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First Company Logo Visible From Space 436

Posted by kdawson from the fast-food-for-aliens dept.
Albert Sandberg writes, "KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has created the first logo that is visible from space. The construction was made by 65,000 1x1-foot tiles and covers about 2 acres. The logo was built and assembled over about a month and is located in the Nevada desert near Area 51. The article also has a short video showing the construction in time-lapse. Now the aliens know where to get their slimy food :-)"
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First Company Logo Visible From Space More

First Company Logo Visible From Space

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  • That's a bad idea... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:34PM (#16845988)
    KFC = Klingon Fried Crispy

    • Re:That's a bad idea... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ParraCida ( 1018494 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:37PM (#16846020)
      And now when an alien civilization takes pictures from outer space and discover 'the face on earth' they will know for absolutely sure that there is no intelligent life on this planet.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by hacksaw5150 ( 1007401 )
      The only thing I can say is that this is one of the most depressing days of my life.

      I'm speechless. :(

    • Re:That's a bad idea... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Pinkfud ( 781828 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:04PM (#16846390) Homepage
      Drat! I've been saving white tiles for 20 years to build a giant toilet. Now these guys steal my thunder with a Colonel Panic.

    • KFC = Kentucky Fried Chicken (Score:5, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @08:04PM (#16846998) Journal
      I thought this one sentance at the end of TFA was quite interesting:
      KFC has also now reintroduced the name "Kentucky Fried Chicken" into their marketing materials.
      "Kentucky Fried Chicken" was changed to KFC back in 1991!

      You may or may not have heard the rumor that they were forced to change the name to KFC because the FDA said their chicken was not longer chicken... but apparently that is not true. [snopes.com] According to snopes, here are the reasons they changed the name:
      • A move to de-emphasize "chicken" because KFC planned to offer a varied menu that included other types of food. (The Boston Chicken corporation took the same approach for the same reason, changing their name of its retail food outlets to Boston Market.)

      • A desire to eliminate the word "fried," which has negative connotations to the increasingly health-conscious consumer market.

      • A recent trend towards the abbreviation of long commercial titles, as demonstrated by other companies' employing shortened forms of their names, such as The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and Howard Johnson's (HoJo).

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by davidsyes ( 765062 )
        Yep, and they definitely are Kentucky Fried Chicken here in California. I just saw some a few days ago, but it did have me wondering when they switched back to Kentucky Fried Chicken from KFC. Yeh, "We do CHICKEN RIGHT"... Sure, tell that to the chickens...

        What's next from KFC? DFAJ? Deep-Fried Alien Jerky?

        But, maybe the Colonel will panic when I set up my 130,000 tiles visible from space, saying "COME AND GET US!". But, I guess the department of homeland insecurity will balk or arrest me for that one... I

      • Kentucky Fried Chicken, from a McDonalds perspecti (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BigBlockMopar ( 191202 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @11:42PM (#16848512) Homepage

        "Kentucky Fried Chicken" was changed to KFC back in 1991! You may or may not have heard the rumor that they were forced to change the name to KFC because the FDA said their chicken was not longer chicken... but apparently that is not true.

        Yeah, that's absolute idiocy. I was working for McDonalds at the time, back in high school, and we had the same bullshit: "The patties are 100% pure beef" implied that we'd created/purchased a company called "100% Pure Beef". We didn't; the supplier (name a Canadian or American national meat packaging company) and the ingredients were marked clearly on the box: beef. Some even stated province: Pure Alberta Beef. 100% Ontario Beef. New York's finest Dead Cow. (OK, the last one was a joke... d'Uh)) The fact is (and as a former manager, a position to which I was promoted quickly because I actually showed up on time and *most* days liked my co-workers, customers and my job) McDonald's hamburgers are a higher grade of beef (Cdn AAA) than you can usually buy in the supermarket. That's lower fat than is commonly available to consumers. And it's very important to McDonalds - higher fat would be bad for the cooking process (admittedly not an open flame, unfortunately) and for the dietary disclosures now required. Throw a 1/4 pound of top-end premium ground into a frying pan, and I guarantee you'll get more fat than if you threw a *half* pound of uncooked McDonalds quarter-patties in the pan. (Try a few McDonalds, tell them you're on some sort of my-parents-were-idiot-hippies raw beef diet, sooner or later one of them will let you have uncooked patties. American or Canadian, I'll bet money than 1/2 pound of McDonalds patties gives less fat than 1/4 of extra-lean grocery store beef.)

        As for KFC, all you need to do is bite into it to know it's chicken. I don't know what sort of scientifically (and culinarily) inept uncircumcised inbred NDP-voter started the rumor that "KFC can't call themselves KFC because they don't serve chicken", but it's really sufficiently asinine that the offender shouldn't be allowed to vote or procreate. If you disagree, there's a great B-Movie (sparsely available by Torrents, etc.) called "The Willies" - you'll enjoy the Tennessee Fricassee Chicken scene for sure.

        I can't speak for the PETA comments against KFC, which I hope are the usual PETA bullshit. I am a carnivore but I feel for anything with a nervous system - but I will remind you that PETA has been right on occasion. OTOH, if there were anything more stupid than chicken, it would be called a "plant", it would breathe carbon dioxide, and it would think George Bush was a terrific President.

        Yes, KFC is chicken. Yes, it's fried. Yes, the founder was from Kentucky. If you're too stupid to understand that the K and the F became liabilities with the diet craze(s) (whatever happened to *moderation*, you know, like us adults do), you don't deserve to breathe or breed.

        But so long as you money is still real, "Can I take your order?" (We don't even want to get into my experiences with fat people: "Double Big Mac combo, large sized, large soft drink... better make it a Diet Coke, I'm trying to lose weight..." Me, screaming in my mind at the top of my lungs: "THEN MAKE THIS YOUR WEEKLY NOT DAILY TREAT TO YOURSELF, GET AN ACTIVE HOBBY, AND CUT OFF THE BON-BONS, YOU FUCKING HIDEOUS AND STINKY BEACHED WHALE." Spoken: "Oh yes, a Diet Coke will do *wonders* for your physique." - if they were any dumber, or if I were a commissioned salesperson, I'd tell them I was gay and sell them a *simply fabulous* pair of culottes and a front-load washer - they're dumb enough to trust "diet" over common sense, so they must be dumb enough to trust a cute little rubber door seal over gravity.)

        Finally, say what you want about KFC, but sometimes I just get a craving for it - it's damned good (except when you go to a sucky franchise whose left it under the heat lamps too long, in which case it's only slightly better than cafeteria food). KFC, aside from their proprietary seasonings,

        • Spoken: "Oh yes, a Diet Coke will do *wonders* for your physique."

          You've got a great point, but consider the effect a large coke has on your body. Let us take a look at Ye Olde nutrition index [mcdonalds.com]. A Big Mac has 560 calories, and 47 grams of carbohydrates. A large coke has 310 calories, resulting from 86g of carbohydrates (all sugars.)

          If you ate the kind of meal I usually eat when I eat at McD's, you'd have a couple of McChickens and a diet coke. The coke has no nutritional value, although I still think

  • Could you please specify where this time-lapse video is?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by bunions ( 970377 )
      uh, in TFA? About 3/4 of the way down?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LogicX ( 8327 ) *
        Holy cached page.

        I was there earlier today, it wasn't there, and it didn't reload it from the server when I went just now.
        doh!
  • It's just a stupid fast food joint, and a giant Mario head made up of throngs of NES players chanting "Mario! Mario!"

  • oblig (Score:2, Funny)

    by Philotic ( 957984 )
    I, for one, welcome our new fried chicken overlords.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      I, for one, welcome our new finger licking good fried chicken overlords.

      fixed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nametaken ( 610866 )
      :(

      I know I don't have to see it, but somehow this bothers me. Something about my planet being a fucking galactic billboard... but I can't quite pin it down.

  • The Wicked Witch of Marketing (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wouldn't cry if someone dropped a space station [spaceref.com] on it.

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by dedazo ( 737510 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:37PM (#16846016) Journal
    So the aliens will locate us by tracking down Hitler's speeches, and when they get here they'll see the KFC logo. I guess they'll cap it off by landing in Darfur. First impressions are so important...

  • It's so all alien visitors will know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dafragsta ( 577711 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:37PM (#16846018)
    ... that we all taste just like chicken.

  • Let's define VISIBLE as naked eye visible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:38PM (#16846034) Homepage Journal
    if I can see my backyard from google maps.. that's (ahem) [B] VISIBLE FROM SPACE [/B]

  • Patterns Not Visible From Ground? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:39PM (#16846046)
    How could an ignorant civilization have created such an intricate design that is only visible from high up? From the ground it looks like nothing. No human could have had the coordination to design such a picture. It must have been made by alien visitors, which neatly explains dinosaur fossils: those are their discarded "chicken" bones.

  • New Logo, new space sign, new oil (sans trans-fat). They're really shaking things up over there!

  • Use of crops for ads? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Salvance ( 1014001 ) * on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:39PM (#16846058) Homepage Journal
    I wonder why someone doesn't make an advertisement in crops after harvest (e.g. like crop circles)? Seems like it would relatively cheap and easy to make something 100-200 acres (100X larger than the KFC ad), and it would certainly get a lot of press. More people might see it as well, since every flight attendant in the country would point it out to travelers as they fly over.
  • What does it mean to be visible from space? This is totally absurd. My house is visible from space, I've seen it on Google Earth. There are other corporate logos that are probably visible from earth too, when you zoom in as much as they must to see this logo. Give me a break.

    Lews
    • um...
      you all realize that Google earth is a mosaic of flyovers by airplanes at higher mags right?
      If the joke went woosh, I apologize in advance.
      -nB

      • Re:Visible from space? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:58PM (#16846318)

        Come on, you got his point, don't you? I was about to comment on that too, you don't need to make something friggin huge to have it seen from space, it's all about the resolution you can get from your satelitte, so saying that it's the "First Company Logo Visible From Space" is absurd, for more accuracy it should be "First Company Logo Meant To Be Visible From Space"

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      As other have ponted out, Google Earth uses aerial orthophotos.

      But in essence you are right. Consider this 5m [satimagingcorp.com] resolution image. You can see a municipal baseball field in it; you could easily set up an array of a hundred or so people with cardboard placards to make something recognizable in it. And there are commercial images with 4x the resolution.

  • brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... m minus math_god> on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:40PM (#16846072) Homepage Journal
    we've been beaming decades of reruns of "war of the worlds" into space via tv signals, so the aliens are certain to be wise to the bacteria threat and are certain to bring their antibiotics

    but i don't think anyone has made a movie about alien susceptibility to "supersize me"-style death by artery clogging. so now when the aliens do come, this kfc beacon will guide them to their first meal of addictive tasty trans fats, and they shall die of arteriosclerosis, rather than sepsis

    a brilliant plan! huzzah to kfc for saving the world!

  • The target audience (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xaroth ( 67516 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:40PM (#16846080) Homepage
    It seems a reasonable investment, when you think of it. They're targeting the highly desirable "ISS astronaut" market, and everyone knows how much fried chicken those guys eat. They're insatiable!

    • Re:The target audience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bent Mind ( 853241 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:07PM (#16846432)
      I'd say the target audience is people who use Google Earth or other up to date satellite service. I know I loaded Google Earth upon reading this. I wonder how long it will be before this ad shows up? I've heard Area 51 is a common search for Google Earth. It's not surprising this add was created near it.
  • So when the little green men come and ask "Take me to your leader" they now at least have a mugshot to who they are looking for. A cartoon looking asian man with a goatee in a white suit with a red apron.
    • it will sound something like this

      Alien: Wait a minute, you're telling me, that I flew all the way to Earth, to get to your leader, and, and the colonel isn't even working today?
      Worker: He really dead.
      ALien: What?
      Worker: I say he dead.
      Alien: Is Mr. Sanders in?
      Worker: What wrong wit you? I say you he dead!
      Alien: ......... THE COLONEL?!

  • What the aliens are thinking (Score:5, Funny)

    by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:44PM (#16846122)
    "Man, I love the smell they have around this planet. Where's it coming from again? Oh, right, this 'KFC' place. Goodness, it smells good. And hey! There's the logo. Tell me, Xghrth, why don't we come here more often?"

    [15 minutes and an empty box later]

    "Ungh.... THAT'S why..."
  • ...everything is visible from space [spacetoday.org].

  • Maxim? (Score:4, Informative)

    by CODiNE ( 27417 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:49PM (#16846184) Homepage
    Didn't Maxim already do this by putting a magazine cover of theirs somewhere near Las Vegas? It showed up as an overlay in Google Earth so I wasn't sure if it was just a bitmap they paid Google to show, or if it's a representation of the actual billboard but overlaid on older satellite images.
  • Oh great, now we'll be attracting all of those alien reefer heads to the Earth. The property values planet wide will start dropping.

  • Meh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by user24 ( 854467 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:52PM (#16846240)
    I'm still waiting for the first company logo visible from earth (in space).
    I always wondered how much it'd cost to paint the moon with a logo. I know it would be astronomical (heh), but surely it'd be worth it for whichever company (coke) did it? I mean, a logo on the moon! beat that, KFC. Who's going to be looking at their crappy from-space logo if the moon has a frikkin coke logo on it? ha!

    I think I need some more coffee.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MeanMF ( 631837 )
      I always wondered how much it'd cost to paint the moon with a logo.

      You'd have to fight off The Tick first.. Just ask Chairface [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)

      by Pinkfud ( 781828 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:58PM (#16846320) Homepage
      If I could do something to the moon, I'm afraid everyone would be looking at F**K instead of a logo. The world has no idea how lucky it is that I don't have that power.
      • If I could do something to the moon, I'm afraid everyone would be looking at F**K instead of a logo.


        Y'know, I think it is acceptable to use the "fuck word" here on Slashdot instead of bleeping out a couple letters with asterisks. :D

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by user24 ( 854467 )
      PS: if this ever happens, I hereby apologise to humanity.

      PPS: FUCK OFF 'slow down cowboy' I don't care that it's been 47 seconds since I last posted I HAVE MORE TO SAY.

      coffee......coffeeeeeeeeee.. heheh. woo!
    • I'm still waiting for the first company logo visible from earth (in space).

      If there is anything that would lead me to seriously consider engaging in open rebellion against capitalist western culture, a la Camus, this would be it. The last thing some New Guinea Fore or Enga tribesperson or some Australian aborigine needs to see is a damned red and blue sphere with a wavy white stripe down the middle floating across the night sky (personally, I think Pepsi would do it first). I mean c'mon people, have some
  • Darin Stevens couldn't be prouder of the accomplishment. Every marketer around the world just wrenched his fist upon reading this news - darn it, WE wanted to be the first logo seen in space!

    OK Not really.

    Nothing attracts a crowd, well, like a crowd.
  • When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.

    I can't wait to see a logo on the moon.

  • Target Market = Tinfoil hat wearers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Scott7477 ( 785439 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:57PM (#16846304) Homepage Journal
    This is not such a bad idea; when the paranoids and UFO watchers check satellite shots of Area 51 they'll see the KFC ad, and notice they're hungry. Actually, Area 51 is probably near the top of the list of places people plug into Google Earth, so a lot of people are likely to see this.
  • shhh, we're trying to make them too overweight to withstand earth gravity...we should also wear placards that say "eat more chikin." oh wait...

  • Billboard from space (Score:5, Funny)

    by linuxtelephony ( 141049 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @06:59PM (#16846336) Homepage
    Billboard on busy highway during rush hour, $5,000
    Television ad during Superbowl, $1,200,000
    Getting your logo on Google for free, Priceless

    So, what's next and how much will be spent to get "free" advertising on Google?
    Or, when will GOogle get wise and start charging for AdSpace or EarthAds?

  • Time for a new right... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:01PM (#16846362) Journal
    I think we need the right not to look at advertising.

    Am I alone in thinking that advertising should be restricted to certain public spaces designated as 'commercial', and should otherwise not be permitted? I strongly feel that I should be able to move around the world freely without having to look at KFC ads. We pay quite a lot of attention to our environment in a chemistry/biology context, but very little to it in terms of what kind of mental environment we are inhabiting.

    I am generally relatively libertarian, believe it or not. I hate laws that interfere unneccessarily with people's right to do whatever they want. But the day I can't go anywhere on this planet without seeing an orbiting billboard [slashdot.org] is the day I become a serial killer. I guess I consider that a billboard or whatever isn't really 'over there' on someone else's property, because I feel its effects wherever I have the misfortune to observe it.

    Put it this way - would we tolerate sound advertising that was audible from anywhere on earth? No. So why is visual advertising any different?

    We are in danger of becoming a civilisation so enamoured with commerce that we have no independent culture or sense of aesthetics. I mean, we're branding the fucking PLANET now? It's sick. Commerce is a means to an end: we have made it an end in itself. As the first comment on the blog says, "this makes me want to kill myself".

  • This is sad. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 )
    These people are scumbag profiteers. They pollute the airwaves with their obnoxious commercials and poison the public with their unhealthy food.

    Now they are creating visual pollution on the grandest scale.

    This is nothing but predatory profiteering and these giant ads, and this is not the first one, should be made illegal.

    Damn. When is enough enough??

  • Asimov thought about it decades ago (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just read the novel "Buy Jupiter" by Isaac Asimov. If I recall correctly, in that story the entire planet Jupiter is sold to aliens who want to use it as an enormous advertising surface targeted at spaceships travelling nearby.

  • This one is from the 1920s (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gurudyne ( 126096 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:06PM (#16846428)
    -86.49187 Longitude
    41.66944 Latitude

    It is on the Bendix Proving Grounds, just West of South Bend, Indiana.

    Those are 20-30 meter tall trees. And the word 'Studebaker'(original owner) is about 550 meters long.

  • First? Ha! (Score:5, Funny)

    by kiltyj ( 936758 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [jytlik]> on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:14PM (#16846506)
    They must've forgotten about the "©2006 Google" clearly visible by satellite [google.com] every 200 ft.

  • NOT visible from space. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:20PM (#16846572) Homepage
    Visible from space means, visible from where the atmosphere effectively ends. Even in the lower strata, the buildings and the roads will also have to be visible for the logo to be visible.

    Its really visible when you use zooming technology, in which case my house and care are already visible thanks to Google Earth as proof.

    And plenty of company logos can be found going through Google Earth.

  • first? (Score:3, Funny)

    by j00r0m4nc3r ( 959816 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:23PM (#16846616)
    What about the company whose logo is the Earth?

  • What About Eva? (Score:5, Informative)

    by cdrudge ( 68377 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @07:39PM (#16846796) Homepage
    Apparently KFC never heard of Maxim's giant magazine cover [quickonlinetips.com] of Eva Longoria [maximonline.com].

  • First Company Logo visible From Low Earth Orbit (Score:4, Informative)

    by LordSnooty ( 853791 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @08:35PM (#16847274)
    There, fixed the headline for you.

  • Raping the desert (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linuxwrangler ( 582055 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @08:50PM (#16847382)
    I bet this brilliant f**ing "event company" just saw that they needed to clear a bunch of "weeds". Apparently they didn't bother to find out how long desert plants take to regrow. Scars in the desert can take decades to heal.

    I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert. It's a beautiful place and it makes me sick to see a bunch of out-of-town yahoos clearcut a bunch of it for their little stunt. 'Course environmental awareness isn't the first thing that KFC brings to mind so it's par for the course.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by adolf ( 21054 )
      If I want to paste a logo onto my yard, that's my problem. And if I want to paste a Really Big logo onto my Really Big yard, that's also my problem.

      Methinks that it's probably the best use that the landowner has ever gotten out of that particular stitch of property.

  • From nerds to KFC: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zorque ( 894011 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2006 @09:03PM (#16847464)
    Needs antialiasing.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @02:07AM (#16849206)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Nazca Lines - These Guys were First (Score:3, Insightful)

    by giafly ( 926567 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @07:44AM (#16850556)
    The Nazca Lines [google.com] were first, and much bigger. The picture at bottom left [unmuseum.org] is even a baby chicken. Or a moose upside down.

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