gnostek1 / 10This is a demonstration of the message with color added to highlight its separate parts. The binary transmission sent carried no color information.
01The message was broadcast from the Arecibo Observatory using 450 kilowatts of power — the most powerful deliberate transmission ever sent.
02It encoded a human figure, DNA structure, and the Arecibo dish itself in a 23×73 pixel binary grid.
03A reply traveling at light speed won't arrive until the year 51,974 — 50 millennia from now.
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01Edison Manufacturing Company filmed Topsy's electrocution; the film, 'Electrocuting an Elephant,' was commercially distributed that same year.
02Topsy killed three men in three years, including an abusive trainer who fed her a lit cigarette.
03She was given cyanide-laced carrots, then 6,600 volts — organizers had originally planned to hang her publicly.
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01The forged Bank of America letter was exposed in December 2003 when the bank confirmed the account did not exist.
02Parmalat's total debt hole reached roughly €14 billion — nearly twice the GDP of some EU member states at the time.
03Founder Calisto Tanzi admitted diverting at least €500 million into family-owned businesses and was sentenced to 18 years.
gnostek1 / 9Temperature map of the cosmic microwave background measured by the Planck spacecraft
01Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs initially blamed pigeon droppings in the antenna for the noise.
02The CMB temperature is 2.725 Kelvin — just 2.725 degrees above absolute zero, uniform to 1 part in 100,000.
03Its discovery in 1965 killed the Steady State model of the universe and confirmed the Big Bang.
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01The Treasury Department ruled that U.S. lawyers required a special license to legally represent al-Awlaki in court.
02A federal judge dismissed his father's lawsuit to remove him from the kill list, citing lack of standing.
03The Justice Department's legal memo authorizing the killing was classified for three years after his death.
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01The game has no combat system, no health bar, and no way to lose — only the ocean and its creatures.
02A humpback whale named Matthew appears at a specific depth and time of in-game day, and players sought him out.
03Endless Ocean was developed by Arika, a small studio best known for Street Fighter EX — an unlikely tenderness.
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01Juba's general Saburra lured Curio's 10,000-man army into a valley in 49 BC; almost none escaped; Curio refused evacuation and died there.
02After Thapsus, Juba found no town willing to shelter him; he dined with the Roman commander Petreius, then the two men fought a duel to the death — Juba killed Petreius, then had a slave finish him.
03Years earlier, Caesar had proposed a bill to annex Numidia; Juba's hatred of Caesar was therefore partly personal legislative grudge.
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01Empress Fu was dragged past Emperor Xian in the corridor to her execution; he could not intervene.
02Cao Cao forced Xian to marry his own daughter after murdering Empress Fu, consolidating control through the bedchamber.
03Emperor Xian outlived the Han dynasty by fourteen years, dying peacefully in 234 CE as a feudal prince.
gnostek1 / 8Chapel interior
01The bone decorations were formally commissioned in 1870; František Rint bleached and arranged roughly 40,000 skeletons.
02The Schwarzenberg coat of arms rendered in bone includes a raven pecking the eye socket of a severed skull.
03The original mass burial began after soil from Jerusalem was sprinkled on the site in 1278, making it the most desired grave in Bohemia.