later being rescued these messy marooned louts never clean up after themselves.
A 5 man team sail round the world in search of these abandoned, redundant, and frankly dangerous SOS signs using global satellite imaging and information from local authorities. The signs are then removed. A bill will be sent to the rescued litter bugs and the operation subsidised by international rescue operations that no longer wish Samaritan vessels to be led astray.
I think I'm going to do this when I retire.
The Lovely Debbie McGee
http://www.debbiemcgee.co.uk/
In case anyone was wondering. [zen_tom, Nov 24 2006]
(?) I would guess that Debbie McGee
http://www.b3ta.cr3...data/jpg/debbee.jpg
could repel any boarders even without the aid of a ballistic bumhole. [calum, Nov 24 2006]
The Post Ironic Tower
http://www.flickr.c...ntindale/107838697/
…as it should now be renamed, next time round. [Ian Tindale, Nov 24 2006]
Or, just use Google Maps to find them.
http://maps.google.com/maps?tab=wl
It is amazing what you can find on google maps. Cut and paste these coordinates into the search bar and zoom in.
-21.8053 -49.0898
(Be sure to be in Satellite mode) [Klaatu, Sep 11 2007]
Yellowbeard
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086618/
Captain Hughes: "This is Mr Crisp who is in charge of discipline. This is Mr Martin who is in charge of discipline and this is Mr Prostitute..." [DrBob, Sep 13 2007]
Short name, e.g., Bob's Coffee
Destination URL.
E.g., http://www.coffee.com/
Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)
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A cheaper approach would be to run an image recognition program on satellite images of the entire world's surface, looking for "SOS". Once all those found had been investigated they could be "crossed off the list", and a tag next to the grid coordinates put in the database. Then, passing ships would see the SOS, look up the coordinates in the database and know not to investigate. From then on, after rescuing someone you'd have to mark their castaway site on the database to keep the database
up-to-date. Of course, this approach means that no rescue attempts will ever be made in the same place twice, and the world will gradually fill up with "SOS" messages made from small rocks and the number of places where it's possible to be shipwrecked and actually get rescued will gradually diminish to zero, bust that's a small price to pay. |
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Let's not go for cheaper. I'll sign up for this one. |
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The image recognition thing wouldn't work. What if it saw it, but it turned out to be looking at it upside-down? How would it tell? |
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Excellent, I'm already amassing a crew! |
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Now I can't get that bleedin ABBA song out of my head. |
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What about HELP! - we'd need a team for cleaning up those particular letters too. And I'm pretty good at E's. |
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And presumably all manner of other words in other languages... I'm quite good at the ¬'s in '¥¬&' |
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You can't have a crew without a Chef! Bring me bring me! |
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OK, so I've got economic logistics covered by [jmvw], I've got prepared cuisine from [chefboy], and [zen_tom]'s got the E's down to a... well, an E. |
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Now all I need is someone who can sail a boat. |
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I can't sail worth a damn. But I can DANCE! Therefore I will the ship's dancer. When do we leave? |
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I'll be the ship's mechanic. If I can make a plane fly, I can make a boat float. Sign me on. |
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And we'll need an analogue modular synthesizer programmer, surely? |
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I think it might be more practical to distribute special pre-packaged emergency rocks to every island. They could be put in vending machines. Once these rocks are removed from the packaging, they decompose in a week or so in the Sun, since all desert islands have plenty of Sun - I saw it on the TV.
If you haven't been rescued in a week or so, it means another trip to the vending machine, but hey, there isn't anything else to do, anyway. |
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These desert islands are recurring hazards. Certainly, a newly marooned survivor might well discover an extant SOS made of boulders and decide to spiff it up and use it again, rather than building anew. Imagine his chagrin when he finds that this SOS has been crossed off a list of satellite SOS images, and that no-one will read his plea? |
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Certainly, the only way to address this is in person. Yet it seems wasteful to discard the labors of the shipwrecked from earlier generations. Perhaps only one letter could be rearranged. Then, the materials are readily at hand in case the sign must be reconstituted. |
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//Once all those found had been investigated they could be "crossed off the list", and a tag next to the grid coordinates put in the database.// |
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But what if someone were lost at a location that had already been crossed off the list. If they saw an SOS in stones already on the ground they'd be unlikely to construct another one... |
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And even if they did would the satellite data be granular enough to pick up the second instance if it were in close proximity to the first. |
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I'll signup for [theleopard]'s crew when I retire too! |
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//Perhaps only one letter could be rearranged.// |
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<far side> "...Actually, cancel that; I guess it says 'HELF'." </fs> |
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Wow, I wonder what would happen if you set an OCR program loose on google earth looking for all letters? If you let the world download it as a distributed computing screen saver type program, you might find a big "42" somewhere. |
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Why not just equip the original rescue crew with an SOS eraser? I mean really, they're there, the castaway's there... |
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"Oh, Thank God! I'm Saved!" |
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"Yessir. we're here to help. Have you eaten?" |
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"Yeah, I learned to spearfish." |
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"Well, you seem to be in good health, so before we go, there's just one thing to do..." |
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I'll take the crows nest. I love heights...with your permission of course cap'n. |
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//"Well, you seem to be in good health, so before we go, there's just one thing to do..."// |
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We must DANCE! We shall dance like there's no tomorrow! |
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What? That's my job. A man's got to his job... |
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any room for a computer nerd |
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I can swing a sack of doorknobs. Will there be a need for anyone to dispense heavy sack beatings? |
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Another problem with using OCR and satellite imaging is someone with an address of 505 could get crossed off the list. |
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<imaginary scenario - "We've just received a 911 call. Heart attack at 505 Broadway."
"Oh, wait. The GPS rescue databank says it was taken care of 2 years ago. False alarm." - end> |
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Young, Jason- Young. I once lived on somethin', somethin' Broadway - New Orleans, LA, 77018 (or somethin' like that).
505 Broadway is not exactly right, but it struck a memory chord. The local ATO's want to kill me.
Rah Rah Reehgah! Ralpha Tau Omega! Hip Horray, Hip Horrah, 3 cheers, for Alpha Tau, A.. T.. Zero!
I wasn't really responsible for all the crimes commited against them, really. |
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That's quite a motley crew. The only problem is, once the bulk of the SOS sign backlog is cleared the job becomes a little more reactionary, and we'd be waiting for someone to be shipwrecked somewhere in the World. Otherwise I'd suggest a bigger fleet. |
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So, if I may, I'll quickly go over the crew so far: |
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[jmvw] logistics and accounts;
[zen_tom] Spelling and psycho-tropic pharmacist (he's //pretty good at E's// after all);
[chefboy] Chef;
[BluntSpoon] Ship's Knave;
[21 Quest] Mechanic;
[Ian] Analogue modular synthesizer programmer (like a Quartermaster perhaps?);
[kdmurray] Boatswain (because it sounds good);
[2FriesShy] Look out;
[dev45] Can help Ian;
[rcarty] Motivationalist;
[zimmy] You can stow away in the gally if you need to mate. |
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I guess, we're gonna need a bigger boat... |
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Not forgetting a ABBA cover band. |
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Every boat needs an on-board magician, right? |
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And obviously a magician's assistant. Can I be your 'Lovely Debbie McGee'? |
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I can blow ping pong balls out of my arse. Any use? |
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Pull a pickle out of his hat. |
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I'd love to see Debbie McGee do that [jtp]. I guess that's one trick kept just for Paul. |
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<I've just done the - spray monitor with coffee thing - with a banana> |
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jtp, - should be useful when we all have to yell 'repel boarders'. |
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Yeah, repel 'em. Elitist bastards. Just because their parents were richer than mine and could afford independant edu......hang on. |
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Hey can I be the animateur for the ship's entertainment programme? |
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We're gonna need a bigger ship... |
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No kidding. Say, is this gonna be a two- or three-shift operation? Because we're gonna need somebody to fill each position during each shift. |
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On a scale of one to 10, how ironic would it be if we were all shipwrecked halfway through the voyage? |
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(Where 1 is Alanis Morissette, and 10 is actually quite ironic) |
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[zen_tom]'s made a very good point. We should have a backup ship just in case. And maybe a 3rd just to cover all eventualities... |
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Or maybe just a helipad with a chopper ready. Of course then we're going to need a full aircrew... |
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Let's see, that's a pilot, co-pilot, navigator (2 on some models), flight engineer, radio operator, load master, crew chief, assistant crew chief, possibly an Electronic Warfare Officer... |
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Now some of these positions have overlapping ship positions, like the navigator, radio operator, load master, and crew chief. If the helicopter is only to be used for emergency situations, we can cross-train several members of the ship's crew so we only need a few dedicated aircrew members. |
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[tom], Alanis Morissette is one of *the* *most* ironically succesful artists of our time. |
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[21] You'd also need a guy with a couple of ping pong bats to guide you on landing and take off. I think I could be of some use there. |
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So we dance now, capt'in, huh! We dance now? We dance the ironic interpretive dance I made up for just this kind of situation. I'll need a bannana and some pingpong balls and a dash of vanillin. Everyone stand back- I shall DANCE! |
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Yes Spoon. You may dance. Dance your little spoons out! |
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Actually, jtp, marshalling is usually the Crew Chief's job (that's me). But I think I can delegate this particular task to you. Tell ya what: you can be the assistant crew chief. |
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I can make tea - surely a vital skill for an ocean voyage. |
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Excellent, you can be the cook's assistant! Either that or second-shift cook. |
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I'll be radio op then, since i'm skilled in that. Might as well do general electronics assistance too 'cause it's always worth being able to fix your 'tronics in a pinch. ;-) |
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Can we name it the HBS (Half-Bakery Ship) Croisant? |
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Even better, can we make it out of pastry? We could coat it in a hard lacquer or gel-coat to make it rigid. |
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"Incoming breadknife, all bakers on deck! Man the dough-hooks." |
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I think it should be a submarine, so that if it sinks, we can pretend we did it on purpose. |
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That would go down as the worlds first post-ironic submarine. |
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Would that be a sub roll rather than a croisant? |
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The kind of ship where the flag always flies at half-mast. |
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*rolling on floor holding sides* |
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rcarty, that's brilliant! It might be mistaken for a memorial ship, though. |
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Why waste all those stones on constructing SOS signs, when they could be used as stepping stones? |
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These chaps could save themselves if they just thought of that. |
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///"Help Me !" sign and add "Me too!"//
The the tide comes in, washes away some of the stones and leaves "Helmet". |
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I've been told my arse is like a ten year old boys....will this help??? |
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It's not really that kind of boat man. |
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If it were like a ten year old bouy, that
might be of some use. |
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//I've been told my arse is like a ten year old boys// |
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I have no clue what was even meant by that statement, nor do I think I want to know. |
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ten year old boys what? ball of string, play station? |
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How does that old ditty go? |
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Ah yes.
Ahem! <dons best swashbuckling accent> |
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The cabin boy,
the cabin boy
the dirty little nipper.
He filled his ass with broken glass,
and cicumsized the skipper... |
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...I'm sure it was from a different boat. |
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[2 fries] - I doubt your little ditty has done much to convince [theleopard] that [Heavy_Phat]'s presence on board is justified... |
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I'm sure five rusty sea dogs could find some use for my ten year old boy-like behind |
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Er... we'll try and get on without, thanks. |
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From now on [Heavy_Phat] shall be known as Roger. |
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//find some use for my ten year old boy-like behind//
Yeah, it'll be somewhere to park the Jolly Rodger. |
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I think Heavy_Phat's new nickname should be Mr. Browneye, and his position is 'The Whipping Boy'. (good book by the way) |
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Surely it's "Roger the cabin boy"? |
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Give that man a cigar! :-) |
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I volunteer for the arduous, dangerous, and downright mellifluous position of "Maestor Ronero" of the HBS Croissant. |
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As such, it shall be my solemn duty to never allow occasion for the fatal and moral-sapping words: "But why is all the rum gone?" to pass the crew's lips - savvy? |
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If not then is there still an opening for Ship's Parrot? I saw an add in the Metro... |
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ROFL. I am a work and this post is gonna get me in trouble.... |
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Much much much could be said along the lines of sailing and whipping boys but I have a SOS related point. |
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Instead of removing the signs, strike them (horizontal line across the letters) so that they can be reused again by a weary shipwrecked waif. Then make it illegal to pick up a stranded person without re-striking the sign. |
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Someone created captain_jack just for this post!? Classic. |
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Ah. I've got a solution. Create inflatable day-glow letters in all known alphabets, that blow up to about 30m across, each. Make them biodegradable in sunlight. Go round all undiscovered islands and uncharted territories and drop packs of these with instructions (probably the word 'blow' in all known languages) for using the mouthpiece. Sit back and wait for the money to roll in. |
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[Jack], quite right. Provide the booze, and remember, it's going to be a long trip. |
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[CowBell] and [Ian], both super ideas. As long as this distribution can be done by boat, so as not to miss out on some thoroughly enjoyable rum swigging sea faring galavanting around beautiful tropical islands in the South Pacific. |
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Further on that, I have to ensure that for the next 30-40 years no solution is implemented to solve this problem, otherwise I'm out of a retirement plan. |
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What money? Are we now charging people to be rescued? |
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"HEY! Who cleared up all my SOS stones?! I only went back to my hut for five minutes to get a mango and now some cad has ruined my message! Hey! You lot!" |
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"Oh, thank goodness you've found me! I was shipwrecked and I've been here for weeks!" |
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"No no no. Our database says you've already been rescued. Hey [theleopard] we found one of those prank callers!" |
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"Right you! 100 lines, I must not leave fake SOS signs" |
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"But I really am trapped here!" |
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"Not our problem. We just clear up. Come on, lads!" |
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"No! You have to take me with you! Please!" |
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HAHAHA! awesome. best laugh of the day. the world needs you, [theleopard], retire soon, ok? |
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Nice to see this bumped. One of my all time favourites! |
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Thanks! It got a bit weird when [Heavy_Phat] arrived though... |
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How's that ping-pong trick coming [jtp]? |
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Ping-pong? Pah! I've since moved up to middleweight, and now tennis balls are my weapon of choice. The only down side is that I have to wear a custom built butt-plug at all times. |
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This, I think, is one of the most memorable ideas I've seen in my time here. Keep it up, theleopard! ANd keep me posted on the status of this venture, because I'll be there to offer my services (such as they are) if you really want to make this happen. |
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Don't forget to dance! For the love of whatever deity you follow- don't forget to shake that booty (but not around [Heavy_Phat]. I've got my suspicions about him... her... whatever... |
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NOOO!! Where are you going? And why did you wreak my sign? |
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* Removes cap, holds tentatively in hands*
"Mr [theleopard] sir, you would appear to be lacking a Ship's Surgeon. Might I join the crew?" |
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Can I be in charge of discipline then? (linky) |
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I volunteer to man the heavy gauge artillery for fending off pirates and boarders. I'm totally unqualified for this position, but come on, it's a big freaking gun. |
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Well, Napoleon *was* confined to an island. |
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//it's a big freaking gun// |
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All the more reason we need QUALIFIED personnel operating it... I know a marine artilleryman who'd probably be glad to teach you, though. Most of the big guns require a 4-man crew, anyway. Spotter, Shooter, and 2 Loaders. |
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