The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms 486
Lev13than writes "Dr. David Johnston, formerly the president of the University of Waterloo, was installed as Canada's new Governor-General on Friday. As de facto head of state and the Queen's representative in Canada he is required to design a personal coat of arms. One modern detail has attracted particular attention - a 33-digit palindromic binary stream at the base. Efforts to decode the meaning of the number using ASCII, Morse, grouping by 3/11 and other theories has so far come up empty (right now it's a toss up between random, the phone number 683-077-0643 and Morse code for 'send help - trapped in a coat of arms factory.') Is 110010111001001010100100111010011 the combination to his luggage, or just a random stream of digits?"
EH (Score:5, Funny)
all it says is EH
Not necessarily binary (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not necessarily binary (Score:5, Funny)
Neither the 33 last. I can tell because I just checked it.
Posted as AC for obvious reasons.
Re:Not necessarily binary (Score:4, Funny)
I've been using the last four digits of PI as my pin for years, now I'm gonna have to change it.
Re:Not necessarily binary (Score:5, Funny)
No! Please don't change PI. If you do I will have to redraw all these circles I have and also recalibrate my compass!
--jeffk++
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
* Early FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
More likely, it's just pi in the sky.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How much the stock market lost, worldwide in the last 2 years?
Re:EH (Score:5, Funny)
Re:EH (Score:4, Funny)
Re:EH (Score:4, Funny)
They spelled me wrong. I'll have to get in contact with them and figure out who transcribed 0100010001010011 wrong.
World population (Score:3, Interesting)
It's awfully close to the estimated world population.
In decimal, the number is 6,830,770,643. According to Wikipedia, the United States Census Bureau estimates the world population to be 6,872,800,000.
I still can't believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure that you're kidding, but you do know that Shatner didn't ever have a snowball's chance of even getting on the short list, let alone a serious consideration for the job, right?
Nerd Cred + International Respectability as a sovereign nation don't necessarily go hand in hand.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No.. the guy's job is to represent the Queen of Canada.
There are just 15 other nations of which she is also Queen. Each of which nations has control over its territory without interference from the others, despite sharing a monarch. Thats whats sovereign about it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In twelve countries, sure, the title is "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of [Specific Place] and of Her other Realms and Territories . . ."
In the UK, she's the slightly different "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen . . ."
However, in Canada her title is "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Rea
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a lot of thrones to sit on and scepters to hold. Wish I knew how to sculpt. Would do a statue of the Queen, with lots of arms like a Hindu god, each holding a scepter or globe of a country she reigns over.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
HMCS Canada maybe.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We don't.
It's just that our head of state also happens to be the head of several other states and prefers (or is it obligated?) to spend most of her time in one of them.
Random? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's safe to assume that it's an aesthetically pleasing bit of random binary to symbolically carry the message that he's in with technology, in much the same way one might tattoo some bitching runes onto one's arm to convey how one is incredibly down with the druids.
Possibly you're right (Score:2, Offtopic)
The downside is that what's gibberish to you and me, may be legible to someone else, and what's worse is it may convey a terrible message.
While I've only HEARD of people who's had "chop suey £3.99" tatooed in chinesse, I've actually seen phtotos of a guy who thought he had some bitching Viking runes tatooed, and they were horribly mispelled (I will not divulge the nature of the error, but suffice to say, he's not likely to hook up with any women who can read any scandinavian language)
So I only hope it
Can get even worse (Score:5, Interesting)
It can get even worse. At least "chop suey $3.99" is clear where is came from.
Funnier stories are those like the guy who got "pig meat" in chinese letters because it was copied off a can of that. But I'd imagine that the latter realization comes after seeing that this guy has "pig meat" written on him. Yeah.
Then there was the guy who thought he got a tattoo saying "wise dog that guards the pack", but it actually meant "dog's ass".
In the same vein of "you're not going to get hooked up with any woman that can read that", one guy got a tattoo which he thought was totally bad ass, until a Japanese girl told him it means "abusive husband". Well, I guess at least it works as a warning.
Conversely one woman got the longer version of that, and it translated to "my abusive husband beats me." It's one of the things that aren't even funny but make one wonder if she got ripped off or it's a cry for help.
Though to be entirely fair, apparently cool kids in Beijing tattoo themselves with nonsensical combinations of English letters too, like "TWARP", "GWIPO", "FRUNK" and get told by unscrupulous tattoo parlor artists that they mean stuff like "old soul with young spirit" in English. (Actual example. If you were wondering what FRUNK means in English, now you know;)) Also apparently both CRYMPH and DLECH mean "beautiful flower dancing in the wind" in American according to one tattoo parlour in Beijing. In case you were wondering ;)
Luckily individual letters are not whole words in the Latin alphabet, so most are just nonsense. But you just have to wonder if there's some brave soul somewhere in China wearing a tattoo that says "I suck cock" and thinks it means "loyalty, courage, honour" ;)
That said, since runes were an alphabetic system, I would assume most of those are equally nonsense combinations. I wouldn't wonder if some guys out there were running around with tattoos that just say "FUTHARK" because someone just copied the first characters of the runic alphabet.
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
CRYMPH is Welsh, surely?
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can get even worse (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Funny)
I got this tattoo on my forehead that says "poor impulse control"
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Informative)
http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
A blog that collects and translates (if possible) the tattoos of mostly Chinese/Japanese/Gibberish characters on people who aren't sure what they really mean.
Some of them aren't that bad, but others make you want to cringe.
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Funny)
I discovered, much to my amusement, that the word for "enjoys" can also mean "pleases".
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Funny)
On some old sitcom, a customer is displaying his Chinese-character tattoo to the Chinese proprietor:
Customer (proudly): It means "fiery strength!"
Proprietor (horrified): No! It means of two men who love each other, you are the one who plays the woman!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Committed:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421316/ [imdb.com]
Re:Can get even worse (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Though, come to think of it, it would be funny if someone did get a runic inscription that was readable as some crap omen.
I mean, I can see it. "Mr Svensson, if I read your tattoo right, feh is the rune for wealth or cattle, but its being inverted would indicate or foretell a loss of such. To make it worse, the rest of it puts it in the context of a disastrous overseas travel. So... can you explain why should we hire you to program our traveling agency's booking and financial software?" ;)
Re:Possibly you're right (Score:5, Funny)
That's okay, the mere fact that you have an interesting anecdote adds volumes to this conversation. No need to share it, that would just be overkill.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing at all? In katakana?
Maybe it was his name.
Re:Possibly you're right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Possibly you're right (Score:5, Funny)
Then you get the generation gap. I remember walking through Dresden a few years ago when I saw a young girl (14 or so) wearing a cute shirt, also with a rabbit on it, with "Squirmy Fuck Bunny" in poofy letters. I'm pretty sure that she knew what it meant but that her older, conservative looking mom had no idea.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. In this day and age, what with time travel and all, heck, she might even be her own mother, and that might be her grandmother.
Re:Possibly you're right (Score:4, Funny)
We have always been allied with Eurasia.
Re:Random? (Score:5, Informative)
The blazon [archive.gg.ca] (the heraldic technical description) of the arms is what officially defines them, and it doesn't include the particular sequence of digits; it just says "in base a bar wavy Sable inscribed with zeros and ones Or."
So even if it means something, that particular sequence is just the artist's interpretation; somebody else who redrew the arms would be entitled to change it. Most likely, it's just what the artist liked visually.
Re:Random? (Score:5, Interesting)
I put the answer already in the first sumbission [slashdot.org]. I don't know why the second sumbmission was picked.
It's a black and white binary image, three rasters of 11 pixels. Combined it makes a scrollwork that can tile horizontally. It's ornamental. It's an italic mirrored N and a /.
Re:Random? (Score:4, Funny)
Because this is Slashdot. Your mistake is assuming that GOOD submissions get posted.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1100 101 110 010 010 1 010 010 011 101 0011
Re:Random? (Score:5, Funny)
So you analyzed the code, now you may look up "palindrome"
Not a phone number (Score:4, Informative)
Whole summary is pretty corny... Bunching 10 random numbers into 3-3-4 doesn't make it a phone number.
First, 683 is the country code for Niue, and apparently they are small enough to use only 4-digits for their subscribers. So 10 digits is too much. (Nothing is apparent for (68) 3077-0643 either.)
Second, no telephone system that I am aware of supports 0 as the first number of a central office prefix, only as a subscriber number.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan#Current_system [wikipedia.org]
No shit Sherlock (Score:3, Informative)
This happens every time a new URL shortening service launches without a preview feature, and n00bs fall for it.
Re:Random? (Score:5, Funny)
Can't we just ask? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the guy that designed this is still alive, isn't he?
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:5, Insightful)
That would spoil the fun.
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:5, Informative)
He already told us the answer:
The wavy band inscribed with zeros and ones represents a flow of information, digital communication and modern media.
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:4, Funny)
...signifying nothing.
A coat-of-arms inscribed by an idiot?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And a /. discussion full of sound and fury.
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:4, Informative)
[...] zeros and ones represents a flow of information, digital communication and modern media [...] ...signifying nothing.
Hey, it's Fox News!
Re:Can't we just ask? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but it's traditional to offer him a barometer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, the guy that designed this is still alive, isn't he?
What? And spoil an available conspiracy theory? You must be new here!?
(Drum roll, awaiting "New Here's" joke.)
Has anybody asked him? (Score:3, Interesting)
The story doesn't make it clear.
Seeing patterns in the random (Score:4, Informative)
"Hey we need something to make the coat of arms look more modern" "How about that code in the matrix?" "Just put a bunch of 1s and 0s along the bottom"
And then an intern typed enough 1s and 0s to fill up the available space, trying to make it look random.
Re:Seeing patterns in the random (Score:4, Insightful)
The probability to get a palindrome this way is rather low (1/65536 for a string of 33 binary digits, to be exact).
Re:Seeing patterns in the random (Score:5, Funny)
Then an intern mashed out half of it. Geez, do I have to do all the work around here?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes you do.
Here, type my reply for me on the lines below:
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Palindrome (Score:3, Interesting)
The first thing I notice is the binary string is a palindrome, the same forwards or backwards.
Being 33 digits, that is just strange. Dropping the first 1 to make 32 would be more fitting, but the first digit is still a 1, so unless he is into ANSI art, I doubt this is ascii encoding.
Just the fact it is the same both ways leads me to think an artist designed it, a lot more so than it converts to anything meaningful.
Which is a shame really, but not unexpected.
Re:Palindrome (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing I notice is the binary string is a palindrome, the same forwards or backwards.
From the summary:
"One modern detail has attracted particular attention: a 33-digit palindromic binary stream at the base."
Re:Palindrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Even more reason to believe it is totally artistic and not a meaningful translation of anything though, as coat of arms and crests tend to do that sort of thing over the entire imagery, typically only exception for items added in later, which doesn't seem to be the case here.
Still, it's amusing to think how many people will spend their Monday trying to decode this heh
Yea, and while I agree with you that it's most likely a random number, I can't help but keep wondering. That it's a prime number doesn't help much either.
If you were the designer, what would you encode? It's hardly big enough to fit a four letter word in. I think I would probably go with the boring ol' date of birth.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait a sec - if the artist had used '01100101 01101000' (reading away from a middle '0', ), the binary would have translated into 'eh'. Now ~that~ would mean something Canadian!
Re:Palindrome (Score:5, Funny)
The first thing I notice is the binary string is a palindrome, the same forwards or backwards.
This is to prevent Soviet Russia jokes from working in Soviet Canada.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The first thing I notice is the binary string is a palindrome, the same forwards or backwards.
This is to prevent Soviet Russia jokes from working in Soviet Canada.
He's the Governor General. It reads: "In Soviet Canada, the taxes pay YOU"
Re:Palindrome (Score:4, Informative)
Not all binary codes are powers of two.
For instance using 5311 instead of 8421
5311
0000 0
0001 1
0011 2
0100 3
0101 4
1000 5
1001 6
1011 7
1100 8
1101 9
1111 10
There are also grey codes from the days of rotaty dialling
Re:Palindrome (Score:5, Funny)
"The first thing I notice is the binary string is a palindrome"
I noticed that too, from reading the summary.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
And after reading the article, it seems they noticed the same thing!
Wonder why that option was left out of the summary, as it seems the most likely. Silly editors
You mean the link you clicked on to read the article that has the text "33-digit palindromic binary stream"? That link?
110010111001001010100100111010011? (Score:3, Funny)
I think that translates into: CNUS, Canada's Not the United States.
Tough one (Score:5, Funny)
If he were from New Zealand I would say it's a binary solo, but being from Canada I'm not sure.
The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2. (Score:5, Informative)
This number is a prime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_prime in base 2.
In decimal it is: 6830770643
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This number is a prime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_prime [wikipedia.org] in base 2.
In decimal it is: 6830770643
1.1 times the number of people alive today [wolframalpha.com]
Re:The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well found. The page also explains for dissy above why it has 33 digits:
"Except for 11, all palindromic primes have an odd number of digits, because the divisibility test for 11 tells us that every palindromic number with an even number of digits is a multiple of 11."
Phillip.
Re:The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, 33 itself is also a binary-palindromic number (although not prime): 100001
And of course, 33 is a palindrome in base 10, too.
Moreover note that the sum of the binary digits (which equals the number of ones) is 17, which is also prime, and in binary is written 10001, so this is again a binary-palindromic prime, and the binary digit-sum here is 2, which again is a prime (although not binary-palindromic).
Re:The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2. (Score:5, Funny)
In base 2, every number is prime.
They fixed that in base 2.0.1.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Please hand in your math license. The encoding has nothing to do with the property whether a number is prime or not. 4 base 10 is as prime as 100 base 2 (i.e. not at all)
This sounds like a job for... (Score:5, Funny)
... Robert Langdon!!! I'm sure that buried somewhere in that seemingly random sequence of 1s and 0s is a code that will shake the very foundations of the human race and expose a truth that has long been hidden!
I can already hear Dan Brown feverishly scratching away at his notepad, as he begins researching and stringing together a load geographically accurate, but ultimately randomly contrived pile of nonsense for his next magnum opus, "The Canada Complex"
43-Man Squamish? (Score:2)
Has anybody checked if this means anything in Swxwú7mesh (Squamish)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%E1%B8%B5wx%CC%B1w%C3%BA7mesh [wikipedia.org]
Now if it had been 43 bits, instead of 33, that would have been a total giveaway that it is a reference to 43-Man Squamish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43-Man_Squamish [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking in terms of streams where a frame is extended by setting one bit. Handy if space is limited.
DRM (Score:3, Funny)
base64? (Score:3, Funny)
The base64 result, y5Kk6QE=, reminds me of something a url shortener would spit out. But i am unsure which it would be.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You are saying "This random number looks like other random numbers I have seen". I don't think you have thought this through.
Quiet Eh? (Score:2)
We Canucks are just too polite to keep them secret. I'm sorry.
Simple (Score:3, Funny)
it says "OMG! Canada haz teh internetz" (Score:3, Funny)
not rs232 (Score:3, Interesting)
isn't it obvious? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
makes a sad statement about preferring form over function
i think you've got that backwards - the function here is to be aesthetically pleasing. putting any special meaning in it would just be for the sake of, well, fun.
Re: (Score:2)
0x1954729D3
Hmmm. Doesn't work as Baudot.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You and the article are assuming powers of two, that is not the only binary encoding.
this is one other example, from Bell Labs - the inventors of the modern world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code [wikipedia.org]
Re:The numbers are wrong (wild guess) (Score:5, Funny)
That OTAN is NATO backwards is incidental, mirroring is not the reason for it. The reason is that France succeeded in demanding French as an official Nato language. OTAN = Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord.
There is no use for mirrored writing on airplanes, they fly too fast for your cars rear-view mirror, and planes that do have rear view mirror wouldn't wait 'till the bogey is a couple of yards behind them to find out who he is.
Re:The numbers are wrong (wild guess) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The numbers are wrong (wild guess) (Score:5, Funny)
Canadian planes should have 'NATOTAN' written on them to please the speakers of both languages ('NATO' 'stylishly' mirrored around the 'O'). Of course, for the Japanese, that acronym would read 'achieving a darker skin tone by slathering yourself in fermented beans'.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Informative 3" at the time of this wriring.
You're trying to rate Slashdot mods, right?
In that case, I should say "Informative 3" is quite a bad score considering you gave an obvious hint of how bad that contribution was (a simple binary to hex conversion indeed) including a link to a Wikipedia article that clearly explains why, exactly, the listed number naturally isn't the advertised prime number (2^31 - 1 consists of exactly 31 1-digits - not 33, and no 0-digits).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What? The number is...
110010111001001010100100111010011 (binary)
1972549D3 (hex)
6830770643 (decimal)