cryptid

The Daily Mail's science section (which is generally engaging and delightful) reports on an enigmatic breakthrough in code- breaking, won not by brute computing, which the cipher resisted, but by more creative and computer-aided approaches and determination, including those strange word-verification, anti-Turing authenticators that apparently prove one's sentience. Computer scientists have re-visited a mysterious and inscrutable 18th century volume (the Copiale Manuscript, housed at the Berlin archives of the Akademie der Künste) from an unknown secret society and have managed to decode the first few pages, using the techniques described in the article, of the 105 page text. This preface apparently described a ritual hazing of an initiate into the mysteries of this Freemason-like order. It is not clear whether the order was occult or alchemic or something else. I am not sure either about what goes into the process of decoding, but it is interesting to speculate on the linguistic mysteries that might be revealed or secrets disclosed by building on this technique, and I do wonder why the rest of the text did not just unfold with the decoding of the initial pages. It turns out that some old ciphers are believed to be red-herrings, that the message is not in the surface text but in microprinting in the marginalia or coded deeper in every third or fourth letter or only revealed through coloured-lenses.  Maybe the tract will prove not so willing to divulge all its secrets.

geldpolitik or punch & judy

A few voices, weary of demi-solutions that because of self-interest no one is willing to meet half-way, continual scolding and talk whose length is outstripping modern patience and sensibilities, have raised a disturbing spectre of concern, which, I think, is forgetting the spirit of an experiment that strives for cooperation and integration without surrendering identity or sovereignty: some European Union members that have been made to feel on the periphery or only marginally engaged have expressed fear about the EU becoming enfeoffed (belehnte), paying tribute to a new Napoleonic marauding or Holy and Roman Empire of the Germans--or something more sinister.

Those fears and the United Kingdom's dour divisiveness are of course allowed but are not helpful and probably only stoke the power of the real beneficiaries of that tribute that will be paid to the banks and financial institutions. Money managers of course play an important role in remediation and recovery (or delay and dalliance) but they should not be ceded powers they do not have. Banks are like any other utility, regulated and often owned by the State, like plumbing and power-grids, and nothing more--though they've grown beyond pipes and a series of tubes, like wireless communication service providers and social networking platforms, into something that we are beholden to and tyrannized by. The EU is limited in the paths that it can sound, and that is probably a very mature and responsible thing for all parties--like it won't print more euro or tolerate laggards too well--but the solvency of big banks should not obscure real marketplace choices and resolution.

decoder ring or mnemonic spelunking

My brain is still a little addled and turning somersaults over some of the techniques and demonstrable, learnable talent of the imagination and memory described in Moonwalking with Einstein. One of the more intuitive and prêt-a-porter tricks, hacks invoked the Phonetic Major System, developed by Basque sixteenth century polymath and educator Pierre Hérgony, for making strings of numbers more memorable.

Most minds, irrespective of attention span, can only be induced to hold only about seven digits in the short-term memory--because recall of words, direction and other impressions take precedence, but using the Major System (as a guide: it all may seem a little silly to turn numbers into personalities and colourful metaphors when Handys and sticky notes do a fairly good job, but this or one's own associations do become snared in the mind), one can transform an often referenced but never remembered number, like the stubborn IP address of a network printer that is forever needing to be re-mapped, into a more remarkable phrase and image.

Using the technique prescribed (or whatever system and scheme makes sense) of turning consonants into numbers, leaving vowels, w, y, and h as interstitials, one turns an eleven digit number into a "MeSH VoTeR MaPpinG a BuN." Having a subject, a verb and an object (SVO oder Subjekt-Objekt-Verb auf die deutsche Sprache) makes the image even more catchy, though not necessarily graceful or poetic. The Major System, requiring no additional training or meditation, seems to work but I wonder if it is the number, the image or the system itself one remembers--or is it all three?

inked or plastisol billboards

Unfortunately, with the golden autumn days dwindling in Germany, it is no longer t-shirt weather, but I know that elsewhere, in areas less prone to seasonal superlatives, there is still ample chance to don one’s favourite funny, subtle and artistic wearable statements. Some of my favourite creative factories are Last Exit to Nowhere with corporate logos that only exist in cinema classics and Threadless, whose collection of artists produce consistently fun designs that are voted into print by customers.

Those and many other produce designs that are instantly recognizable, though with each, one would probably be the only kid on the block sporting it.

jolly roger or goonies r good enough

For another spooky Halloween tale (and perhaps less theologically challenged than the last, or perhaps not) is the curious story of Hanseatic privateer turned pirate, Klaus Störtebeker, is circulating the internet (first appearing to me via the fantastic and phantasmagorical Atlas Obscura), and having never heard of this episode before, I did some research and discovered that it is not just a scary, friend-of-a-friend urban legend ghost story, the beheaded pirate most remembered for the not unremarkable feet of lurching some twelve paces through the gallows after he had been decapitated, but a fascinating history and a tale of a man elevated to folk-hero.

Störtebeker, almost certainly not his real name but probably a pirate nom de guerre since it means something like to drink down the cup in one gulp, originally helped keep supplies flowing safely between ports of the Hanseatic League during conflicts with Sweden and Denmark, but once his services were no longer needed, and attributably out of a sense of justice to distribute the wealth among his band of conspirators and the common land-lubbers who suffered under the monopoly of the guilds, he turned pirate himself. After some years of conquests, Störtebeker and his crew were eventually captured and condemned to death around the year 1400, after failing to commute their sentences with fantastic offers of plunder, by the senate in Hamburg. Störtebeker’s ghoulish theatrics in the gallows, walking without his head, was more than just sheer resistance (I had never heard of this story and it reminded me of that often repeated episode of a maiden, after being accused of witchcraft and about to be burned at the stake, eating as much gun-power as she could stomach to take the whole audience and inquisition with her) but he plead for a deal with the jury: first to be executed, Störtebeker pledged that he would walk away afterwards and that all the members of his crew that he passed ought to be spared. He passed a line-up of eleven or twelve of the men and might have gone on to save them all, if he had not been tripped, as some say. When this amazing feat came to pass, the judges decided not to uphold their end of the bargain and had all seventy or so of his men executed anyway. I imagine that that cursed Hamburg for all time, eventually leading to the League’s dissolution. Incidentally, the judge asked the executioner afterwards if he wasn’t tired from all that work. The executioner boasted that he was not worn out at all and could still take on the entire senate, if need be, and for that, the executioner was put to death too.