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Judge Creates Own Da Vinci Code
xmedar writes "The BBC is reporting that the judge who presided over the recent Da Vinci Code plagiarism case used steganography to embed his own code in the judgment using italic text in random places throughout the text. The full text of the code reads 'smithcodeJaeiextostpsacgreamqwfkadpmqz' if you want to have a go at cracking it." From the article: "Although he would not be drawn on his code and its meaning, Mr Justice Smith said he would probably confirm it if someone cracked it, which was 'not a difficult thing to do'. In March, he presided over a High Court case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed Dan Brown plagiarized their own historical book for The Da Vinci Code."
Anybody who puts that kind of stuff in their formal documents is clearly too cool to be a judge. Anybody know where you can find info on what the italicized letters are?
What if they are markers and the character count between italics is the true code (for example)? He said it isn't difficult so the italics might suffice, but still...
I'm sorry, but a Judge should not be playing games in a judgement. If I were the plantiff or prosecutor, I'd be pissed the he might not be taking the case seriously.
The plaintiff's premise for suing was "Dan Brown wrote about the same stuff we wrote about" followed by their lawyer's logic of "Dan Brown is rich" and "this pays better than the lottery". They deserve not to be taken seriously.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
in which case you'd probably be taking yourself much too seriously
Maybe, if you were the plaintiff, you would take a hint as to how serious he felt your case was?
- Sig files: contemptibly familiar the second time around.
Too bad the book sucked, though.
Dan Brown uses basically the same plot outline for each of the three books of his that I've read. (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress). Here it is in a nutshell:
Egghead professor-type gets sucked into something Really Important To the World (tm) with the help of a very intelligent woman who happens to be an expert in the Really Important Thing (tm) but STILL needs him to explain everything to her anyway. While they try to make it to the end of the book they are pursued by a merciless killer who wants to bump them off before they discover the Big Secret (tm). Did I forget anything?
Dan Brown uses basically the same plot outline for each of the three books of his that I've read.
Makes one wonder why you keep on reading his books if they're all the same...
This guy's the limit!
There are plenty of examples of both hacks and decent writers being successful. As successful -- maybe there you have a point -- but the question was whether he's a genius or a dork, and the "dork" clicker on my geiger counter just went off a ton during that excerpt.
John Grisham is putridly bad in terms of the legal setting he sets his pop schlock in, whereas Scott Turow is pretty danged good and gets his stuff close to plausible. Turow's novels are far superior to Grisham's as a result -- but Grisham's dumbed-down idiocy does get cranked out faster and make somewhat more money, that's true. John Lecarre, especially early on, was writing his espionage thrillers based on personal experience in British Intelligence; Ian Fleming was writing pop nonsense. They've both had their commercial successes. James Bond is an easier franchise to cash in on in those Hollywood movies you talk about -- but give me "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" any day.
The question was whether Dan Brown should be taken seriously. Looks like he's a trash pop fiction writer to me, that being the parent poster's point. There are much better examples of what he does. If you want the whole grand-conspiracy-across-history thing, Umberto Eco turned it inside out in Foucault's Pendulum in the 1980s, and Eco's about 700 times the novelist Dan Brown is...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I'm suprised nobody seems to notice that they both are linked to the same publisher, the book has been in existence for 3 years already, so why now?, and suprise, suprise, the film is about to come out. What better than a pointless media frenzy and "cool judge" to get everyone talking about it? So transparent...
From another article
, e,a,m,q,w,f,k,a,d,p,m,q,z.
Mr Justice Smith confirmed Mr Tench's suspicions when he said the pattern was "something more than a typo". The judge, who is 53 and lists some of his hobbies as reading military history and the sinking of the Titanic, said that paragraph 52 of his judgment would give readers a clue to the puzzle.
That paragraph reads: "I have set out at some length what in my opinion is an overall analysis of HBHG [The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail]. I have done that and will do the same further in this judgment in respect of DVC [The Da Vinci Code] because that is essential in my view to deciding this case."The paragraph ended: "The key to solving the conundrum posed by this judgment is in reading HBHG and DVC."
In Mr Justice Smith's coded judgment, the first nine digits obviously spell Smith Code:
s,m,i,t,h,c,o,d,e,J,a,e,i,e,x,t,o,s,t,p,s,a,c,g,r
Beyond that is anyone's guess.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
Did I forget anything?
You forgot that the apparent bad guy is the good guy in the end, and the helpful good non-hero character is the criminal mastermind.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Theres anothr movie that people have failed to mention that I think gets some aspects of IT better that any of these mentioned so far, and that would be.
;-).
Office Space
It certainly nails the office politics aspect of IT
Oh, come on, name me one major hollywood movie with more realistic IT in it.
;)
Tron, of course
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
i dont think that smith(y)code is a key, clue or anything else... i think of it more of an intro. this "puzzle" its a code by justice smith. i beleive that smith code is simply stating that "here is a code from smith" an intro so to speak
This is the UK. We can tell the difference between bias and humour over here.
You'll notice that the site to which I linked discusses nothing of religious belief, but rather discusses historical events. Well before this web site came out, the History Channel ran a couple documentaries pointing out the same historical inaccuracies.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!