Irn-Bru is a Scottish carbonated soda pop drink I’ve never heard of. It sounds a bit like Dr. Pepper, in the “hard to describe the taste” department:
The formula for Irn-Bru is a closely guarded trade secret,
known only by two of Barr’s board members, with a written
copy held in a Swiss bank-vault. As of 1999 it contained
0.002% of ammonium ferric citrate, sugar, 32 flavouring
agents (including caffeine (though caffeine is not listed as
an ingredient on the Australian labelling) and quinine) and
two controversial colourings (E110, E124). It is advertised
as having a slight citrus flavour, but many have differing
opinions of the exact taste of Irn-Bru.
Irn-Bru has long been the most popular soft drink in
Scotland, outselling Coca-Cola, but recent fierce
competition between the two brands has brought their
sales to roughly equal levels (perhaps leaning to Coca-Cola).
Has anybody had this? I wonder if I can try it when I go to Europe. Hmm.
Kottke wrote a bit about the Pioneer probes this morning, and it got me reading about them elsewhere. A cursory introduction: the Pioneer space probes 10 and 11 are among the furthest man-made objects from Earth. They both exceeded their missions by spectacular degrees (staying in radio contact far longer than anticipated) and returned extraordinary amounts of information about our solar system in the process. For example, there is Pioneer 10, which was launched in 1972. And then, over 30 years later:
The last, very weak signal from Pioneer 10 was received
on January 23, 2003, when it was 7.5 billion miles (12 billion
kilometres) from Earth.
Traveling at the speed of light, that signal took over 11 hours to reach earth. What I thought was particularly neat was the decision to attach plaques about humans and Earth on these deep space probes. The idea is that, against spectacular odds, perhaps something will find these probes one day, and decipher what we have engraved on these plaques.
According to astronomer Frank Drake, there were many
negative reactions to the plaque due to the fact that the
human beings were displayed naked. The Chicago
Sun-Times retouched its image to hide the genitals of the
man and woman. The Los Angeles Times received “angry
letters” from readers that accused NASA of wasting taxpayer
money to send “obscenities” into space.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I don’t want to come off as elitist here, but if that little quote isn’t a testament to limitless human stupidity, I don’t know what is. I mean, we’re talking about potential communication with extra terrestrial beings — there’s a good chance that this plaque will be the last remnant of human kind, still flying through space, when the Earth itself is gone. And we’ve got people complaining that humans are shown naked.
I’m feeling a bit pessimistic about humanity this morning.
