I often found the whole focus on the MIX hypothetical machine to be counterproductive to learning the material. I always went to CLR first for anything, and to Knuth for certain things where I wanted more depth or just a different explanation. Knuth's pseudocode resonates with me fairly well, but MIX examples tended to just give me headaches. Yes, I did read the introduction, and yes I'm glad he didn't try to use any of the languages that were in vogue in 62.
Not so well if you have a lot of hail storms, or if your roof tends to be covered with 6 inches of snow for three months out of the year. I have a rooftop water heater that works really well, year round, but I still really want a nice Bosch on-demand heater by the shower.
Everyone is jumping on the North Korea aspect, instead of the *vulnerability* aspect. It just seems to me something that would be simple to take advantage of, for someone bent on pure mayhem. Simpler than hijacking planes and flying them into buildings, and *much* more destructive both in real and political terms.
For the record, I'm not really this stupid. I'm obviously so frustrated by the whole affair that I'm reduced to trolling. But on the other hand, why don't you think the material could not possible reach some inefficiently supercritical form? It's a consideration when they design containment buildings to prevent a bowl-shaped collection of "corium" and this is the reason.
>As in, so light that they can't punch through the containment vessel, much less the concrete shell. You ARE aware, aren't you, that reinforced concrete makes dandy >armour for anything you don't intend to move around much, right?
I'm not convinced the containment vessel is the target. My understanding is, all they need to do is put a big leak in the mostly un-contained swimming pool with the plutonium, and boom, dirty bomb.
Sure. It says to me "Japan doesn't have enemies". At least nobody eager to pull a terrorist attack when an obvious opportunity presents itself. They don't need a 1000 mile range to hit something that's inches from a coastline that has been abandoned by the Navy.
My information of birth defects and rare cancers doesn't come from science fiction movies, it comes from personal contact with people who were exposed to underground testing in the American Southwest.
All that farmland that got flooded, I wonder how much of Japan's total food output that represents? I wonder how much of that farmland is in danger of being irrigated by contaminated water?
One thing I actually worried about more than the nuclear plant; there was a refinery fire on the day of the quake. I read one report a few days later that said it wasn't under control yet. I wonder about that, what kind of toxic exposure comes from a burning refinery, or if any chemical plants had any big releases, that kind of thing. It's really hard to get a lot of detailed information from Japan. Obviously they have more important things to do than give English-language reports to people whose only connection amounts to morbid curiosity.
Ok, maybe I was too specific about North Korea. how about Al Qaeda? The point being, the crisis state of affairs with the reactor, where everyone wants to put a happy face on it, really could take a turn for the worst with *way* more serious consequences than the optimists are willing speculate on. A catastrophic breach of containment could poison the area for generations to come. And it seems like in the crippled state of the plant already, it would not take much intervention to bring about that catastrophic breach, since it's already most of the way there.
Maybe I'm underestimating the strength of the containment dome, but it occurs to me that all that really needs to happen for this thing to take a crap would be for the #3 Swimming Pool to spring a big leak, and boom, you've got very massive amounts of plutonium all over Northern Japan's farmland.
It could just be a private writing system for a personal language for a semi-literate, demented, dyslexic street person who is engaged in some kind of activity that has increased his normally very high level of paranoia. I suspect there is a reason we aren't being told much personal info about the victim.
>Is the second to last character on the first page an 'L', 'C', or '('?
It's an "E". His words end in "E" unless he's being lazy where it would be otherwise obvious that it's a word ending. "N" is also some kind of ligature.
I think one comment might be on the right track with "prison cipher". What was this guy's profession? Does he have a criminal background and/or incarceration that we aren't being told about? The things we aren't told about this guy and the circumstances of his murder are probably more important than what we are told. The cipher is probably mostly irrelevant.
It's not even necessary to decode the writing, if the objective is merely to identify the purpose of the writing, or the time or location it was written, the writing instrument used, etc. It sounds like they have very little to go on, despite the supposed knowledge that the guy wrote this way all his life -- yet there are no samples? And no samples of non-encrypted writing? Ethnicity? Interests? Recorded interviews with his peers?
The FBI has a lot more to go on than just these two notes and a minimal backstory, right?
My first guess from the second page would go in the direction of "addresses". Or maybe he found an ad for a Zune on AOL for $99.84, and this isn't a code at all, just atrocious writing by someone who is functionally illiterate but has his own language.
It would be useful to know if the guy normally wrote/spoke as a coherent person or as a complete whack-a-doo. Surely they have writing samples from this guy that aren't encrypted. Or someone knows him who can describe how he spoke, generally how he thought. Considering the FBI have that kind of material to work with (and anything else they'd like to dig for), I don't see much chance for lay persons to get anywhere. And there's no reason to think the victim had anything particularly auspicious to say, so it's hard to imagine that this could be the Voynich manuscript of the 21st Century.
So lets see some examples from that lifetime of writing in code... And how bad was his spelling when he didn't write in code? Did he speak only English?
Seems like the family and/or the FBI could be helpful by also showing other encrypted writing and plenty of samples of his unencrypted writing. I'm sure (at least I hope) the FBI has *much* more to work with than these two notes.
I certainly hope they have more to work with than what they've provided! Do they have any of the guy's writing that *isn't* encrypted? Do they have an inventory of his possessions? A roster of his acquaintances? Transcripts of interviews with those people? Do they have a specific motivation for wanting to read this particular voynich?
Yes, considering how hard they have been working to build a nuclear device with which to attack Japan, I am surprised they let this opportunity escape them. They could have seriously F-d up Tokyo, and it doesn't seem like it would have taken much to do it.
Thanks vlm. Too few people who say "just bury the thing" seem to have even a rudimentary grasp of the issues at hand.
Most who criticize TEPCO and Japan will completely ignore the amazing mitigating efforts that have been done at the site.
I myself have a tendency to criticize what appears to be an information embargo, but I also realize that there is no reason to devote any resources toward providing *me* with information, since I'm not in any way involved in the response effort...
Would you rather feed your child a fish with one microgram of plutonium, let him or her play in a ball pit with one microgram of asbestos, or let him or her chew on a windowsill that may or may not have been painted with lead paint?
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I often found the whole focus on the MIX hypothetical machine to be counterproductive to learning the material. I always went to CLR first for anything, and to Knuth for certain things where I wanted more depth or just a different explanation. Knuth's pseudocode resonates with me fairly well, but MIX examples tended to just give me headaches. Yes, I did read the introduction, and yes I'm glad he didn't try to use any of the languages that were in vogue in 62.
>Energy usage is going up.
If people had less, they would find a way to need less.
Not so well if you have a lot of hail storms, or if your roof tends to be covered with 6 inches of snow for three months out of the year. I have a rooftop water heater that works really well, year round, but I still really want a nice Bosch on-demand heater by the shower.
Everyone is jumping on the North Korea aspect, instead of the *vulnerability* aspect. It just seems to me something that would be simple to take advantage of, for someone bent on pure mayhem. Simpler than hijacking planes and flying them into buildings, and *much* more destructive both in real and political terms.
For the record, I'm not really this stupid. I'm obviously so frustrated by the whole affair that I'm reduced to trolling. But on the other hand, why don't you think the material could not possible reach some inefficiently supercritical form? It's a consideration when they design containment buildings to prevent a bowl-shaped collection of "corium" and this is the reason.
>As in, so light that they can't punch through the containment vessel, much less the concrete shell. You ARE aware, aren't you, that reinforced concrete makes dandy
>armour for anything you don't intend to move around much, right?
I'm not convinced the containment vessel is the target. My understanding is, all they need to do is put a big leak in the mostly un-contained swimming pool with the plutonium, and boom, dirty bomb.
Sure. It says to me "Japan doesn't have enemies". At least nobody eager to pull a terrorist attack when an obvious opportunity presents itself. They don't need a 1000 mile range to hit something that's inches from a coastline that has been abandoned by the Navy.
My information of birth defects and rare cancers doesn't come from science fiction movies, it comes from personal contact with people who were exposed to underground testing in the American Southwest.
All that farmland that got flooded, I wonder how much of Japan's total food output that represents? I wonder how much of that farmland is in danger of being irrigated by contaminated water?
One thing I actually worried about more than the nuclear plant; there was a refinery fire on the day of the quake. I read one report a few days later that said it wasn't under control yet. I wonder about that, what kind of toxic exposure comes from a burning refinery, or if any chemical plants had any big releases, that kind of thing. It's really hard to get a lot of detailed information from Japan. Obviously they have more important things to do than give English-language reports to people whose only connection amounts to morbid curiosity.
Ok, maybe I was too specific about North Korea. how about Al Qaeda? The point being, the crisis state of affairs with the reactor, where everyone wants to put a happy face on it, really could take a turn for the worst with *way* more serious consequences than the optimists are willing speculate on. A catastrophic breach of containment could poison the area for generations to come. And it seems like in the crippled state of the plant already, it would not take much intervention to bring about that catastrophic breach, since it's already most of the way there.
Maybe I'm underestimating the strength of the containment dome, but it occurs to me that all that really needs to happen for this thing to take a crap would be for the #3 Swimming Pool to spring a big leak, and boom, you've got very massive amounts of plutonium all over Northern Japan's farmland.
600 miles? What's left of the Fukushima plant is inches from the shore, and the Navy abandoned that post pretty quickly...
After the US Navy announced that it was clearing out of the harbor, I imagine they could get a submarine close. Or maybe a tuna boat.
Do you understand the temperatures that will come into play once all the water is gone from under your nice blanket?
One aspect of the code appears to be dissembling for the international press, and maintaining an information embargo.
It could just be a private writing system for a personal language for a semi-literate, demented, dyslexic street person who is engaged in some kind of activity that has increased his normally very high level of paranoia. I suspect there is a reason we aren't being told much personal info about the victim.
>Is the second to last character on the first page an 'L', 'C', or '('?
It's an "E". His words end in "E" unless he's being lazy where it would be otherwise obvious that it's a word ending. "N" is also some kind of ligature.
I think one comment might be on the right track with "prison cipher". What was this guy's profession? Does he have a criminal background and/or incarceration that we aren't being told about? The things we aren't told about this guy and the circumstances of his murder are probably more important than what we are told. The cipher is probably mostly irrelevant.
It's not even necessary to decode the writing, if the objective is merely to identify the purpose of the writing, or the time or location it was written, the writing instrument used, etc. It sounds like they have very little to go on, despite the supposed knowledge that the guy wrote this way all his life -- yet there are no samples? And no samples of non-encrypted writing? Ethnicity? Interests? Recorded interviews with his peers?
The FBI has a lot more to go on than just these two notes and a minimal backstory, right?
My first guess from the second page would go in the direction of "addresses". Or maybe he found an ad for a Zune on AOL for $99.84, and this isn't a code at all, just atrocious writing by someone who is functionally illiterate but has his own language.
It would be useful to know if the guy normally wrote/spoke as a coherent person or as a complete whack-a-doo. Surely they have writing samples from this guy that aren't encrypted. Or someone knows him who can describe how he spoke, generally how he thought. Considering the FBI have that kind of material to work with (and anything else they'd like to dig for), I don't see much chance for lay persons to get anywhere. And there's no reason to think the victim had anything particularly auspicious to say, so it's hard to imagine that this could be the Voynich manuscript of the 21st Century.
So lets see some examples from that lifetime of writing in code... And how bad was his spelling when he didn't write in code? Did he speak only English?
What languages did the victim speak, natively? What did he read?
Seems like the family and/or the FBI could be helpful by also showing other encrypted writing and plenty of samples of his unencrypted writing. I'm sure (at least I hope) the FBI has *much* more to work with than these two notes.
I certainly hope they have more to work with than what they've provided! Do they have any of the guy's writing that *isn't* encrypted? Do they have an inventory of his possessions? A roster of his acquaintances? Transcripts of interviews with those people? Do they have a specific motivation for wanting to read this particular voynich?
Yes, considering how hard they have been working to build a nuclear device with which to attack Japan, I am surprised they let this opportunity escape them. They could have seriously F-d up Tokyo, and it doesn't seem like it would have taken much to do it.
Thanks vlm. Too few people who say "just bury the thing" seem to have even a rudimentary grasp of the issues at hand.
Most who criticize TEPCO and Japan will completely ignore the amazing mitigating efforts that have been done at the site.
I myself have a tendency to criticize what appears to be an information embargo, but I also realize that there is no reason to devote any resources toward providing *me* with information, since I'm not in any way involved in the response effort...
Would you rather feed your child a fish with one microgram of plutonium, let him or her play in a ball pit with one microgram of asbestos, or let him or her chew on a windowsill that may or may not have been painted with lead paint?