No, no, no.  It's NOT a straight linguistic code.  Well, in a way.  Red
lights, green lights.  These indicate *port or starboard*.  It's a series
of "driving directions", if you will.  The ferrets cluster around the
machine, and it tells them which way they need to travel to reach a
certain destination.
 
The concept is old, but not entirely original.  honey bees do something
very similar.  If one lady bee finds a REALLY GOOD source of nectar, say
a thick stand of flowering plants previously unknown to the hive, she
will fly back to the hive and tell them how to get there to check it out
for themselves.  She does this by dancing.  It's a frantic, strange kind
of a little dance with much hiney shaking, but the other bees can easily
interpret her dance as "This is the way you fly to get there."
 
Many interested bees will stand in a circle around her while she does her
dance, they will reach out occasionally to touch her, almost as if they
are urging her on..."OK, you fly over the hedge ,we're listening, yeah,
...then past the oak tree...gotcha..." When she finishes her dance, many
others who have NEVER EVER known about that tasty thick stand of flowers
will fly there immediately, and start collecting nectar.  They will come
back to the hive, dance in their turn, and in a fairly short period of
time, every bee in the hive will know how to fly to a place they have
never been.
 
I am *not* making this up.  That's really how they do it.
 
The FLO vacuum cleaner is doing the same sort of thing, but
electronically, with blinking led lights strobing at precise intervals,
that indicate "length of time to travel in that direction", until a
direction-changing turn is indicated.  Now WHY, is beyond me at this
moment.
 
I bet it's the work of that fiend, Sanka.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5077]