Tag Archives: wired

Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack

Kryptos

Almost 20 years after its dedication, the text has yet to be fully deciphered. A bleary-eyed global community of self-styled cryptanalysts—along with some of the agency’s own staffers—has seen three of its four sections solved, revealing evocative prose that only makes the puzzle more confusing. Still uncracked are the 97 characters of the fourth part (known as K4 in Kryptos-speak). And the longer the deadlock continues, the crazier people get.

[…]

The 97 characters of K4 remain impenetrable. They have become, as one would-be cracker calls it, the Everest of codes. Both Scheidt and Sanborn confirm that they intended the final segment to be the biggest challenge. There are endless theories about how to solve it. Is access to the sculpture required? Is the Morse code a clue? Every aspect of the project has come under electron-microscopic scrutiny, as thousands of people—hardcore cryptographers and amateur code breakers alike—have taken a whack at it. Some have gone off the deep end: A Michigan man abandoned his computer-software business to do construction so he’d have more time to work on it. Thirteen hundred members of a fanatical Yahoo group try to move the ball forward with everything from complex math to astrology. One typical Kryptos maniac is Randy Thompson, a 43-year-old physicist who has devoted three years to the problem. “I think I’m onto the solution,” he says. “It could happen tomorrow, or it could take the rest of my life.” Meanwhile, some of the seekers are getting tired. “I just want to see it solved,” says Elonka Dunin, a 50-year-old St. Louis game developer who runs a clearinghouse site for Kryptos information and gossip. “I want it off my plate.”

via Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack.

Pfft. I bet the NSA could crack it in seconds. 😛

Total Recall: The Woman Who Can’t Forget

It’s a Monday afternoon in November, and I’m driving down Ventura Boulevard with Jill Price, the woman who can’t forget. Price, who is 43, has spent most of her life here in Los Angeles, and she remembers everything. In the space of two minutes, she tells me about the former motel lodge with a bear in front, the Courtyard hotel that used to be a Hilton, and a bowling alley—since replaced by a Marshalls—where a Nicolas Cage film was shot. All this comes pouring out so fast, I wonder aloud whether Price has had too much coffee. She laughs, says no, pulls slightly at her blond hair, and starts up again.

[…]The most remarkable moment comes when Sawyer asks Price when Princess Grace died. She immediately answers, “September 14, 1982—that was the first day I started 12th grade.” For once, it seems that the memory lady has blown it. Sawyer laughs nervously and tries gently to right her guest: “September 10, 1982.” Price misunderstands, thinking she’s being prompted to identify another event—the possibility that she’s being corrected apparently doesn’t occur to her. No, Sawyer says, she has made a mistake; according to the book that 20/20’s producers were using as a source, Princess Grace died on September 10. Price stands her ground, and not 60 seconds later, a producer breaks in: “The book is wrong.” Price is right after all!

via Total Recall: The Woman Who Can’t Forget.

An excellent read. This is like New Scientist on crack – which is completely fine by me.

15 Links – The Somewhat Epic Edition

Haven’t done this for a while, so here’s a few links that I’ve picked up from the interwebs these couple of days…

COÖP
Sure, it’s flash. But it’s damn cool anyway! Sorta like a LED-scrolling name badge, but in the standard OSX-style tickbox instead. From what I can gather, it’s some sort of design-based website. Thanks to @decryption for this one.

start.io
This has been labelled “Web 2.0” at it’s best – and it’s not hard to see why. Essentially, start.io is a collection of links for your customisable pleasure, that anyone can access. You can sort you links out, and then people who have similar interests to you can see which websites you like the most!

40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica
Could you spot Helvetica from a mile off? Okay, name a brand that features Helvetica as it’s logo. Name two. Name another? In any case, this site decides to showcase 40 logos that have two things in common: they’re all awesome, and they’re all based off Helvetica.

Bloody Scammers
This is a JPEG link that shows an interesting conversation between a Skyper and a scammer. Well, at least the scammer was honest?

Sad Roo Is Sad
Another JPEG link, again from Twitter, this one shows a kangaroo – with what seems to be a tear. Awwww….

RSS Lamp Shades
Aw, c’mon now. This is just too awesome not to share with you. I mean, nothing says “web geek” better than RSS Lampshades. Now, if only they made Facebook or Twitter ones…

Have Gadgets Turned Us Into Lazy Morons?
Well, have they? There’s an amusing graphic on the page that shows the evolution of the human species, you know homo erectus, etc, and at the end, there’s this pic of a guy hunched over a computer keyboard, peering into a monitor… Gold.

Periodic Table of Game Controllers
I love how they’ve left out the actual outlines of the controllers themselves. Full size is an epic pic indeed, you can view it here. I’d love to have this in my room, blown up to poster-size and hanging on my wall…

Periodic Table of Typefaces
Just like the gaming one above, this periodic table is once epic pic. I probably wouldn’t want it as a poster (just because I’m not a designer), but still – it’d be ultra cool in any case. Egads! Where is Verdana?! They left my favourite typeface out! 😮

It Takes Roughly 17 Hard Drives To Stop a .50 cal Armour Piercing Incendiary Round
This is excellent – guns and hard drives. Seriously, though – a .50 cal? Armour piercing? If all that wasn’t enough, incendiary? I’m so there, and you should be too. Not Safe For Work, because there’s death metal and lots of swearing.

Flammable Water
Not actually flammable water, per se, but the fact that a couple in the US managed to light the *gas* that was coming from their water supply? Sounds like another Humberto Vidal disaster waiting to happen. (As a side note, I saw the “Seconds from Disaster” clip about the aforementioned disaster… Things like that just shouldn’t happen.)

Laser Dial
No, it’s not a laser telephone. It’s got nothing to do with telephones at all, actually. Instead, think more along the lines of a laser sundial. It’s super cool, and I want one.

Masked Man Demos iPhone 3.0 Beta
This is a vid of a masked man (who likes to say like, like, a lot) who goes through pretty much every iPhone OS 3.0 feature you can think of. Or poke a finger at. See what I did there?

Sanwa’s Throat Microphone
Awesome throat mike is awesome. I want one, even if the only reason would be to look like a Navy SEAL/USMC Force Recon/Delta Op when I’m skyping, haha! 😀

5 Facebook Profile Pic Hacks
Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I will have to look into doing one of these at some stage, just to “spruce up” my facebook a bit.

Web Sites I Enjoy!

MySQL was completely down on our web-hosting on Sunday (31st August) night, and so I apologise for the delay in posts! I have no idea why it was down, but it was the only thing that was actually down – Apache and all the rest of it was working fine. Since WordPress runs off a MySQL database, it also meant that both freshbytes and Benny Ling’s Bling were both down. Not cool.

In the meantime, here are some websites I enjoy on a frequent basis – if you’re like me, I’m sure you will too.

Links:

Assembles Elucidation – The Daily WTF
Right, so The Daily WTF is one of the best websites out there – completely awesome. It’s strictly for nerds/geeks (what exactly is the difference?), so those not Vitamin-D challanged need not apply.
This particular story is awesome – it’s about the manual that came with a hard drive enclosure, sort of a “lost in translation” if you will.
Error’d is one of my favourite parts of The Daily WTF – showing how dumb smart tech can be!
Oh, and before you ask: WTF does not stand for what you think it stands for; it currently stands for Worse Than Failure – because, let’s face it, nothing is worse than failure.

Fan Death – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I kid you not. Following on as a side-story from The Daily WTF link above, this particular Wikipedia page apparently describes a South Korean urban legend that states if an electric fan is left on overnight in a room where you’re sleeping, it can cause death through suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia.
It then goes on to list the reasons why this isn’t actually possible – some of my favourites are:

  • Vortex theory – in this scenario, the electric fan manages to create a vortex, thereby sucking out all the oxygen, and creating a partial vacuum inside.
  • The electric fan somehow “chops up” all the oxygen particles in the air – leaving none to breathe.
  • “That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing. This explanation ignores the fact that most people point a fan towards themselves when using one, which causes air to move past the face but does not change the amount of air present.”
  • The same electric fan somehow “uses up” all the oxygen in the room, leading to asphyxiation and death.

In light of these strange fan-related deaths, most fans sold in Korea now have an timer that automatically turns the fan off after an extended period os use. Apparently, this “automatic timer” is touted as a “life-saving” feature, go figure…

Opinion: How Apple can gain significant OS market share
Now, if only Apple listened to all the little people… This being one of the more recent Ars Technica articles (but quality as usual), it discusses how Apple could be even more awesome than they are now, especially in terms of OSX market share.
The product that started it all was, without a doubt, the iPod. The current popularity of Macs in today’s world is due partly to the massive hype of the iPhone – great work Apple Marketing – but much of it can only attributed to the initial success of the iPod. If people didn’t know about the iPod, they wouldn’t know about the iPhone.

Top 5 Gadgets That Could Get You Arrested
Wired is one of my favourite tech sites, apart from the legendary Ars Technica. I’m not a huge fan of Slashdot, Gizmodo, or any of those kinds of sites, and while I do enjoy Engadget every once in a while, Wired and Ars contribute more professional material, IMO.
Anyways, the top five gadgets that could get you arrested are completely awesome – I wish I had the Sonar II.
Like a commenter on that post said – why didn’t they include mobile jammers or the like? I’m sure they would get you arrested.

Hope you enjoyed the links.