Click here to submit a clue for this page.
Hance: ISBN 13:978 0 674 02314 7 and ISBN-13: 9780674023147 are both valid international standard book numbers for the book "Christianity and the Transformation of the Book"
The "Grafton & Williams" reference refers to the authors. (Anthony Grafton & Megan Williams)
The Republic Ghent = capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province, once a Calvinist republic.
JD 05.01.2007
"An Endless Line of Splendor" is a book written in 1986. http://tinyurl.com/3yftj9
Here is a review of the book from a modern reformation blog:
"The theme of this book is that when justification by faith is truly understood by the people of God revival breaks out. Maybe a more God-centered way to say this would be that when revival breaks out the people of God come to a deeper understanding of justification by faith. "
The full review can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/3cfqd7 (scroll down to the highlighted part)
llcooldave 05.01.2007
The four stamps caught my attention. Specifically the one on the top right hand corner. I checked Wikipedia and I found something interesting: Ifni was a Spanish province on the African coast in what is now Morocco. what intruiged me is there was a reference to Postage stamps: "Spain began issuing postage stamps for Ifni in 1941, initially overprinting Spanish stamps with "TERRITORIO DE IFNI", then issuing new designs in 1943. Issues followed at the rate of about 10/year, the last on November 23, 1968. Most are commonly available, but far more often seem unused, raising suspicion that the stamps were primarily issued to make money from stamp collectors, rather than to cope with a flood of mail from the residents." I found it interesting that this particular clue about stamp collectors links up somewhat with the reader that submitted a theory on 4/6/07, that this endeavor began about postage stamps. Seeing a number of various stamps from various countries throughout the texts, makes me guess that there is some truth to this theory.
HJ 05.01.2007
Stating the obvious, but the lower map is of Cape Town, South Africa. If you do a google maps search of "Buitengracht street, cape town" and go to Hybrid view, you'll see that the blob in the center of the AWD map pointing NE is the mountain. The upper map is of London. At the bottom almost near the center you can see Westminster Abbey.
RSK 05.01.2007
The hebrew in the center is the tetragrammaton (YHWH, Yahveh) - the biblical name of God. In the leitmotiv there is an error (intended?): it's "prophesy" instead of "prophecy". The map on the background is Cape Town, South Africa. Otherwise there's a Polish stamp on the left which says: "Leonid Teliga, 28 000 miles on Opty" (his ship travel in 1967-69 I think) Comments: There are actually (at least) two background maps: The upper is of London (UK), and the lower is of Cape Town (South Africa). As you might have noticed, all stamps depict boats. The "Calvin" one is Bulgarian I think. The "Luther" is Polish. The Gustavus Adolphus is Cambodian. The Cromwell is Moroccan (or Spanish). There are French expressions in all four texts near the stamps. "Luther" text: Le beurre de Charentes-Poitou is a brand of butter coming from the Poitou-Charente region of France. "Gustavus Adolphus" text: "Le bout du porc" means "the piece of pork"
Carlos 05.01.2007
(So, yes, I'm still around. Bad pennies, etc. etc. ;-) ) A passing idea that perhaps was already discussed... Considering the extreme attention the ad designer puts to fonts, is any information possibly being conveyed by the choice of fonts (like font name, size, whatever)? Like we didn't need something else to worry about in the nitpicking department, heh. I liked the Ifni stamp, nice historical oddity touch there. (Read about it in Wikipedia!) Funny thing: if you want one, you can buy it at eBay here...Ebay Link
ilex 05.02.2007
If I recall correctly, red, white and black are the three colours that are the first to get descriptive words in languages. Some languages have words for no colours but these. The first 'spectrum' we know of is the Greeks', specifically Aristotle's; they used white, yellow, red, blue, black. Whether this has a thing to do with the hat is beyond me, but my illustrator's brain went there.
discorsus 05.03.2007
The coordiates "47.9n/9.32e" are in France, rather near to Augsburg ALso, the map in the background seems to be one of Cape Town in South Africa.
Jacen 05.03.2007
Two maps in the background of the latest freak-letter. The top map is of London, (blackfriars rd, Westminster, London SW1A, United Kingdom) The bottom map is roughly the malay quarter, Cape town. Lloyds of london, home of the Lutine Bell, is in the general area of the cross.
(email is in cyrillic) 05.03.2007
Hello, I accidentally came upon the last of the mayday riddles(2007) and noticed that the stamp beneath is a Bulgarian stamp. The text says: "two stotinki(??=stotinki,equivalent of american cents) mail"-at the top edge "class flying dutch"- is written on the left edge I must add that the stamp is at least 20 years old, I am no specialist but it looks like one from our communist past.
Charlie P.
Calvin: Wassenaar is a city in the Netherlands. E.A.R. is the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, and section 743.2 concerns the post-shipment verification of high performance computers. The reference to "Special Comprehensive License" is also in reference to the E.A.R. (http://www.gpo.gov/bis/ear/txt/752.txt) The coordinates under "Calvin," if I did this properly, are for a spot of land on the shores of Lake Thingvallavatn in Iceland, just SE of Thingvellir. (Google Earth.) Cromwell: 16 CFR is Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations, and section 801 concerns itself with Coverage Rules.(http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_07/16cfr801_07.html) Luther: Lutine Bell = the bell of the HMS Lutine , which now hangs in the Underwriting Room at Lloyd^Òs of London. It is traditionally rung to indicate the loss of a ship or the arrival of a delayed ship. AES algorithm (Rijndael) is the Advanced Encryption Standard. Adolphus: VHTR is Very High Temperature Reactor, and the coordinates were someplace in western Montana.
discorsus 05.04.2007
I believe the 'VTHR' is for Very High Temperature Reactor. Maybe their plans don't involve nukes after all.
Tim 05.05.2007
on the Kitchener quote. I believe that it was Donald Rumsfeld who made the comment about the war in Iraq "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want" just a possible fulfillment of a "prophecy" ?
Freshness 05.05.2007
Hi...I'm completely new, but I thought I'd try to help.
Latitude 64-15-0 and longitude 21-7-0 gives an area just north of the largest lake in Iceland. This area is called Thingvellir.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "In the year 999 or 1000 the Lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of
Iceland. After his conversion it is said that, upon returning from the Alþingi, Þorgeir then threw his statues of the old Norse
gods into the waterfall that is now named Goðafoss ("Waterfall of the Gods")." This makes sense as the momentous decision, but I
didn't quite grasp the forging reference.
Also, the Wassenaar reference seems to point to the Wassenaar Agreement, which is part of the Export Administration Regulations.
The particular area mentioned (743.2) deals with "High Performance Computers: Post Shipment Verification Reporting". I haven't
spent much time looking at it, but it seems to indicate exactly what is to be reported after shipping computers that have an
"Adjusted Peak Performance ("APP")...greater than 0.75 Weighted TeraFLOPS". The word "videte" is just one of the imperative
conjugation of the Latin verb videre, to see. That statement just refers you to section 752 of the E.A.R. I've left the link for
Section 743.2 that I found so you can check it out yourselves(didn't look for 752 yet, but I doubt it will be too difficult to
find):
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14feb20071500/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2007/janqtr/pdf/15cfr743.2.pdf
I've identified three of the four stamps' years of issue. The one to the right was issued by Ifni in 1958...I believe it was part
of a set of three. The one on the bottom was issued by Cambodia in 1986 (which I find interesting/coincidental because the
"Endless Line of Splendor" was also written in 1986). The one on the left is Polish and was issued in 1969, in honor of Leonid
Teliga's around-the-world voyage beginning in the fall of 1966. The top stamp completely eludes me. But, it does have a boat on
it. So, that's nice.
A Ewald sphere is particularly useful in X-ray crystallography, especially when dealing with angles of diffraction and things like
that. I also have been a bit pressed for time and have not spent enough time looking over that subject, but I will as soon as I
get back. A quick Google will find a bunch of sources on Ewald spheres.
The 5/1/89 text and Winthrop are referenced together and when I looked back, Winthrop's name does appear on that particular ad.
His name comes up under clue 5, which states:
"Reformation, hops, and beer came into England all in a year": Winthrop and Schrodinger are currently assaying the latest Net
Tonnage from the "Arbella", metallurgical print-outs are expected by the 459th Anniversary of the Confessio Augustana.
Bob pointed out that the saying is actually "Hops, reformation, BAYS and beer came to Enlgand all in one year." Maybe this word
has some significance? Maybe that's what was meant by "as per ADW, 5/1/89, 2nd level"? That's all complete speculation, but it
seemed worth a shot.
(If you made it this far through this long-winded post, congratulations. And sorry.)
Someone already noticed that the top stamp is Bulgarian. Turns out, it was issued in 1973.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sailboats-Complete-Set-MNH-Bulgaria_W0QQitemZ110003769930QQihZ001QQcategoryZ47161QQcmdZViewItem
sjwk 05.05.2007
OK, clutching at straws here. Drawing lines through the London map shows its centre as being (approximately - it's covered by the top Martin Luther stamp) on Lincoln's Inn Fields - named after the oldest Inn of Court in London. Other buildings of possible relevance in the area are Powis House, where the charter of the Bank of England was sealed, the United Grand Lodge of England (freemasons) a little to the west, and the Temple Church just to the southeast.
Gygalaxy 05.05.2007
The "momentous decision" of 1000 AD was the conversion of Iceland (the coordinates shown) to Christianity. Peaceful, it was. The Export Administration Regulations have two lists of countries, those under the Wassenaar agreement (Western Europe and friendly major trading partners elsewhere, generally speaking) and a group of security risks (most of the places you'd suspect, plus Israel) which require post-shipping paperwork of certain types of sensitive technological equipment. What level two (perhaps an analogical level in some allegorical schemes) of 5/1/89 has to do with the above is not immediately clear to me (though it's also not a clear scan). Another thing: at the bottom, we have in brackets "omega-3," most beloved of the fatty acids. Guess which frigid country's economy is largely based on fishing, and which is capitalizing on the omega-3 boom in fish oil products? Iceland! I get the sense that there's some hapless investment schemes being discussed here.
Eri 05.06.2007
Here are a few easy odds & ends: Zephaniah 1:18 reads: Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth. The phrase "the endless line of splendor" appears in May 1, 2001 and a couple of clues on that page address it. "The Vault" is mentioned in the 5/1/97 announcement as "The Vault of the Hotel California". VHTR is Very High Temperature Reactor. For Auld Licht, I found this: "(New Lights). Mems. Scottish Secession Chs. who supported the principle of voluntarism*; opposed the small minority Auld Lichts (Old Lights), who held to the principle of connection bet. ch. and state. " http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=n&word=NEWLICHTS
sjwk 05.06.2007
Some other as yet unprinted thoughts: 64 15 0N 21 7 0E is on the east coast of Sweden, near Gumbofjarden and Robertsfors (paste the coordinates into GoogleEarth). Ewald's Sphere is a geometric construct used in X-ray crystallography.
I place 47.9N 9.32E in Germany rather than in France. (And if they're taken to be 47 9'N 9 32'E instead, that puts them in Liechtenstein)
46.63N 113.30W is in western Montana, near Drummond.
Jack D.
First, Confessio Augustana translated is the Augsburg Confession, written by Martin Luther (related to stamps in the center?). looked it up on Wikipedia to find the date it was written and got June 25, 1530. added 477 years because of the whole "447th Celebration" thing and got June 25, 2007. Either something's happening on that day that will serve as a clue, or that's our deadline. Second, there are certain numbers underlined in the ISBNs at the top. in order they come out 101405 (possibly October 14, 2005?) Third, there are several dates in the document, all of them the same days that other May Day articles have been released in the past except one (5/1/72). the other dates are 5/1/84, 5/1/88, 5/1/89, 8/28/91, 5/1/32, 9/20/00 and 5/1/06 Fourth, three of the dates (5/1/89, 5/1/88, and 5/1/92) have references to certain "levels" after them (2nd, 4th, and 3rd levels respectively Lastly, the two Bible verses Zephaniah 1:18 - Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land. and Micah 1:4 - And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.
sjwk05.09.2007
Unraveling Calvin some more: In 1000AD, at thingvellir (the coordinates listed), the Icelandic parliament chose Christianity over paganism as the official religion, chosen by the pagan representative who threw his Norse god statues into a waterfall and converted to Christianity himself. See http://thingvellir.is/english/history/christianity/ The same year, Leif Ericson left Iceland to go and discover Newfoundland but given the context of most of these things I think the conversion to Christianity is most likely the 'momentous decision' meant. Continuing on (and I may have already sent this through but can't remember), Wassenaar is the name of the arrangement mentioned in EAR 743 (http://www.gpo.gov/bis/ear/txt/743.txt) So, if you take things at face value, they're exporting (computer equipment?) so need to take care to comply with export regulations, but that Winthrop applied for a license to do so in 1989 or before. And that this is related to something that is as important as the Icelandic decision to switch religion.
MercuryCrest 05.12.2007
On the right side, "Summer Tour Itinerary", It refers to the "Characteristic polynomial of 5/1/88, 4th level." After looking this up it would seem to point to either 15!=1,307,674,368,00 (on the bottom right of May 1st, '88) or, perhaps "4th level" could refer to the rack of "pool balls", in which case, counting levels from the top down, would be "8, 4, 12, 14". Bottom up, it would be "6, 11". Not sure if this helps, but for the other problem solvers, maybe you could put some clips from the May 1st, 1988 message since it is directly referenced in this one....
oompah 05.14.2007
Don't know if this will help but London and Cape Town are very close to the same longitude. Since they apparently send information by extracting derivatives it might be important that part of London is O degrees longitude and Cape Town is not far from that. What makes me think this is that I had another course of study before this one and the mathematical box on the left is tied in with fields in topology. Pretty deep stuff and that is one reason I came over to this college of study but I do remember that 0 is important to the zeta function and primes. They make direct reference to prime numbers repeatedly and those are also big in encryption. Riemann of course is "mr big" when it comes to the zeta and he is also one of their heroes.
Beacon 05.15.2007
Leitmoteif: Re constantine and fulfillment of prophesy I assume it is the Empror.. from John Henry (cardinal) Newman Ironically a catholic who had been a protestant :) Essays on miracles/The Miracles of early Ecclesiastical History; Section 7 The Fiery Eruption on Julian's attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple http://www.newmanreader.org/works/miracles/essay2/chapter5-7.html ...now we read of three such occurrences in the course of the fifty years between Constantine's accession to power and Julian, during which period Christianity was effecting its visible triumph and establishment in the world;^×viz.,... the recurrence of the same phenomena argues design, or the interference of agency beyond nature. It must be added, too, that the occurrence of a whirlwind, an earthquake, and a fire, especially reminds us of Elijah's vision in Horeb, and again of the manifestation of the Divine Presence in the first and fourth of the Acts,... Comments: Re: Top centre secion marked "Calvin" 1. There are 26 letters underlined but going by other sections this may have no significance as a "one time pad" encoding the alphabet. 2. E.A.R Export Administration Regulations http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/index.html In particular 743.2 and 752 http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/txt/743.txt High Performance Computers: Post Shipment Verification Reporting 752 is about a Special Comprehensive License (SCL).The SCL provides authorization to make specified exports and reexports that are otherwise prohibited by General Prohibitions One, Two, and Three described in part 736 of the EAR. A veritable rabbit warren you will find it all 'ere: http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/ear_data.html A reference to http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/texts/89-may1.html See Juls and Barrys comments on that re shipping and the Arabella. It seems this is a similar mesage to try the same strategm as was tried and failed then. 64.25 N 21.116W - near a mountain at Thingvellir in a lake NE of Reykjavic Iceland ( we have had Iceland referenced before) 64.25N 21.116 E is Near Robertsfors Sweden - not likely but we have had Upsala before. If you change to 64 South these are both in the ocean near antartica - I dont think these are likely to mean anything. Can anyone dig up the old Iceland or Sweden references? Comments: Re: Gustavus Adolphus section reference made to http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/texts/92-may1.html See my comments on the Calvin section about Iceland. Note in this reference the Map of Iceland on the top left of page Pingvellir. The Clavin reference is almost certainly here: In the year 999 or 1000 the Lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of Iceland. It is also an one of the oldest parliamentary institutions of the world, fitting with the Cromwell christian/parliamentarian theme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Þingvellir 46.63n 113.3w is near cow creek Montana. I can't recollect any references excep[t possibly a delivery of a photo taken for the cockpit of an airplane over some mountains? Anyone have the reference? I recollect narrowing it down to north america. Could it be Heart Mountain? http://www.inkycircus.com/jargon/images/mountain.jpg http://www.canyonrealestate.net/images/100_0867.jpg Actinides: Elements 89-103 Radioactive and associted with nuclear power generatin and weapons. Ion- a positive or negative charged particle i.e. an atom with an extra electron(s) or missing one(s). As regards 815 giga watts this is unusual. Maybe he meant Mega and not giga. According to page 19 of http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/RDS2-26_web.pdf World production from 445 reactors in 2005 was only 370GWe. far short of 815. But maybe this is the 2016-21 target for energy production? Consule Planco - 'When Plancus was consul', ie "in olden timnes". See Mayday 1999 and Jade-e's comment. Auld licht- A member of the conservative party in the Church of Scotland in the latter part of the 18th century. This whole part seems to say "we have a way of generating nuclear power in vast quantities. the hirelings are using old tried and tested methods and will probably arrive at the target of 815 Gwe between 2016-21. Power to the people? :)
Stegosauros 05.19.2007
Comments:
As was pointed out long ago, the stilted prose strongly suggests that we have a null cipher or grille cipher type of steganography here. I think this suggests two possibilities: 1) that the messages are designed to be closed— i. e., that only those already in possession of the steganalytic method should be able to read the message or 2) that they are somewhat open in that anyone smart enough to decipher the code is welcome to join the chatroom or MUD or MOO (which I think is a likely sounding venue for a variety of reasons— I don't know if anyone's raised that possibility before).
So-called "authorized communications" have suggested that either of those possibilities are correct. In fact, they are not mutually exclusive. There could be both semi-open information and closed, by the standards outlined above, in any given text.
Just futzing around with the first text block ("while mutatis"), I noticed that if you eliminated all spaces and non-alphanumeric characters, you're left with 324 characters. Divided by nine, that's 36. The Grafton and Williams quote is on line nine of p. 231. If you take every ninth character, you get a string that can be anagrammed with "Dallas" in several suggestive ways.
But that could be completely random, of course. Anagrams are useless, more or less, as an encryption method. The thirty-six characters (and others in the text blocks) could themselves form a regular cipher-text.
Another possibility is that there's enough to tease someone into thinking that there's a message to be deciphered, but that there is no such message, at least not that anyone other than the author will ever be able to read. That's the conclusion I find most compelling and the one that best fits all the evidence.
Flacc-Jacc 05.19.2007
Let's talk a bit about Philo 2:523. This word "palimpratos" comes from Philo's Flaccus, a history of the Roman governor of Egypt. It means "sold again" or ever-sold. If you google it, you'll find a reference to an article from Project Muse which says that it's used for a slave who passes from hand-to-hand (to be contrasted, apparently, with a good slave who stays put).
The story's complicated. Philo looks at Flaccus's thirst for fame, his willingness to be sold to gain power, as his downfall; but there's also a madman who's encouraged to play king to embarrass the visiting King Agrippa (a familiar personage from the NT).
So, I'd guess that the Local Yokel, etc. are people who'll do anything for power, money--even if it'll lead to their downfall (by Providence, perhaps, as Philo implies in his history.
josh 05.21.2007
...the endless line of splendor... is a line from a poem by vachel lindsay called foreign missions in battle array
Flacc-Jacc
A bit more context about Flaccus: he incited, or at least permitted, a pogrom against Alexandria's Jewish population, which is why Philo's writing about him as a cautionary example. He eventually was exiled and then murdered in exile, which Philo argues is a providential consequence of his crime. By far the most widely available edition of Philo is the Loeb, and I believe that you can get 41 and something number from the position of "palimpratos" on the page, which is near the Boston area latitude.
Dan Thomasson 05.26.2007
The following is my response to Freaks 194 request on 01 May 2007 from the Recent Development section on your MaydayMystery websi$
http://www.borderschess.org/MM_01-May2007_Response.htm
- Dan Thomasson
'Paul R.' 07.04.2007
The average observer of this might quickly come to the conclusion that the author(s) of these texts align(s) (them)selves with Dominionist- or Reconstructionist-brand stylings. But, the frequent references to the eating of pork and the Actal abrogation, undermine that interpretation. Another thing: when considering the various groups (Revisionists, etc.), don't forget about Mormons (very prevalent in Arizona, knowledgeable about their faith, and disciplined) and Scientologists.
Iason 07.16.2007
Re: "16 CFR 801(b)(1)(ii)" As Charlie P. noted, the CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations, but here's a little more information about what appears to be referenced. The title and chapter this Regulation appears in governs and is promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission, the agency that governs consumer protection, anti-trust violations, etc. The sub-chapter 801 is in regulates "Rules, Regulations, Statements and Interpretations Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976." 801 itself regulates "Coverage Rules," and has very specific and complicated antitrust dos and don'ts. There is NO 16 CFR section (the squiggley thingey in the puzzle is the symbol for "section") 801(b)(1)(ii). 801 is broken up into a bunch of sections itself, by decimal points, from 801.1 to 801.90, but there is no stand-alone 801. From what I can tell, there never was, though it's possible, I'd have to go to the law library to look at some microfiche to make sure. (More on the history of 801 in a second.) There are three 801 sections that have a subsection (b)(1)(ii). I'll try to give you the more-or-less short version of each. 801.1(b)(1)(ii): Definition of "Control." You have "control" of an unincorporated company (not a corporation) if you have the right to 50% or more of the profits/assests of the company. 801.12(b)(1)(ii): Part of a complicated equation for calculating "ratios for classes of voting securities." Since it's just part of an equation, it seems unlikely that a citation to just this subsection would ever really be meaningful. 801.50(b)(1)(ii): In the creation of an unincorporated company, you are subject to these rules if (amongst other things), the new company has assets of $10 million or more. You can look at the whole chapter at: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=fa065f61e0d34018b119e679822d2e02;rgn=div5;view=text;node=16%3A1.0.1.8.7 6;idno=16;cc=ecfr I'd put my money on the reference regarding the first one, 801.1, it's the most stand-alone, and the most significant. But is the omission intentional? Is this just a red herring, meant to send us rummaging through the most complicated, esoteric corner of the law imaginable? I think so, and here's why: the puzzle says "The final decisions vis a vis [this section] will be as irrevocable as those of 5/1/72." Here's what's most interesting to me: this entire chapter wasn't enacted until July 31, 1978! It would be a little hard to make a decision regarding something that wasn't going to exist for six years, I should think. I speculate that a) the reference isn't really a reference, but a part of some underlying code, or b) the author is just trying to infuriate and confuse us. I guess that's what's so compelling about these puzzles, I'm never sure which one it is.
LB 07.27.2007
ISBN 13: 978-0-674-02314-7 is a Book code for "Christianity and the Transformation of the Book" and the Underlined numbers make up 101405 Which I Instantly saw as a date, the 14th of October 2005. The town of Ghent used to be a Calvinistic republic during the 16th or 17th century, but it didnt work to well, and as off the start of 2006 was the third biggest conurbation in Belgium. Whose mayor is a member of SP.A I saw from the 1992 MayDay with the picture of the 668 box and the phrase "If I should die before I wake" and I went through the clues from that one and couldnt find anything anyone said about it, so it is from a prayer, I recognise it from my grandfathers funeral. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. The map in the background is of the City of Westminster in London Not to sure how helpful this will be but, SR and CL are both an internet country code and a chemical element on the Periodic Table. SR is the Internet country code of Suriname and it is Strontium an alkaline earth metal with the atomic number 38 CL is the internet country code for Chile and it is Chlorine which is a halogen and has an atomic number of 17. I seem to recall seeing 38 or 17 being recuring numbers in peoples clues, but I could be wrong. But Strontium Chloride is SrCl2 and nothing really important about it, except it is used as a flame colouring agent cause it burns a bright red.
Bit 08.17.2007
"Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan"--Richard Hofstadter "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." An essay worth reading for anyone interested in the sociological origins of what you see here.
Ah ain U Bud--bit but we be meetin 10.25.2007
Comments: Hey Bit! Dankz fer de clue. U on de monee--an we on U. Oh yeah Bit--we be meetin SO STAY WELL. We need R speciminz lively--leest ta start wid.
hance: the above came in right after this freak email on 10.25.2007
p.s. The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Richard Hofstadter, Harper’s Magazine, November 1964.
dirac 03.21.2008
A quick note on AES, noted in the left side of the text - for someone to be cutting through AES ``like a knife through butter'' they would have to either have access to quantum computing methods (to brute force it) or know of a vulnerability in the encryption itself. The former exists only in theory (if anyone had access to such a system, they could crack just about anything, countries would kill or even wage war to own or destroy it). The latter is far more likely, but in many ways is almost as bad, as AES is the current highest standard for encrypting documents, outside of a one-time pad. Either way, the aggressors here could be using the resources of the NSA or some other similar entity, which implies a governmental link. If the aggressors are in fact a private entity, then they have enough resources so as to essentially be effectively indistinguishable from a government. Then again, the aggressors could instead have access to the public key of said ciphers, but that doesn't seem to fit with the tone of the text or the notion that they are ``cutting through'' the encryption. And again again, it could all be talking about something else entirely.
discorsus 04.10.2008
The threats directed toward posters like Bit and Madame Sosostoris seem to point to the group not being as formidable as they imply. If you had the power to kidnap and dispose of folks, would you really feel it necessary to also threaten them on the internet? Besides which, it implies a truly depraved sensibility, what sort of person would threaten someone with death and torture over an internet posting?
(bdh: just for the record, see also: pretty much every internet flamewar - ever - maintains some level of rabid farcical hostility. Just sayin'.)
near a terminal 08.12.2008
A passing thought for "discorsus" about the Freaks presenting themselves as "formidable." Is that a correct inference? Their chief internet informant lives in a dumpster and they are at pains to present themselves as lunatics. Which they probably are. Does discussing esoteric matters make one "formidable"? In short, I wonder if you are not _projecting_ on to them, which is something all humans do with some regularity or so the psychiatric texts say. No offense, anything you write they find interesting but if we are trying to get inside their heads then we have to examine our own at the same time.
anonymous 06.20.09
The letters between the Martin Luther pictures mean "Jehovah".
Scotius 03.23.2010
The "auld licht" agenda means "old light", from the Babelfish translation. "The orphanage extends fraternal greetings to the republic Ghent" is probably a freemason type reference. They're a "fraternal order", and "orphanage" reminds me of the freemason phrase "Is there no help for the widows' son?". Just a little I've picked up that might help someone more knowledgeable.
benedikt 01/06/2014
The GPS coordinates point to Thingvellir in Iceland. The posting from May 1st 1992 has a map of Iceland where Thingvellir is marked. It also has the same pictures captioned with Marthin Luther.
co 03/25/2021
the map in the backgorund behind bottom pic of martin luther is signal hill in south africathe map in the backgorund behind bottom pic of martin luther is signal hill in south africa
