Whirlzap
04-14-2013, 12:26 AM
So recently, I was playing Truth or Dare with a friend in real life.
The first spin, I was asked to answer with Truth.
The question was, "[Insert name], can you be a Russian spy?"
Puzzled as to why he did not ask me something more embarrassing, I answered yes.
Unfortunately, the next bottle spin resulted in me again.
The follow-up question was, "[Insert name], if you are a Russian spy, assume you are on a mission and you need to identify your target [for executing a murder mission], and you need to know the height."
I answered with, "Use a measuring tape."
However, it struck me later that night that if I were a spy, I would not always have the necessary resources at my disposal.
And after watching perhaps one of my favorite movies of all time, Salt, I realized that such readiness and versatility was vital to being the perfect Russian spy.
Thus, I navigated the Web in search of a creative answer.
Below are some comedic excerpts that I unearthed; they are the diamonds in the rough within thread after thread of spy archives on a forum/website dedicated to spying and espionage, [of course, legally]:
Hang by your feet and have someone push you while you go limp. You will swing like a pendulum. Time the period of the pendulum, and do the math to figure the length of the pendulum.
Stand with your back to the Sun. Take note of your shadow, then accurately pace to the top of your shadow. Use trigonometry with the angle of the Sun off the flat horizon.
Find someone in a crowd the same height as you. Steal his wallet and read the height on the driver's license.
Go to Radio Shack and buy a police scanner. Then rob a bank and listen to the description on the BOLO report.
Hold a military grade GPS at the top of your head, note reading. Drop it. If it still works, note reading. If it doesn't work anymore, take precise note of how long it took to fall. Do the math with 9.8 m/s^2 as the constant for acceleration from gravity. If you have nothing to drop, stand on the edge of a building, and after stepping off backward, note the precise time it takes for your head to pass where your feet were. Note that building needs to be sufficiently tall to do the math in your head before hitting the ground.
Find a floor with tile. Most tile is a standard size, often 1-foot squares. Now, you could just lie flat on the tile and count the squares, but since that would just look suspicious, you should hide your true intentions a bit. Start a fist-fight with the person next to you. Take advantage of the opportunity when they literally deck you to lie straight and count the tile quickly before they give you paralysis from kicking you in the armpit.
The first spin, I was asked to answer with Truth.
The question was, "[Insert name], can you be a Russian spy?"
Puzzled as to why he did not ask me something more embarrassing, I answered yes.
Unfortunately, the next bottle spin resulted in me again.
The follow-up question was, "[Insert name], if you are a Russian spy, assume you are on a mission and you need to identify your target [for executing a murder mission], and you need to know the height."
I answered with, "Use a measuring tape."
However, it struck me later that night that if I were a spy, I would not always have the necessary resources at my disposal.
And after watching perhaps one of my favorite movies of all time, Salt, I realized that such readiness and versatility was vital to being the perfect Russian spy.
Thus, I navigated the Web in search of a creative answer.
Below are some comedic excerpts that I unearthed; they are the diamonds in the rough within thread after thread of spy archives on a forum/website dedicated to spying and espionage, [of course, legally]:
Hang by your feet and have someone push you while you go limp. You will swing like a pendulum. Time the period of the pendulum, and do the math to figure the length of the pendulum.
Stand with your back to the Sun. Take note of your shadow, then accurately pace to the top of your shadow. Use trigonometry with the angle of the Sun off the flat horizon.
Find someone in a crowd the same height as you. Steal his wallet and read the height on the driver's license.
Go to Radio Shack and buy a police scanner. Then rob a bank and listen to the description on the BOLO report.
Hold a military grade GPS at the top of your head, note reading. Drop it. If it still works, note reading. If it doesn't work anymore, take precise note of how long it took to fall. Do the math with 9.8 m/s^2 as the constant for acceleration from gravity. If you have nothing to drop, stand on the edge of a building, and after stepping off backward, note the precise time it takes for your head to pass where your feet were. Note that building needs to be sufficiently tall to do the math in your head before hitting the ground.
Find a floor with tile. Most tile is a standard size, often 1-foot squares. Now, you could just lie flat on the tile and count the squares, but since that would just look suspicious, you should hide your true intentions a bit. Start a fist-fight with the person next to you. Take advantage of the opportunity when they literally deck you to lie straight and count the tile quickly before they give you paralysis from kicking you in the armpit.