Click here to submit a clue for this page. repubgirl: 05/07/01 Map on the right is Cape Town, South Africa, and map on the left is Hamburg, Germany. 'radicalisme petit-bourgeois' = 'middle class radicalism' heretic: 05/07/01 the whole first page is set up as a bit of a fractal. it's almost certainly solely for visual affect, but it DOES say, "the endless line of splendor," and fractals are endless. seems like these people would've included more detail if they wanted to express something as a fractal, though. jessica: clue: The Swedish (II on the second sheet) translates: "You can expect van Riebeeck to cast anchor in Table Bay two month after Pentecost under approximately the same circumstances as those who "advised" in 1652. Scurvy among the crew cannot be avoided. This is one of those difficult ventures that is worth what it costs, even if the costs are sky-high. Capetown exists today only because men with insight were originally willing to invest in failure." Here's some info about van Riebeeck: Van Riebeeck, Jan (1619-1677), was the Dutch commander of the first settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. Jan Antoniscz Van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands. He joined the Dutch East India Company when he was 20 and was sent to Indonesia in 1640. He also worked in Japan and Indochina. Van Riebeeck was eventually sent home to the Netherlands, after he was accused of private trading. On the voyage back, the Dutch fleet called in at Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope. Van Riebeeck spent 18 days ashore and became convinced that the cape could supply passing ships with fresh produce. Back in the Netherlands, the Dutch East India Company offered him another opportunity. He was sent to the cape to put his ideas into practice. His instructions were to plant a vegetable garden, build a protective fort, and trade cattle with the local inhabitants. He arrived at the cape in 1652, and for the next 10 years, he worked hard overcoming many obstacles. In 1662, Van Riebeeck was transferred to Batavia (now Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia). In 1665, he accepted the post of secretary to the Council of the Indies. ashton 05/08/01: Language man strikes again ... Quotation: ci4 Language: Chinese From: none Translation: I. (n) order; sequence ["yi1 ci4" -- one by one in due order. "che1 ci4" -- train number. "wu3 ci4 lie4 che1" -- train No. 5] II. (adj) 1. second; next: ["ci4 ri4" -- next day] 2. second-rate; inferior: ["ci4 pin3" -- goods of poor quality; defective goods] III. (measure) ["san1 ci4" -- three times. "shou3 ci4" -- first time]. Quotation: "sol contra Gabaon ne movearis et luna contra vallem Ahialon". Language: Latin From: Latin Vulgate, Joshua 10:12 Translation: "Sun, stand still at Giberon, and moon in the valley of Aijalon". Quotation: MXKYMT PTY / "m'chokimot pethi" Language: Hebrew From: Psalms 19:7. Translation: "making wise the simple" Quotation: "et ad haec quis tam idoneaus" Language: Latin From: Latin Vulgate, 2 Corinthians 2:16 Translation: "and who is sufficient for these things?" Quotation: "Toi la plus digne de confiance parmi les filles d'Eve, joyau des neiges, j'auais prefere voir tes yeux que toutes les cites du monde. Si les mortels pouvaient t'aider maintenant, je ferais honte a Archimede et deplacerais ce qu'aucun levier ne pourrait. Puisse Celui qui regne sur tout daigner nous donner ,dans l'autre vie, la grace de comprendre pourquoi certains ont recu la lumiere alors que d'autres ont ete laisses aux tenebres." Language: French From: Unknown Translation: (from Babelfish) "You worthiest of confidence among, the jewel daughters of Eve of snows, I [would prefer] to see your eyes that all the [cities of world]. If the mortals could help you now, I would make shame has Archimedes and [move] what no lever could. Can That which [rules] all to condescend to give us, in the other life, grace to understand why some received the light whereas others have [been] leashed with darkness. " Quotation: "argyreais logchaisi mache kai panta krateseis" Language: Greek From: Unknown. Not from the New Testament. Translation: uncertain. Something to do with fighting with silver spears and with all one's strength. [Strong's nos: 693-696, 3057, 3163, 2904]. ================================================================================ The Leitmotiv for this year is from Sirach 44:1. Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus) is an apocryphal book found in Catholic Bibles. ================================================================================ Hamming distances are actually pretty simple. They're important in digital signal processing, when you want to compute how similar two strings of binary bits are. The hamming distance is the number of corruptions it would take one string of bits to turn into another string. For example, 1010 and 1011 have a "Hamming distance" of one; 1010 and 1001 have a Hamming distance of two, and so forth. Some error-correcting codes exploit the fact that every valid encoded string is of Hamming Distance three or more from the closest valid string, hence being able to automatically correct one-bit errors. ================================================================================ Pi rears its ugly head in spades. In the first box, we have four clues which all relate. Bailey, Borwein, & Plouffe: used the PSLQ lattice algorithim to discover a cute little function that generates the number pi, one hexadecimal digit at a time. [ http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/plouffe/plouffe.html ] Moving clockwise from this box you'll notice the numbers comprising the border are 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, and 6 ... Below Cromwell you see five more digits: 5, 3, 5, 8, 9 ... Carrying on to the next page ... above the radioactive decay sequence for Uranium 235, we continue: 7932384 ... yadda. Whoops. At 5923078, the Orphanage omits the digits "164062862" but continues on with 0899862 ... etc. The same thing happens on the next line. The digits "081284811" are omitted between the digits "17253594" and "17450284" ... ================================================================================ Anedio Ranfagni -- physicist at the Italian National Research Council who demonstrated a method for acheiving faster-than-light velocities in free space. The INRC is in Firenze. [ http://bric.postech.ac.kr/science/97now/00_6now/000601a.html ] ================================================================================ ================================================================================ L.V. Hau -- physicist at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Demonstrated a method for slowing the speed of light to 17 m/s in an Bose-Einstein condensate. [ http://www.physics.harvard.edu/fac_staff/hau.html ] ================================================================================ 238U + n -> 239 U -> 239 Np + b- -> 239 Pu + b- -> 235U + a The recipe for converting Uranium 238 (rather boring stuff) to Uranium 235 (fairly interesting stuff). Best served slightly below room temperature, accent with a twist of lime ... ================================================================================ Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost. This year, it falls on June 10th. Confessio Augustana day is June 25th. ================================================================================ ANSI 9.49-1998 is entitled "Secure Remote Access to Financial Services for the Financial Industry" ================================================================================ (415) 369-6000 is indeed the phone number to the Sony Theaters Metreon cineplex (101 Fourth St, corner of 4th and Mission, San Francisco CA 94103). $9.00 general admission. [http://snout.org/movies/bam-thx.shtml] ================================================================================ ... the room reservations at the Hotel California in particular be extracted only as Blum Integers ... Blum Integers are integers of the form n = pq, where p and q are both prime numbers congruent to 3 mod 4. 3, 7, 11, 19, 23, and 31 are the first six primes congruent to 3 mod 4. The Blum integers less than 100 are 9, 21, 33, 49, 57, 69, 77, and 93. Blum integers are of some cryptographic interest. [ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15827-f98/www/Slides/lecture2/base.041.html ] ================================================================================ Song #695 in the Episcopal Hymnal (note: the Orphanage Spellchecker was out to lunch on this one) is entitled "By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered", and was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer while in Nazi prison at Shoenberg. [ http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/133.html] [ http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/b/b063.html] ================================================================================ General thoughts: Yes, I'm still of the opinion that the Mayday mystery is little more than an elevated form of madness, a mere sesquipedalian form of amusement, and has no rhyme, reason, goal, method, objective, purpose, or meaning beyond what you find in it. The Orphanage doesn't help at all with their "suggestions". To paraphrase Homer, I fear the Freaks even when they bear clues. I don't even bother looking for patterns or correlations. There aren't any! =-) I dare the Orphanage to prove me wrong. =-) ================================================================================ hance: .... yeah, and then they'll start leaving shit on your answering machine... dave: 05.08.01 clue: I did a google search on aportion of the public key in the upper left corner and found a possible match at http://adis.cesnet.cz/cgi-bin/lwgate/PROPAG-L/archives/propag-l.log9411/Author/article-4.html. The key in the upper left corner is about a quarter of the way down in the encoded message. I don't know much about encoded messages, but maybe you could take a look. clue: Forget my last email. The text is actually a uuencoded message. I was able to cut it out and open it in WinZip, but it's in a foreign language. Don't know which one, but I'm guessing Russian or Bulgarian. Actually, given the URL (.cz) and some extra research, I think the message is in Czech. anonymous 05.08.01 name: near a terminal clue: Get somebody who can really speak French. The first sentence pretty much says: "Most trusted of Eve's daughters, jewel of the snows, I would rather have seen your eyes than all the cities in the world." Babelfish is good for translating street signs and cheese labels. Jessica 05.09.01 clue: "Porcine extispicy" Porcine = of or resembling a swine or pig extispicy = Inspection of the entrails of sacrificial victims for the purpose of divination. Hmmm...so their French dinner course seems to consist of West Indian blood pudding on "oakleaf"?? and baked potatoes. Nice, eh? bingo05.09.01 clue: Okay, did some talking with my resident pharmacy expert and here is what I've learned. cyclosporine, mycophenolate mofetil and prednisone are all immuno-suppresant drugs traditionally used by those with organ transplants. Cyclosporine and prednisone are also used in treatment of auto-immune diseases and severe arthritis. The listed dosage of cyclosporine would also not be unusual for chemo-therapy. Just a pharmacy note b.i.d. stands for twice a day, that's just standard pharmacy notation so I'm not sure it alone is significant. The most interesting information I was was able to learn was in regard to the mycophenolate mofetil (also called Cellcept). This is the drug most commonly used in cardiac (heart) transplants and the dosage listed, 1500 mg b.i.d., is the exact dosage given to such patients. I believe the whole statement is talking about a cardiac transplant as the QRS voltage is the electronic signature of the heart, its measured when the valve in the atrium closes. The final statement also indicates the heart, though an endomyocardial biopsy doesn't bode well for the patient. ashton 5.10.01 Interesting that April 4 and May 1 both reference Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yes, I noticed that stuff was UUENCODED. Files that have lines that start with "M" generally are. =-) Bry, is there a way you can get Dave to post us the text? I think it's chaff, though, it's probably not important. (What am I saying?! In contrast to the other things on the page which are, presumably, important?) "the endless line of splendor". That comes up a lot. As previously noted, it's from that one poem by Vachel Lindsay, refering to Christianity. [http://encyclopediaindex.com/b/gnbth10.htm] Quotation: "Persta atque obdura" Language: Latin From: Horace, Sermonum 2:5 Translation: "Be steadfast and endure" "By rust and corrosion ... yadda yadda yadda ... by whatever means necessary." C.f. May 1 1988. The pattern of new announcements coming out on May Day is well known (I think ... I donno, anyone here suprised to learn that the MayDay mystery has something to do with May 1?) I don't know if anyone has noticed, however, the Winter Tour pages coming out on the FIRST WEDNESDAY OF EVERY DECEMBER SINCE 1990? I've checked the unscheduled pages, but I haven't noticed any other similar correlation. I gotta get to bed. Pax tibi. =-) hance - we noticed. jade -e 5.10.01 OK, I'll try to come up with something more concrete in the morning, but here's my two cents for my first look at this ad. This may be blindingly obvious and simultaneously totally useless, but the quoted section at the end of the second page that says "on subway walls and tenement halls" is (at least on the obvious-pop-culture-reference level) a lyric from Simon & Garfunkel's song The Sound of Silence. That song itself has way more levels than I care to contemplate at 1:30 in the morning, but I believe the relevant part is "And the sign said: The words of the prophet are written on subway walls, and tenement halls, and whispered in the sound of silence." So presumably the LOC are being prophetic in their scrawlings. (MP3s for your listening pleasure: Version 1 (Live, yet intelligble), Version 2 (Original, less intelligible). The relevant lyric is at the end of the song, time mark 3:16 in version 1, time mark 2:38 in version 2.) Sometimes I feel like we must be dealing with Discordians or something. hance: no offense, but I don't think discordians are this organized. :) loungefly 05.10.01 clue: Translation of the German on the right side of the second ad: 1) Freude im Alltag = Joy in every day 2) Heute die zahlen, morgen = Today pay, tomorrow... 3) Das Gedanke wird nicht bewußt gedacht werden. = Thought will not consciously be thought. lysis 5.10.01 clue: The text on the upper left, that looks like: M["!O8G)A>B!S=MAT82'_#OH-"C(N($IA:X(@:G-O=2!P&%M(# ashton 05.10.01 A quick observation for today: http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/offsite/letters072000/letter6/page.jpg ================================================================================ Quotation: "im Feindesland" Language: German From: ADW 10/24/90 Translation: "in enemy territory" ================================================================================ "Determine the chronological coordinates by the numerical occurrences of the essive case in the afore-mentioned chapter, congruent with {{59.4235N / 24.7203E}} and then execute the limited subroutine as per the specifications of 9/20/2000." After reading the Latin quotation of Joshua 10:12, my first thought is, "wait a sec, there is no 'essive case' in Latin! WTF are they talking about? I had to do some scrounging around on the web to learn that use of the essive case is more a Finnish-Baltic thing than anything else. Interestingly enough, the coordinates given point to the city of Tallinn, Estonia, right across the strait from Helsinki. Estonian has 14 cases, one of them being the essive case. =-) [http://www.cusd.claremont.edu/~tkroll/inflection.html] So I decided to take the Orphanage's instruction to determine how many times the essive case appears in Joshua 10. Since I lack an Estonian Bible at hand (nor would it do any good -- I wouldn't be able to read it), I looked for things that, read in English, would be translated with the essive case -- the essive case being the use of a noun to show what it is, or what is used as. I found ten occurances of what I THINK are essive cases: three of them appearing in the form "the Lord, the God of Israel", and seven of them in the form "so-and-so, the king of such-and-such country". They are: Joshua 10:1 (x1) Joshua 10:3 (x5) Joshua 10:19 (x1) Joshua 10:33 (x1) Joshua 10:40 (x1) Joshua 10:42 (x1) I'm not sure what to make of this, except to go into Ivan Panin-esque speculations about 10:19 and the "19-round metric", (hey, 19 is a number with numerological significance in Islam and the Quran) or the numerlogical or Christian importance of the numbers 3, 7, and 10. The "limited subroutine as per the specs of 9/20/2000" is probably their reference to the Phoneme Recognition / Word Recognition block diagram on that announcement, but I'm at a loss at how to "execute" it. ================================================================================ While we're on the subject of 9/20/2000 ... regarding the coordinates {{ 42.358002 N 71.062206 W }} where the plenary session is [was] to be held: (btw, Bryan, you mistyped them. Good thing no one was sitting at the Dunkin Donuts that day when all the real action was going on 25.9" -- two fifths of a mile -- to the north!) 42N 21' 28.8" 71W 03' 43.9" [http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=10&T=1&X=1651&Y=23457&Z=19&W=2] We're more looking at downtown Boston now. =-) Click on the link above, you're looking straight at the Boston State House Building. Bixby23 5.11.01 clue: Well, just as an addendum to Ashton's thorough definition of the Chinese character, I thought I'd chuck in my own two cents and point out that it is also commonly used in Japanese, where it is pronounced "tsugi" when not combined with other characters, and invariably means "next." I'm willing to bet that this holds true for modern Chinese as well (somebody help me out here). My point is that I suspect more involved definitions (defective goods, references to measurements) can safely be ignored as they are very likely archaic. My apologies if this was already obvious to everybody and was little more than a post jam-packed with useless info. clue: Forgot to add that the address on the second page "fourth and mission 94103" is in San Francisco, and the phone number goes to the Sony Metreon (sort of a high-tech playground), which contains a multiplex theatre as well as the largest IMAX theatre in North America (thus the "showtimes" notice) I have listed the current showtimes below in case anyone thinks this could be relevant somehow. [times ommitted, you can get them here] jade-e 5.11.01 Allright, still not much but here we go: ANSI X9.49: Title: Secure Remote Access to Financial Services for the Financial Industry Abstract: Defines the minimum security requirements for a secure and protected exchange of information between a user and a financial service provider. The protection offered will provide integrity for a message during transmission; provide secrecy of the message during transmission; identify the rightful user and financial service provider prior to and during data transmission; and prevent repudiation of a message or transaction by either party. That document costs $80 to download, I haven't been able to find a copy anywhere... The ANSI X9 standards are the encryption standards used by most banks. These standards include everything from good practices when dealing with PINs to algorithms for 3DES and PKI infrastructure practices. CRYPTO '87, pp 21 - 39: Special uses and abuses of the Fiat-Shamir passport protocol [Abstract] Mentions subliminal channels, apparently talking about problems with a proposed protocol for encrypted passports. The Quick Explanation: Zero-knowledge proofs of identity basically mean "The bad guys are listening. I know the password, and you claim to know the password, but how do I verify that you know the password without the people listening hearing it." There are quite a few techniques for this, one of them being the Fiat-Shamir protocol, which uses a random number and some fun math to do this. Oh, and did I mention it relies on the special properties of Blum Integers to work? This specific article talks about some problems with using this system to verify Passports, since it apparently has some holes in it's zero-knowledge basis that allows it to be used to transmit secret data during verification (to- and from- who I don't know), but I'm not sure how this applies to search engines. CRYPTO '86, pp 171-185: How to prove all NP statements in zero-knowledge and a methodology of cryptographic protocol design [Abstract] Hamiltonian Cycles, among their more well-known uses, can be used as a truly painful form of zero-knowledge proof... Search for "'Hamiltonian Cycle' NP zero knowledge" in your favorite engine if you feel like melting your brain. The Quick Explanation: "the last datablock received from Mistah Kurtz and/or Morphy cannot be conclusively graphed as a Hamiltonian Cycle" means, roughly, "We're using a time-intensive encryption scheme to verify who's sending us data, and their last transmission didn't come out right." The Crypto citation seems to bear out this interpretation. I should have the full text of the two Crypto articles soon. (The UofA subscribes to the Springer LINK service, so Sycraft is going to download the two files on campus. I'll post them when I get them.) Jesscia 5.11.01 clue: The Icelandic (þetta ár) translates "this year". Also, here's some info about the Garman & Kohlhagen model. http://www.vbfi.com/handbook/topic3/3.asp ---------------------- Btw, I found this short piece about Ranfagni's work. http://bric.postech.ac.kr/science/97now/00_6now/000601a.html Interesting to compare it with the Scientific American article sent to Repubgirl. What's with all the light experiments lately, aside from the whole "time standing still" and time having a different meaning to God (a day is as a thousand years) type thing...? clue: Beneath the picture: - Av. Paulista, 1450, the address of the Banco Mercantil de Sao Paulo in Brazil. - Rue V. Cousin, Sorbonne University of Paris is here. Is there a bank along this street too? I can't find it right off... - 3/5 Leonidze, address of the National Bank of Georgia in Tbilisi. I don't think the clue submital form liked my huge cut and paste. So here's a straight email. Here's the text of the uuencoded message. It's definitely in Czech, but I can't find a good web translator. * This message contains the file 'O.TXT', which has been * uuencoded. If you are using Pegasus Mail, then you can use * the browser's eXtract function to lift the original contents * out to a file, otherwise you will have to extract the message * and uudecode it manually. link the the same for right-click-save-as hance goddamn, dave, that's a good score. How in the hell did you find that? ashton 05.11.01 clue: With regards to the Chinese Character / Japanese Kanji, my purpose was just to do a first-level analysis, and leave second-order interpretation up to the rest of the crew. Although the most common use of ci4 is (III), you have to realize that no one at the Orphanage is a native Chinese speaker. My *personal* interpretation is that they were either trying to get at the idea of "time" (usually shi2 [http://www.zhongwen.com/d/174/d201.htm]) or possibly "sequence" (usually xu4 [http://zhongwen.com/d/167/d199.htm]). ci4 usually refers to time as an occurance -- as in, "this is the first time I've been to Seattle" or "I saw Evil Dead II three times", or "last time I went to Seattle, I saw Evil Dead II". ci4 is more akin to "kairos" without the connotation of "opportunity", whereas shi2 is almost directly "chronos". Meaning (II) isn't used nearly as often, and goes go back to the classical meanings of "ci4". I don't know Japanese, but I understand that when Chinese Characters are imported into Japanese, they rarely lose their meaning, although the pronounciation and use may be completely different. ben 05.12.01 I attached the uudecoed file - It's a little tweaked but still readable, I assume. I tried running it through the translator at http://www.kieto.com/jester.html but the output was useless. That would explain why it's hard to find automated translators for Czech. We may just have to find somone to do it. [here is the file] Not sure if my first post got through... The uuencoded message is found by Dave is signed by a "Dr. Zbyçek Trka". Found two links to papers he/she co-authored: http://adela.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/lat/knihovna/publik97/publ15.htm http://adela.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/lat/knihovna/publik94/publ17.htm Looks like he/she is a Czech particle physicist! Still can't translate the text, though...but it seems vaguely academic in tone to me. Hope that helps. Jessica 5.13.01 Okay, so the first sentence of the Czech says something along the lines of "To pitch the promotional ideas to the faculty of the Math and Physics department of Charles University in Prague (Univerzita Karlova v Praze). Well, guess where Dr. Zbyçek Trka works! S/he is an associate professor at the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics. Here's a link with address info: http://www.mff.cuni.cz/eng/organ/staff/TrkaZ.htm (Sorry, couldn't translate the whole doc, my Russian only takes me so far, and word for word translations are extremely tedious.) Bill 05.13.01 Lutine Bell: The bell of HMS Lutine , which sank in 1799. The ship was carrying a large amount of coin and bullion (brasher doubloons, perhaps?), and the loss fell on the underwriters, who were members of Lloyd's of London . When the bell was recovered during salvage operations it was taken to Lloyd's, where it now hangs. It is rung (and business is halted) whenever there is an important announcement to be made to the underwriters. It was formerly rung once if a ship had sunk and twice for good news. If you are "under the aegis" of the Lutine Bell, then...what? You don't have to work? You're insured? Nice to be insured in enemy territory, I suppose. heather 05.13.01 ... and I'm back. in case no one checked into it, using 'The Miraculous Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe Pi Algorithm'David Bailey, Peter Borwein and Simon Plouffe have recently computed the ten billionth digit in the hexadecimal expansion of pi. They utilized an astonishing formula which enables one to calculate the dth digit of pi without being forced to calculate all the preceding d-1 digits. No one had previously even conjectured that such a digit-extraction algorithm for pi was possible. Bailey, Borwein and Plouffe discovered their formula using the PSLQ lattice reduction algorithm. the formula is surely notimportant, but it's on http://www.mathsoft.com/asolve/plouffe/plouffe.html knock yourselves out, and kick me if this stuff turns out to be relevant and not just filler Mikey 05.13.01 Pelagianism = Denies original sin and affirms the ability of human beings to be righteous by the exercise of free will. (Dictionary.com) ------------- Hausdorff Spaces = Suppose X is some space, and that it's equipped with some topology Á. We say that X is Hausdorff (or T2) provided its points can be separated from one another by open sets. That is, if x and y are distinct points in X, we can find open sets U and V in Á with x in U and y in V, where U and V have no points in common. Being Hausdorff essentially means that there are enough open sets to stop the points in X getting 'tangled up' with one another. -- here's where I found this ------------- Letimotiv: I found the quote on This web page ------------- tricky 05.13.01 prednisone q6h, 5mg means to give prednisone, a steroid, every six hours, five miligrams. I doubt this helps anyone near a terminal 05.14.01 OK I checked with a faraway friend who grew up in Bois de Boulogne and she agrees that the first sentence in the French comes out in English as "Most trusted of Eve's daughters, jewel of the snows, I would rather have seen your eyes than all the cities in the world." She reads the rest of it to say "If mortals could help you now, I would shame Archimedes (or put Archimedes to shame) and move what no lever can lift. In the the life to come (French says 'the other life') may it please Him who rules all that we be given the grace to understand why some were given light and others were left in darkness." My friend went on to say that it sounds like a native speaker or at least someone who became bilingual living in or near Paris. She also thought it was certainly written by someone who grew up speaking standard Parisian, "la langue du nord de la Loire"--and had probably been to one of the universities. She wasn't sure why--"just feels that way." She also asked what happened to the woman in question but I told her that it probably has some other meaning. Another point on this page that someone smarter has probably already mentioned but I can't find it if they did--if you hit the link for the Sony Metreon you'll find that they are showing A Knight's Tale. There is reference to Chaucer's The Knight's Tale on 5-1-98. There is much earlier reference to Incept Date (like in '84?)--so if we knew when the Metreon began showing A Knight's Tale, it would give us an Incept Date. That might be the only point of the reference--it gives a way to supply numbers to the cybernetic program they are running. That might also explain an ongoing method of cluing each other in on what numbers to plug in to their programs. If they need to be covert for some reason they could appear to be crazy or at least irrelavent. They probably are crazy but most insane people are horribly disorganized and have trouble focusing. There seems to be much focus over a long time in these. On the pi mess--if you needed to specifiy certain numbers and also needed a HUGE database then you could use that algorithm to supply x-y-z and so on. I'm not sure this is as nuts as it appears but it could be just crazy. But then how do you explain the correlations? Wish I could be more help. hance - yes, you just summed it up - very crazy, but too many correlations. dave 05.15.01 The text, "Alberich is agian working under the River.", is also in the September 17, 1987 announcement. and The first Lutine Bell reference is from 1/20/88. "IF Schrodinger has fallen within the aegis of the Luitne Bell,..." and clue: "im Feindesland" was first used on 10/24/1990 as follows: "The last transmission of Capt. Morgan contains a THIRD LEVEL ANAMOLY: unless visual confirmation can be made prior to the Winter Tour, it must be assumed "Er ruht im Feindesland." hance/rob 05.15.01 I'm surprised nobody saw this, but rob pointed out that they spelled 'leitmotiv' wrong. anonymous 05.16.01 clue: The map in the lower left hand corner of the May 1, 2001 ADW appears to be Berlin, Germany while the map in the lower right hand corner appears to be Cape Town, South Africa. You may wish to verify this as many of the significant validating features on the maps have been obscured, presumably by design. In case it is helpful, here are links into the NIMA GeoSpatial mapping server for all maps that appear in any of the Mayday texts to date. The server and associated database can generate latitude and longitude coordinates for any of these regions and nearby features. Incidently, it can also take in coordinates in a couple of different formats if there are any positions still unidentified. Unfortunately, NIMA does not deal with street names very well, so I have attached additional URLs where a street map would be more appropriate. You can obtain additional geographic data for US locations, including conversion from zip code to latitude and longitude, at http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer hance: Attached to thi message was 22k of links to maps for almost every page in the Mystery, which I am now attaching on a per-page basis. Thanks! Awesome! :) mikey 05.21.01 clue: This just may be a way-off guess, but if you look at the 2nd part of this page, there are two rows of arrows either pointing up (1) or down (0)...for the first row, we get 0000 and the second is 1000, which is a hamming distance of 1...this may be way off, but I can't figure out what else the arrows could mean then a binary string type thing... ---- More on hamming distances...if you know the desired length of the string and the hamming distance (this is assuming we are in binary), then the number of strings you can have is equal to: N!/( (N-H)! * H! ) where N = length and H = Hamming distance. Additionally, if you have two strings and xor them, ie, turn all bits to 1 if not equal or 0 if equal, then the number of 1s remaining is the Hamming distance. Hamming distances do not only need to apply to binary systems. They can apply to any number base or even letters (ie TONED and ROSES has a distance of 3)...I do believe that using another set would ruin the equation which tells us the number of strings possible. Hamming distances also seem important in doing evolution/population distribution over time/genetics, including comparing DNA strands. I also found an equation which says the distance between two strings of binary digits is the summation of the absolute value of Ai - Bi (sorry don't know how to get fancy here). This means, for our first example 0000 and 1000, you get |(0-1)|+|(0-0)|+|(0-0)|+|(0-0)| = 1. Again, this doesnt work for other bases, unless you make the absolute value just turn the number into 1 instead of -x. It looks similar to the equation in the box to the left of "Hamming Distances" but my calculus is a bit rusty and I can't remember if summations and integrals relate very well. There are also large strings of (the same amount of) numbers, and I bet something interesting might happen if we applied Hamming distances to them, or to any of the strings we've seen on pages before, but the arrows thing is just a guess. Just for fun, the hamming distance of the two strands of pi numerals is 6. And I forgot to mention, Hamming distances are important in the computer world for error correction when transferring data... clue: It doesn't seem to be noted previously on this page that you received a letter or an email on 10-20-2000 which makes direct reference to the words under the music. They must put this maze of detail together considerably in advance. That might explain the corrective pages. It could also explain why there are so many details. If you need to extract a certain message without giving it away then you would have additional data that could be referenced later. bingo05.23.01 clue: More Pharmacy stuff regarding tricky's information on Prednisone. "prednisone q6h, 5mg means to give prednisone, a steroid, every six hours, five miligrams." Prednisone is usually given over a short period of time to reduce inflamation. It usually starts at a high dose and tapers off. However, the listed dosage here applies to something different. Prednisone is also used as an Immune system supressant (like in transplant, see my other entry on the other drugs listed). When used in this way the listed dosage while small is not out of line at all. Who knows, the whole drug thing may be a red herring, but it really does point to some form of transplant surgery, particularly a cardiac transplant. tricky 5.27.01 clue: Donated or transplant? Did you also notice how it says "do not be mislead by a reduction in the donated QRS voltage? QRS refers to heart rythm. It is part of an electrocardiogram. Again, I doubt this helps much but there it is. cynic205.27.01 clue: If there is a bunch of chaff in this one, not many would know but maybe "carson" does, like he says in his comment on this page. One thing that might make sense of it is the extraction method found in the most recent 5-1-2001 page. These people are clued in on math so they could have been using it last year too. For that matter, there are many extraction methods and some of them go back as far as the Alexandrine Greeks. All the dates could be plugged into a grid or a spreadsheet or even something of their own devising once you knew which method was in use. They might only need a name or a number from each of the various ads and then they could do permutations and so forth. I think these people would be hard to catch unless you could gain access to either their archives (like a database) or sit in on a meeting. They don't seem to be shy about the general outlines of what they are doing but an old weary guy like me increasingly suspects that they are doing two things at once: looking weird to keep casual inquiry to a minimum and at the same time using a public medium to give the impression of, like Ashton said, "elevated madness." Weird and mad are not the same, but if you put them together it would keep away, dare I say it, most people like us and most people who would just pick up the paper. As long as they don't get into public trouble the various authorities will leave them alone. Granted, this interpretration casts it more as a conspiracy than a game but it seems to fit the facts or at least the facts that I can understand. ???? 06.07.01 name: some nig known as some nig known as some nig clue: quite alright, it is an eleveanted form of madness, with a goal of making us learn new things. vinedresser 06.09.01 clue: Regarding Hirelings Probably won't help much but some groups like the quakers have exspessed deep mistrust of the establishment of a hireling ministry (for pay)Point being for a hired shepherd it is just a job and is not as fully committed to his flock. near a terminal 06.11.01 clue: OK back again for what may be the last time. Parts of this are beginning to worry me. I have thought about this next remark since Memorial Day because I wanted to be sure before writing it down. On Memorial Day I had to deal with a couple of young people and needed some way to entertain adolescents. So I figured "Kinght's Tale" would do the trick. Got a big shock while watching it because the hero or main character directly refers to the Bible verse which appears in this ad, the one about the sun standing still which makes time stand still. It worried me enough that I did a search on when Knight's Tale opened in theaters and I couldn't come up with any date before May 11. This thing appeared on May 1 and must have been written before that. So how did they know? There is more disturbing stuff about the movie mainly because it isn't deep or philosophical. It seems to be made for exactly why I went to see it, adolescent audience. What I am trying to say is only clear if you see the picture but I noticed a number of other things like the catholic clergy are mocked but the Bible and Jesus Christ are held in honor or at least as far as I could tell. That would definitely send some kind of subconscious protestant message to young people at the most impressionable point in their lives. Does anybody have a clear idea of what these people are up to? Carlos clue: My idle babbling of the month for your enjoyment. It makes as much (or as little) sense as everything else in this loony business, heck. SR=similarity ratio, CL=complete (cluster) linkage. These are technical concepts used in multivariate statistical analysis, apparently the work of some Wishart way back in the '70s. Don't ask me, my knowledge of statistics gives up way before multivariate. ;-) I'm sure there is some web page about it, if anyone wants to suffer through the actual details. anonymous 06.28.01 Philippians 3:13 in modern English is "Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead" ambrose 07.08.01 clue: The Greek that is printed in all uppercase letters is a quotation from Pittacus and is generally given in English as "Know the time." It is more accurate to say "Know the right time" or "Understand the opportune moment." Bilbo Baggins 08.01.01 name: Bilbo Baggins clue: This is actually from somebody else but she is so creeped out that I was asked to send it. (The girl thinks Hance is in with the freaks for sure, like he is a freak in regular people disguise.) So here is her clue and from what little I can understand of these it does fit: the cross in this one is generally known as The Crusaders' Cross BUT for that very reason it was adopted by the Huguenots. Not sure how that one is spelled but whatever spelling is correct they were the militant French Protestants. Any French Protestant would immediately recognize it or so she says and she spent a couple of years over there. She went on to say that to a traditional French Catholic, a Huguenot is like a bomb-thrower or super-radical even though the emblem is from history. The past living in the present and influencing minds living in our time. That does seem to fit themes that constantly recur in these but always in slightly different forms. It also fits that for this outfit, they never really lose regardless of what happens because the victory was settled before the war, much less the battle, began. So what if the Huguenots lost the first time? hance: for the eight millionth goddamn time, it ain't me. :P I run the site. Thats it. Although, technically, i guess I am a 'freak in regular people disguise' but not in the context of this puzzle. :) At least I ain't a goth. haskeller: 08.05.01 clue: The SR/CL could also refer to reflective integral lattices: http://www.matha.mathematik.uni-dortmund.de/preprints/95-02.html clue: The 53589 nr below the mandala (cross) is the zip code to a First Federal office (click on the link and locate the office in Stoughton) http://www.firstfed.com/locations clue: Jessicas translation "as those advised in 1652" seemes to indicate some kind of decryptation figures: 07/04/1652 tot 06/05/1662 or something to do with April 6th : http://www.lichtenburg.co.za/1650.htm Bob: 08.08.01 clue: F382447 Near the bottom. In 1999, this was the largest Fermat number that had been factored. Fermat numbers take the form Fn=F^2^n +1. As you might imagine, they grow huge rather quickly. From the site of the guy who factored the number: "If one were to write out the actual base 10 value of the number F382,447 then it would have approximately 10^115,127.4974 digits!! "If one were to write out the actual base 10 value of the number F382,447 in a square grid - at the rate of four digits per inch in the horizontal and vertical direction - then the square would have side length measuring approximatelye 10^57,545.58733 light years!!" So the Breitenfeld Battle Bond is maturing nicely. More info here: http://www.spd.dcu.ie/johnbcos/fermat.htm Bob 08.13.01 clue: I think there's an additional significance to the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe Pi Algorithm reference. It's mentioned in material that was mailed to Bryan last year. On Dec. 19, Bryan received two letters and some cash. Letter number 2 is a discussion of Catalan's constant and would appear to have no particular significance. However, on the back of the letter, which is reproduced here: http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/offsite/letter121900/letter2back.jpg There's a reference to the "Miraculous Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe Pi Algorithm." Oddly enough, if you follow Bryan's link to the original Mathsoft discussion of Catalan's constant, the Bailey-Borwein reference is no longer there. (They may have just changed the page.) The entire discussion that's reproduced in the letter to Bryan is still available here: http://pauillac.inria.fr/algo/bsolve/constant/catalan/catalan.html So, you might want to go and re-examine the contents of that mailing: http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/texts/letter121900.html By the way, is their a designated place to comment on the content of the deliveries and e-mails? clue: Also, as Ashton points out above, the symbols above Godel's name (lower left in main ad) were also mailed to Bryan in July of last year. There, however, the words "Ontologischer Beweis" appear above them. In addition to his more famous work, Godel attempted an "Ontological Proof" of the existence of God, and apparently this is an excerpt from that work. hance: I'm working on that, the ability to comment. version 2.0, which has been in the works forever... Unknown: 08.15.01 clue: Dear Bryan, Good to hear it sounds like you've been having a pleasant adventure on your trip! Since you're out and about checking up on locations from the mystery, I thought this might help... http://pollux.nss.nima.mil/calc/calc_options.html Not sure, but you might also need this... http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/celnavtable.html near a terminal: 08.20.01 clue: Somebody who is too chicken to send it in herself asked me to put this one on the table: Somewhere in the Old Testament there are lots of stories or histories about how David became king and all his problems. She says one of those stories tells about how he "feigned madness" when he was among a group of enemies. I know this is really hazy but if somebody could find that one it might resolve a lot of the "they're nuts" or "it is a long running joke." They seem to take the Bible very seriously and so that might be a natural diversionary tactic that would appeal to all of them. I've heard the story too but I can't remember where it is but something about David acted nuts because he was in danger and he got out of the danger because the people who could have killed him perceived insanity rather than strategy. anonymous: 08.28.01 clue: SPC = Chief Steam Propulsionman (USN rating) Perhaps more relevant than it seems. Perhaps not. Comment??? near a terminal: 09.10.01 clue: This is more a question than a clue. Does the webmaster know some of these people personally? I notice that you have Luther on the site logo and Luther seems to be consistently prominent. I ask because that would be one way to establish coordinates. Like avery time Luther appears it means "Wittenberg" or the place he was born and I can't remember that one. Then they wouldn't have to give three coordinates. Only two would appear and that would be really puzzling to anybody outside the plot. Also by leaving out what should be there (like a third coordinate)it would help make them look nuts and harmless. dave: 09.17.01 clue: Glad to hear your back. Reading your travel log was cool. I have a clue and then I have some extra info. First the clue. I was wondering if the '19-round' reference proceeding the quote ,'Sol, contra Gabaon ne movearis et luna contra vallem Ahialon.', might be a reference to the Jewish calendar which follows a 19 year lunar cycle. I'm reading the book about the history of discovery and it contained a chapter on the definition of the year and month through history. Maybe some of the other dates in the Mayday ads might make more sense on a lunar month time frame. Second, the note. I made my way down to the UofA library and duig up some new Mayday ads from the early 80's. Can recall the dates right now, but I get that info and send them to you. They're nothing specatular. They are very simple and contain Chinese charaters. hance: dave! goddamnit! email me! I lost your email! And I want those pages! Bobby: 09.20.01 clue: Bryan, I'm back in this biznatch. Regarding the number 114. It's prime factor decomposition is 2*3*19. In other words, 2*57. Twice the Blum integer 57. Its divisors are 1,2,3,6,19,38,57,114. The Sum of the divisors is 240; the arithmetic mean is 30. The harmonic mean is 19/5. (I included the harmonic mean because of the reference to 1/f noise). near a terminal: 09.25.01 clue: If you look in the upper right hand corner with the Chinese symbol in it, the date 2/22/88 appears. Then look at that one and it is heavy with Africa. Goes from Capetown as far north as Khartoum, which is in the Sudan. Whatever their interests may be, I don't think they change over time. It has been 13+ years and the African references keep appearing. For example, an explicit reference to Capetown is also in this one besides the reference to 2/22/88. cynics: 10.03.01 clue: Could be that this is a shallow point but I think it bears considering. The face changes over time. The new,very old ones are distinctly different. The ones in between are different from either the very old or the very recent. From what so many people have dug about about these, I don't think any part of it is random and that includes the faces. Rocky & Bullwinkle 10.08.01 mirror in 'recent' clue: Mr. Hance, after a considerable trek and equally considerable waiting period, we believe this machine is one that should appear on your log. The one designated by you as "the pimp" wished you to know that he is both alive and well. He is still on detached service but hopes to successfully complete that set of orders within the next three weeks. Shortly after his return he will be in contact with you. While located in KKKKKKKKK location, he read something on your site which disturbed him and immediately submitted an operational request to The Orphanage. The request has been approved and we have been instructed to transmit it. In regard to the announcement of 28 August 1991, be assured that NO reference was ever intended or implied to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. NO participant in The Cause would ever, under any conditions or circumstances, make a favorable allusion to John F. Kennedy. The Biblical reference cited by your correspondent was indeed correct--but be CLEAR AND CERTAIN that no favorable reference to Kennedy was intended. Beyond this we are not authorized to communicate. near a terminal 10.09.01 clue: Look at the reference to "subliminal channel transmission". That has to have more than one level of meaning. Movies and art in general work the most powerfully at the unconscious or subconscious level. We may never know but I think part of these messages are geared to activate something in the reader. Almost reminds me of _The Manchurian Candidate_. That's really extreme but I think the psychological drift in all these is very intentional but concealed. This is strictly for laughs but when I was young and wild there was a song that had the refrain "guard your mind." I think these are designed to go around the guards we all have in our heads. cynic2: 10.27.01 clue: I've been flipping through these at random to test this idea and I think it makes sense. Do you think this could be a Mensa plot? Plot is not too strong a word because they are definitely following some kind of plan and Mensa because it isn't possible for any ordinary group of people to put these together. I know that Mensa holds regular meetings all over the world and some of them might have decided to do something with their brains rather than just have parties and such. Maybe a better question would be is it a good plot or a bad one? hance: No offense to mensa, but I don't think they are this creative. That, and I'd say the religious overtones of this puzzle would conflict with a few of their rules. bob: 11.09.01 clue: Just to add to what Ashton said on the Leitmotiv, it seems to be more commonly translated as: "Let us now sing the praises of famous men, our ancestors in their generations" Bob: 11.20.01 clue: Regarding vinedresser's clue above: I never paid it much attention, because I thought few people would object to the idea of hired clergy. But then I did some research on it. Some Christians regard anyone who professes to be a Christian but who does not live up to Christian ideals as a "Hireling." See here: http://www.apostasynow.com/tgd/hire2.html Also, Jesus specifically uses the term to describe those who are not "good shepards" of their flocks, from KJV, John Chapeter 10: 7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. 10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. 12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. 13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. I think there's a pretty good chance that this is the source reference to the term Hirelings. Also, regarding the Rocky & Bullwinkle note above: Does it strike anyone else as odd that a group that apparently venerates figures as disparate as Luther, Mao and Godel would go so far out of their way to disavow any admiration for JFK? Finally (for now), if you read Jessica's new Scriptures Excel file, does it not suggesst an agenda? Bob: 12.09.01 clue: The cross at the center of the larger cross (the one inside the square and surrounded by four simple crosses), is not a Huguenot cross. For info on the Huguenot cross, see here (the Huguenot Society of South Africa, no less): http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/8140/x-eng.htm It is a Jerusalem cross and is, however, closely associated with the Crusades. Its symbolism has various explanations; see here: http://www.cumber.edu/acad/rel/webpage/cross/crjer.htm and here: http://www.hollowdeckpress.com/cross.htm The Jerusalem cross has also become associated with the idea of bearing another's burden. Interestingly, variations on the Jerusalem cross appeared on Spanish coins that were minted in Mexico and Peru during the 1600s. Many of the coins salvaged from the Atocha feature the cross. Notice that in the larger Jerusalem cross (with Luther, Calvin, etc.), the positions that would normally be occupied by the four smaller crosses are replaced by the references to Godel, Bismarck, etc. The Greek under Luther, zoh et nekron, appears frequently and is apparently referenced on the next page in this series. It's translated on at least one of the pages, but I don't have the translation available at the moment. In the second ad, the Melville quote at the bottom is another slight misquote. It's based on the first line of Chapter 82. I've included the second paragraph of the chapter for a bit of context: "CHAPTER 82 The Honor and Glory of Whaling There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method. The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity." So, they omit the words careful and true, and manage to refer to participants in an honorable and glorious tradition (demi-gods, no less), which is, presumably, the way they see themselves. Also in the second ad, to the right of the first pair of braces, Box 668 Angel's Gate. Box 668 and Angel's Gate appear symmetrically opposite each other in Mayday 2000. There's also a reference to a PO Box 668 in 12/5/01, which is associated with a bank in Martha's Vineyard. The only connection I can find between Angel's Gate and Martha's Vineyard is that there's an Angel's Gate Lighthouse near L.A., and a number of lighthouses on Martha's Vineyard. Grand Rounds, near top, second ad, appears to refer to medical "rounds" dedicated to a specific topic. Interesting with all the heart transplant/rejection stuff later in the ad. near a terminal: 12.10.01 clue: 2 points on this one and then I have to go back and pretend to be earning that bigtime government check. Wish now I stayed private but at least I get to slip in and look at these. Number One: This is my gut talking so take it for what its worth. I'd be careful about reading too much into the Melville quote as far as them having grandiose ideas about themselves. I have to listen all day or at least many days, to the exact words people say and many of the hearings deal with confused or delusional people. I don't think that's what we've got here, the patterns are too complex for one thing. They may think they are really cool or they may not, but they would never tell us. These are secrecy nuts and the texts say they expect their reward elsewhere. I think the Melville quote is important for a page or an edition or a rare volume in a certain library. Number Two: While driving myself crazy reading the correspondence for a clue on the most recent ad I came across "7/15/00". Look at it because it has San Francisco and ferry boats. Right behind the ferry dock is the financial district. The most recent ad connects places in banks, both numbered 668. You hyper-intelligent types can tell us the complex parts but some of this is really simple but you have to know every detail. Only the Freaks are that into it and I think that is why they have contempt for their opponents, they know that nobody else can master the details even if they unravel the math and the physics. While you are on "7/15/00" look at Leter 4 in that batch. This time the map is Los Angelse and it connects the 4 levels by means of ZIP codes. Also notice that it deals with the sea shore and especially Long Beach where I think is "Angel's Gate" lighthouse. Again, my point is that only the members can keep all this straight so they don't fear detection from anybody but their most brilliant and dangerous opponents. near a terminal: 12.14.01 name: near a terminal clue: Webmaster, I fouled up on a clue and you may want to transfer the clue on the SF ferry maps to 99-may1. I'm more convinced than ever that the one who signs "Bob" is probably right about the boats in San Francisco harbor and especially about the routes for the ferryboats because of the maps that were sent to you of the SF harbor. A simple approach to giving on-the-spot directions would be to put a couple of members with transponders on selected ferryboats. Then the others could track the route and know if they were supposed to show up at the Sheraton or the Hilton and so on. (I don't mean the transponders would take you there but that the design made by the tracked routes would point to some location. Unless you were an insider, even picking up the data would be completely meaningless. When they got to the hotel or whatever there could be a sign in the lobby, "Marin County Archaeology Club, Novato Chapter" or something else totally harmless and uninteresting. Then the members could go quietly and individually to whatever room was on the sign and nobody would ever know.) hance: remind me which pages those ferry maps are on again? cynic2: 12.19.01 name: In contrast to "near a terminal" I wonder if "subliminal channels" does not literally refer to "Crypto 87" and something that appears in those meetings. clue: (In a hurry and I messed this up, webmaster. The message is where my name should go.) The name is cynic2 and I continue to wonder if we shouldn't be more literal on many of these scholarly references. Almost nobody could check all of them especially over all these years. You could communicate anything you wanted to if the whole database is used and the point is that almost all of the references would be literal. To me that is a very sensible approach because I certainly can't run down "Crypto 87" even if I wanted to catch them and if I did, I'm not sure that would be good for my health. Johnny: 01.11.02 can somebody definte "exteroceptive correlation"? clue: can somebody define "suborned"? i think it means that the bad guys got somebody to talk or they figured out a way to decode something but probably it was somebody cracked or changed sides. blahedo: 01.18.02 clue: Sort of obscure, but hopefully relevant: the Jerusalem cross is the symbol adopted by a network of Roman Catholic retreats for high-school students called... wait for it... "Kairos". There may not be any more to it than that. The retreat program has existed at least since the early 90s, possibly longer. I'm having a really hard time finding further information online, as search results are dominated by retreat dates at various high schools. Jumbo: 02.01.02 clue: The stuff with the Russian letter in between prednisone and Angels Gate I'm pretty sure is a Russian publishing notation but not used in that form anymore. It denotes edition and publication details I think but I don't know enough to decipher this one. It looks to be rather old and is certainly Soviet issue. near a terminal: 02.05.02 clue: What is the mathematical demonstration in the upper right hand quadrant on the first page? Nobody has said much about that and it is certainly beyond me but I notice it starts out with a reference to 4. carson: 02.21.02 clue: blahedo/bryan: the first time i saw mention of kairos, i thought the same thing in regards to the high school retreats. salpointe does it, hance, but i looked into it and there's really no connection. even their translated meaning of the word is distorted from the translations given by other folks here. mork - 06.10.02 clue: This continues the "magic squares" form of analysis. Tbink about all the different languages that occur in these things. Then think that in every ad they come in a different order. The order itself could specify many forms of information but one obvious one would be the various forms of "magic squares" which are 3 by 3, 4 by 4 and so forth. So count the languages and that gives you a specific type of magic (a particular order of magic square) and the sequence of the languages would give you numbers in the squares and all sorts of other permutations. cynic2: 06.08.02 I just looked again at the Ranfagni cite which is found below. I also just read the strange letter about alchemy. If you think about making dyes from coal tar and tanks out of porcelain or at least porcelain-like material which is the very latest in US and NATO tank design, it would fit closely with what the old alchemists hoped they could do. In other words I am not sure that literal alchemy with some old boy sitting up at midnight with a raven and a skull is what these are about. On the other hand I think they do intend _alchemy-like transformations._ I know just enough about Tibetan meditation in its more extreme form to know that some of the results in inter-personal communication rival speed-of-light communication. If you don't think so that is your business but I suspect these people know a good bit about it and are doing something transformational, which may explain any apparent connexion with alchemy. near a terminal: 09.11.02 name: near a terminal clue: I said something like this once before and it is really bugging me today. The apparently personal reference to some "lost love" fits standard theory in half a dozen fields: the sense of loss makes for action. Palestinians blow up Israelis (they took our land), the Israelis retaliate with more settlements (God gave us this land and you Arab bastards are squatters) and so on. My point is a little difficult to make clear but the "romantic" threads that occasionally appear do fit with the deep physics: action motivated by something at a distance that has no clear connection. For example: Shakespeare writing poetry about "the dark lady." He really hated the bitch but he also desired her to the point of obsession--she is not at hand when he writes and that is why he wrote. She pulled him by being absent. Action at a distance. I hope one of your smarter people can make this more clear but I think it fits the nuclear and gravitational references. CTFotoman: 05.05.2004 Maybe too late - but never know U235 is what was used in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima (Fat Man) U238 was what was used in the bomb that was dropped on Nakasagi (Little Boy) By no strange coincidence, the development of these weapons was known as "Project Trinity" Matt 06.24.2004 The line of calculus about hamming distance is the definition of some sort of metric. In its simplest sense, a metric gives the "distance" between points in a space (e.g. the 2-dimensional metric for euclidean space is d(a,b) = sqrt(a^2+b^2), i.e. the Pythagorean theorem) Again we say "Orate pro nobis" (pray for us) at the end. alan 10.18.2004 Kennedy was a Catholic. My suspicion is that the Mayday folks disapprove of Catholics on principle. The "Hirelings" clue (paid Christian leaders who do not care for their flock) makes sense, because it is in line with the "Pelagians" reference. "Pelagian" is a term of derision used by hard-core Calvinists (Dutch Reform et al.) for those who believe in free will as a part of salvation (such as standard Lutherans). I think the cross with the names is a simple quadrant coordinate system. You figure out what the names represent, and then you can locate information in a quadrant (the Luther/Adolphus quadrant, or the Cromwell/Calvin quadrant). Here's a basic interpretation: Luther / Calvin - Spiritual Cromwell / Adolphus - Temporal - Calvin is opposite of Pelagius. Near A Terminal: I don't think there is a story about David feigning madness. There are two stories that your friend might have been thinking of. The first is actually a story of the previous king's madness. David is playing harp for Saul, the old king, and Saul has an "evil spirit" come upon him and he throws a spear at David. David dodges and the spear misses. (1 Sam 18:8-12, 1 Sam 19:9-10) The more likely story she's thinking of is when David is dancing in front of the Ark of the Covenant as it is returned to Jerusalem. His wife, the daughter of the aforementioned Saul, looks out her window and is appalled. When he shows up, flushed and happy, she bawls him out: "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel-I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." (2 Sam 6, also in 1 Chron 15:27-29) Hamlet, on the other hand, DID feign madness. "I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." Hamlet, Act II, scene ii. alan 10.22.2004 Boy do I feel dumb. I wrote in a few days ago saying that there were no stories of David acting insane to get out of danger. Of course there's a story about David acting insane, as Near A Terminal's friend says. In fact, it's referred to in the June 16th, 2004 text. I Sam 21:13... In fact, I can't help wonder if the inclusion of that Biblical reference was to suggest that Near A Terminal is on the right track... Paul 12.19.2004 More on Huguenots. Half the Afrikaans people in South Africa are descended from Huguenots. SA was one of the places Huguenots fled to, since it was a protestant (Calvinist) outpost then. The wine producing regions around Cape Town, especially Stellenbosch, Franschoek and Paarl have _massive_ Huguenot roots in language, religion, culture and surnames. Heck, Franschoek literally means "French Corner". Also, that map of Cape Town is fairly recent (less than ten years), as it has the Table Bay Hotel on it. Burrito 12.19.2004 "3) Das Gedanke wird nicht genug..." This is not correct in german. Every 4 year old native german speaker would correctly say: "3) Der Gedanke wird nicht genug..." I'm german and he is not, imho. :) Eri 07.13.2005 Here's part of an abstract of the Garman and Kohlhagen article, which appears to be available online for a fee from sciencedirect.com: "The present paper develops alternative assumptions leading to valuation formulas for foreign exchange options. These valuation formulas have strong connections with the commodity-pricing model of Black (1976) when forward prices are given, and with the proportional-dividend model of Samuelson and Merton (1969) when spot prices are given." Foreign exchange is mentioned in one of the early messages here, http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/texts/friend3.html "Ask you buddies on the Web how much foreign exchange be slappin' from palm to palm, in just one mother-grabbin day." The answer, according to Wikipedia, is $2 trillion. The message also mentions Archimedes and his lever ("Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth!") This announcement mentions Archimedes' lever too. (And you also received a package that included a picture of Archimedes' screw.) Juls 01.30.2006 Re. The Greek "Argureais logchaisi machou kai panta krataeseis" - "Fight with silver spears, and them shall prevail in all things" cited as the reply of the Pythian Oracle to Philip of Macedon, it was used by Lord Byron as a subheader for his work 'Granta. A Medley.' "silver spears" appears to be a metaphor for bribes. I won't post the text of the poem as it is some 25 verses long, it can be read at the link below. I recommend reading it as it seems to relate to other items in the announcements, esp. the quote from Bismarck (although I have only quickly scanned it so far). http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/3485/ A little more on the Greek - Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives: "With silver weapons you may conquer the world" is what the Delphic oracle said to Philip of Macedon, when he went to consult it. Philip, acting on this advice, sat down before a fortress which his staff pronounced to be impregnable. "You shall see," said the king, "how an ass laden with gold will find an entrance." D. Thomasson 03.26.2006 For clues to this ad, please see: http://www.borderschess.org/1947.htm D. Thomasson 04.01.2006 I mentioned previously that all the Pi numbers in the May Day 2001 announcement add up to 1947. If you multiply each of the digits of 1947 (1*9*4*7) you get 252 (12*21). This could also be 21*12, or a reference to Revelation 21:12 about the the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). Rev. 21:12 "And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:" (KSV) see Ezek. 48:31-34 Also, if you reverse 12 to get 21, a new reference could be Revelation 21:21. Rev. 21:21 "And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." (KJV) Here is the continuation of chapter 21. Rev. 21:22 "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Rev. 21:23 "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." (Is. 24.23) Rev. 21:24 "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it." Rev. 21:25 "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there." (total light) Rev. 21:26 "And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it." Rev. 21:27 "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." (KJV) Luxor1 08/02/2015 Typo? It refers to Aug 28th 1988, a date with no known advert, however there was one on Sep 28th 1988. sulky sulky