What I would do if...

[Apollo]

I'm very bored, and don't feel like doing anything else... so this is what I thought of:


So... If I ever make billions of dollars ( unlikely ) I have a plan to blow half of my money.
I would like to make about 100 unique, yet similar large statues... out of stone.
They could be machined or carved by hand; whatever enough money would get me.

The idea would to make each statue similar to the other, and about 10 to 12 feet tall. They could be large faces or something of the like.
Once completed, they would all be buried. They would be buried in line with each other however with an EXACT spacing of 100 miles from one to the next along a pre-calculated path.

The first statue would be located in the north western corner of the Yukon. Kind of hard to find...
100 statues at that spacing, following the course I've already plotted, would make a gently curved line all the way to Rio Gallegos in the southern tip of Argentina.

Each statue would be marked with it's precise latitude and longitude, it's number in the sequence, and a long but partial message. There would be an equation for finding the next stone in the sequence. ( Numbers are far easier to decode depending on how the system is created. ) All of these things would be encoded in some way or another.
The first and last statues in this long line would hold a large key to decoding the messages, but the keys would be incomplete. Roughly a third of the key would be on each end piece; the remainder of the key would be segmented and carved into every third statue in the chain. The encoded messages would decode into Latin. I would probably write some great prophecy over the 100 statues...

Of course it is possible that somebody resourceful could decode the messages without the majority of the pieces, but otherwise, most would be required. The message is incomplete without all of them anyways.

The message would be displayed in such a fashion that you would read from left to right across all the statues, covering at least five lines.
This would ensure that *nearly* all must be found.


You may wonder what my intent would be to do such a thing, and it's really quite simple.. albeit expensive.
Confuse the fuck out of future generations... and perhaps spread fear of the apocalypse. It's how I roll.



If you had the money and wanted to mess with future generations, what would you do?

[Apollo]

More thoughts:

I would want at least three marker stones. These stones would have THEIR OWN latitude and longitude on them, and they would be sunk about forty feet into the ground to ensure they don't get moved easily, if at all. The top of the stone would be exposed with the markings carved on the top, and again part way down the stone.
These would serve as reference points.
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Between the three of them: One would contain THREE latitude measurements ( Marker A ), another would contain THREE longitude measurements. ( Marker B )
The third one would have the latitude and longitude of the previous two markers ( Marker C ) and of course they would have their own coordinates.

This means that one marker tells the location of the other two. The other two together, tell you the location of three of the statues, the statues in turn tell the wise man the location of the one preceding them in the sequence. This means that finding them in the wrong order can be very time consuming, but in the correct order things become much easier.

The markers would be *very* far apart. I'm thinking one in the mountains in northern British Columbia (Marker A), one somewhere in the mountains by Santiago in Chile (Marker B), and the final marker containing the location of the other two would be somewhere in Amazonas, Brazil. (Marker C)
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[vampirefrog]

I'd get myself education, an active outgoing lifestyle, make friends, help bums, and start lots of creative projects.

[Apollo]

I don't think I'd need the education if I was that rich, personally.

Active outgoing lifestyle, friends, and helping bums are great things to do however.
One could easily help an amazing number of people with a billion cash dollars.

If I was to do something constructive: Rather than sending that one doller per month to Africa like they say on TV... I'd set up shop there and put money towards food and agriculture, and make damn sure there is progress. Besides this, building more schools and hiring enough teaching staff to fill those and the existing ones, as well as paying high enough salaries to keep them there.

Rather than donating to some organization, one must do things themselves.

[vampirefrog]

I don't think I'd need the education if I was that rich, personally.

prevents mind rot

[Apollo]

I do enough stuff as is to prevent mind rot.

I just got a 5x5x5 Rubik's cube. Solved it first try.. though.. it took a while.. over a half hour.

[unixfreak]

If you had the money and wanted to mess with future generations, what would you do?

Lol, something similar to your idea except i would do it on the moon.

I would build a massive shrine on the moon depicting human dna and the creation of humans. It would have a whole load of statues of alien greys like this.

Oh and while i'm up there i'd hollow out the moon and fill it with chocolate. What a surprise when people start mining on the moon one day. 

[Sauce]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIRUBLZl7uU&feature=related

[Apollo]

Lol, something similar to your idea except i would do it on the moon.

I would build a massive shrine on the moon depicting human dna and the creation of humans. It would have a whole load of statues of alien greys like this.

Haha. I like that idea!

I would keep mine confined to the earth to keep the costs from growing exponentially.

The moon is tricky though. In order to place something without making marks that shouldn't be there... you'd pretty well have to drop it from orbit.