The mystery of the Voynich mss

commonplace book, cool stuff, history, language & literature, security / /

From John Baez:

A page from the Voynich mssThe Voynich manuscript is by far the most mysterious of all texts. It is seven by ten inches in size, and about 200 pages long. It is made of soft, light-brown vellum. It is written in a flowing cursive script in alphabet that has never been seen elsewhere. Nobody knows what it means. During World War II some of the top military code-breakers in America tried to decipher it, but failed. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania seems to have gone insane trying to figure it out. Though the manuscript was found in Italy, statistical analyses show the text is completely different in character from any European language.

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A repulsive jumbo shrimp

weird / /

From The Honolulu Advertiser:

Giant mutant shrimp

Health experts are not sure what is causing Mantis Shrimp found in the muck of the Ala Wai Canal to grow larger than their normal size, but one thing is clear, they say: You shouldn’t eat anything out of the canal.

State Department of Health signs posted along the canal warn people not to eat fish or shellfish found in the Ala Wai because of possible contamination from urban runoff into the Waikiki waterway. But that didn’t stop Keith Harvey, a barge mate working on the Ala Wai dredging project. Harvey cooked one of several Mantis Shrimp (Odontodactylus Scyllarus) pulled from the mud at the bottom of the canal. The largest shrimp weighed in at 1.35 pounds and 15 inches.

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A horrid legal conundrum

commonplace book, true stories / /

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

A convicted murderer being held in Atlanta is refusing to sign a waiver the district attorney says it needs to release the remains of an 8-year-old East Texas boy.

Without the waiver, the family of Chad Choice cannot hold a funeral, although the boy was killed more than a decade ago.

Patrick Horn’s attorney has made repeated efforts over the past month to get the man now serving a life federal prison sentence in Georgia for unrelated crimes to sign the waiver.

But those efforts have been ignored …

Chad was shot in 1991, and buried in a shallow grave behind a house where Horn’s family lived. Horn then tormented the Choice family for years, sending ransom notes and placing Chad’s skull on the doorstep of the Choices’ home on the fourth anniversary of the boy’s disappearance.

The boy’s fate wasn’t revealed until 1996 while Horn was in Smith County Jail serving time for other crimes.

The waiver is necessary because the body parts were found five years after the boy’s death, and those remains were crucial evidence used to convict Horn.

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Greetings from beyond

security, technology / /

From PCWorld.com:

Imagine receiving a new e-mail from an old friend that begins, ‘By the time you read this, I will have passed on.’

It could happen, as a result of a new Internet service called TimelessMail.com . Through this new service (which costs $12 to $24 annually), subscribers create and store e-mail messages containing their final adieu to friends and family. After a subscriber has bought the farm, his or her messages are forwarded to the intended recipients following a verification of Social Security Administration death records. …

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More proof of time travel?

commonplace book, cool stuff, science, weird / /

From Ohio.com:

It was 11:15 p.m. on a warm June night in 1950, and the area of Times Square was buzzing with people leaving the theaters.

Suddenly, in the midst of traffic appeared an odd-looking man, about 30 years old. He wore mutton-chop whiskers and quaint clothing that had gone out of style decades before.

The man gawked at his surroundings, and then tried to dash away from the cars. He was struck by a cab and killed.

Police found on the dead man antique currency, business cards in the name of Rudolph Fentz, and a letter addressed to Fentz postmarked in 1876.

Assuming the man was Fentz, police sought the next of kin. But Fentz wasn’t listed in the telephone directory, and no one at the address on the business card and letter knew him.

Capt. Hubert V. Rihm eventually turned up a 1939 phone book listing a Rudolph Fentz Jr. When Rihm located the junior’s widow, she told him her father-in-law had vanished in 1876 after going out for a smoke.

That knowledge in hand, Rihm dug into old police files and found the missing-person report from 1876. The address given was the same as that on the dead man’s business cards.

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Time travelers on the NYC subway

commonplace book, cool stuff, science, weird / /

From Making Light:

The funny thing is, I’ve seen time travellers in NYC. Or at any rate I’ve seen people I thought were time travellers, and one case where I was sure.

This happened one day back in the 1980s. I was riding the subway home from work, and this kid got on at 34th or 42nd. He was at most twelve but I think younger, and slightly built at that. What caught my eye first was that he was wearing a jacket with a waistline seam–not a full-blown norfolk jacket, less obtrusive than that, but in that class. Which was odd; it had been over half a century since boys’ and men’s jackets stopped having waistline seams.

I started noticing more things about him. His pants ended just below his knees. That was unobtrusive too; his pants were dark, and so were his long woolen socks. If you weren’t really looking, the combination would register as black trousers, and you wouldn’t think anything of it. He had a flat woolen cap, and a sweater on under the jacket, and his shoes were what you’d expect with the rest of the outfit. Think newsboy, turn of the century or a little later, and you’ve got it.

But what struck me as genuinely odd was that he wasn’t wearing his clothes like a costume. Those were just his clothes, and they weren’t new, either. I honestly believe that if he’d gotten onto the same subway in the same clothing but had felt like he was dressed up for a masquerade, half the car would have noticed him right away.

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Terrifica, a superhero for our times

commonplace book, weird / /

From ABC News:

Terrifica, a superhero for our times For the past seven years Terrifica has been patrolling New York’s party and bar scene, looking out for women who have had a little too much to drink and are in danger of being taken advantage of by men. She says she has saved several women from both themselves and predators who would prey upon their weaknesses — both from alcohol and a misguided notion that they have to go out drinking to find a companion.

“I protect the single girl living in the big city,” says Terrifica, sporting blond Brunhild wig with a golden mask and a matching Valkyrie bra. “I do this because women are weak. They are easily manipulated, and they need to be protected from themselves and most certainly from men and their ill intentions toward them.” …

“To feel like you have to go to a bar, to put yourself out there, feeling like you have worth only when you’re married, engaged, or have a boyfriend, that’s weakness,” Terrifica says. “People are happiest when they’re alone and living their solitary lives.” …

“I really only have my utility belt. I’m not superstrong. I’m from this Earth,” she says. “I know I have to be very cautious. But the difference is I’m sober. And drunk people who are hostile are still drunk people. I have a degree of control, and my mission and purpose can usually get me out of dangerous situations.”

However, Terrifica does carry pepper spray in her utility belt, which also includes a cell phone, lipstick, a camera to take pictures of alleged male predators, a logging book, Terrifica fortune cards and — last but not least — Smarties candies. …

“Bartenders tend to be men, and they tend to be attracted to me,” she says. “Most men are. That’s part of my power.” …

Terrifica has also become somewhat of a nemesis to one alleged Casanova in particular: A man who likes to dress in velvet and prefers to be called “Fantastico.” He says that over the years, Terrifica has thwarted his attempts on numerous occasions to get to know women a little better. …

But while Terrifica has never addressed Fantastico directly, her alter-ego Sarah has. Sarah says she was seduced by Fantastico years ago.

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Greatest last line ever

commonplace book, true stories, weird / /

From CNN:

Customs officials opened his suitcase and a bird of paradise flew out but that was nothing compared to what they found in his pants — a pair of pygmy monkeys.

Californian Robert Cusack has been sentenced to 57 days in jail for trying to smuggle the monkeys, a total of four exotic birds and 50 rare orchids into Los Angeles Airport after a trip to Thailand, officials said on Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Johns said Cusack had been undergoing a routine inspection when he arrived last June until an official opened his suitcase.

“It became non-routine when they opened his luggage and a bird of paradise took off flying in the terminal,” Johns said.

Johns said the agents found three more birds in his bag, tucked into nylon stockings, along with 50 orchids of a threatened species.

Asked by agents if he had anything else to tell them, Cusack responded: “Yes, I’ve got monkeys in my pants.”

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Nothing fails like excess

business, commonplace book / /

From The New York Times:

Perhaps it was the bottle of 1947 Château Pétrus for £12,300 ($17,500). Or maybe it was the 1945 vintage from the same vineyard for £11,600 ($16,500). During dinner at a fashionable restaurant here, six investment bankers lapped up £44,000 ($62,700) in fine wines, and now they are suffering from a huge hangover.

Their employer, Barclays Capital, has fired all but one of the bankers since the dinner last July at Pétrus, a restaurant in London … when some of the bankers secretly tried to pass off their part of the bill as client expenses, Barclays began firing them one by one.

Gourmets willing to spend £50 for three courses can tuck into the cooking of Marcus Wareing, including sautéed medallion of stuffed confit pig trotter or roast breast of Anjou pigeon on a parsnip galette.

But the food was very much a sideshow to this particular dinner, which also included a third Château Pétrus, this one a 1946 vintage for £9,400. Then there was a 1984 Montrachet for £1,400, two bottles of Kronenbourg beer at £3.50 each, six glasses of Champagne for £9.50 each, one juice at £3, 10 bottles of water totaling £35, a pack of cigarettes for £5 and, to wash it all down, a bottle of 100-year-old Château d’Yquem dessert wine for £9,200.

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Japan’s shut-ins

commonplace book, weird / /

From The Washington Post:

Akiko Abe has barely seen her 25-year-old son in six years, yet they live in the same small house. He leaves his room only when he’s sure his parents are out or asleep, she said. She can tell when he has used the kitchen, and she knows he goes to the living room to watch television and use the computer at night.

As many as a million Japanese — most of them young men — are considered shut-ins, either literally cloistered in their rooms or refusing to work and avoiding all social contact for periods ranging from six months to more than 10 years. Forty-one percent live reclusively for one to five years, according to a government survey.

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A programmer’s poem

commonplace book, language & literature, weird / /

From dive into mark:

First, the poem itself (there are many versions, this is just one):

< > ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , system halted

In English, this reads:

waka waka bang splat tick tick hash
caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash
bang splat equal at dollar under-score
percent splat waka waka tilda number four
ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash
vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma crash

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Obsessed by gnomes

commonplace book, weird / /

From Ananova:

A man who lives with 900 gnomes says there is no room in his life for a wife.

Ron Broomfield is so obsessed with gnomes he even dresses up as one twice a week.

His fascination has so far cost him £20,000.

The 67-year-old shares his home in the Lincolnshire market town of Alford with the gnomes.

‘I’m not married any more but, to be frank, there’s no room for a woman. Gnomes have become my life,’ he said.

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Borges’ animals

commonplace book, on writing / /

From Tom Van Vleck:

In “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” Borges describes “a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,” the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided into:

1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
13. those that have just broken a flower vase,
14. those that from a long way off look like flies.

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Practical considerations of teleportation

commonplace book, science, technology / /

From IBM:

A teleportation machine would be like a fax machine, except that it would work on 3-dimensional objects as well as documents, it would produce an exact copy rather than an approximate facsimile, and it would destroy the original in the process of scanning it. A few science fiction writers consider teleporters that preserve the original, and the plot gets complicated when the original and teleported versions of the same person meet; but the more common kind of teleporter destroys the original, functioning as a super transportation device, not as a perfect replicator of souls and bodies.

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Why I stick with shih-tzus

commonplace book / /

From the Maybe-it’s-not-a-good-idea-to-keep-flesh-eating-lizards-as-pets dep’t.:

Several flesh-eating pet lizards were found feasting on the corpse of their owner in his apartment, police said.

Police were called to Ronald Huff’s apartment in Newark, Delaware, on Wednesday after a relative became worried because Huff failed to show up for work, investigators said.

Officers found Huff’s body on the floor, with his pet Nile monitor lizards feeding on his flesh. The state medical examiner is investigating the cause of death. … [CNN]

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Cave or community

business, technology / /

From Sandeep Krishnamurthy’s Cave or Community?: An Empirical Examination of 100 Mature Open Source Projects:

I systematically look at the actual number of developers involved in the production of one hundred mature OSS products. What I found is more consistent with the lone developer (or cave) model of production rather than a community model (with a few glaring exceptions, of course). …

… My contention is only that communities do things other than produce the actual product- e.g. provide feature suggestions, try products out as lead users, answer questions etc. …

To be more specific the top 100 most active projects (based on Sourceforge’s activity percentile) in the mature class were chosen for this study. …

Finding 1: The vast majority of mature OSS programs are developed by a small number of individuals. …

Moreover, as shown in Table 2, only 29% of all projects had more than 5 developers while 51% of projects had 1 project administrator. Only 19 out of 100 projects had more than 10 developers. On the other extreme, 22% of projects had only one developer associated with them. …

Finding 2: Very few OSS products generate a lot of discussion. Most products do not generate too much discussion. …

Finding 3: Products with more developers tend to be viewed and downloaded more often. …

Finding 4: The number of developers working on a OSS program was unrelated to the release date.

It could be argued that older projects may have more developers associated with them. However, we found no relationship between the release date and the number of developers associated with a program. …

Even though the discussion here may seem like an example of extreme free- riding, the reader needs to know that all free-riding is not necessarily “bad”. For instance, consider public radio stations in the United States. Even the most successful stations have about a 10% contribution rate or a 90% free-ridership rate. But, they are still able to meet their goals! Similarly, the literature on lurking in e-mail lists has suggested that if everyone in a community contributes it may actually be counter-productive.

Similarly, a recent survey of participants in open-source projects conducted by the Boston Consulting Group and MIT provides more insight. The top five motivations of open-source participants were

1. To take part in an intellectually stimulating project.
2. To improve their skill.
3. To take the opportunity to work with open-source code.
4. Non-work functionality.
5. Work-related functionality.

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The Forbes Fictional Fifteen

business, commonplace book, cool stuff / /

If fiction can be regarded as a culture’s subconscious, then it’s clear that we are a nation obsessed with the very rich. From avaricious caricatures like The Simpsons’ Montgomery Burns to literary character studies like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, our culture — both high and low — is littered with images of billionaires and tycoons.

Rank Name $Net Worth
1. Santa Claus $∞
2. Richie Rich $24.7 billion
3. Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks $10 billion
4. Scrooge McDuck $8.2 billion
5. Thurston Howell III $8 billion
6. Willie Wonka $8 billion
7. Bruce Wayne $6.3 billion
8. Lex Luthor $4.7 billion
9. J.R. Ewing $2.8 billion
10. Auric Goldfinger $1.2 billion
11. C. Montgomery Burns $1 billion
12. Charles Foster Kane $1 billion
13. Cruella De Vil $875 millon
14. Gordon Gekko $650 millon
15. Jay Gatsby $600 millon” [Forbes]

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Another awful poet

commonplace book, on writing / /

Scotland’s worst poet, William Topaz McGonagall: From “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time. …

Or here’s a few lines from “Glasgow”:

And as for the statue of Sir Walter Scott that stands in George Square,
It is a handsome statue — few with it can compare,
And most elegant to be seen,
And close beside it stands the statue of Her Majesty the Queen. …

Read more at a site dedicated to William McGonagall, or just search Google. [William McGonagall]

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