The Drawn Cutlass: Any Amateur Cryptographers Out There?

Friday, November 23, 2012

Any Amateur Cryptographers Out There?

You might try your hand at deciphering this British WWII code, found attached to the skeletal leg of a carrier pigeon found in a chimney back in August:

The message was carried in a little red leg canister attached to the pigeon's leg:

I love stories like this.

1 comment:

Borepatch said...: It seems that it was encoded with a one-time pad. That's not breakable, even theoretically. They'd need the original materials.; 11/23/2012 10:31:00 PM

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The Drawn Cutlass Philosophy

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect, and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security, it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Ambrose Bierce

Jeff Cooper's Rules of Gun Safety

All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.

Restaurant Ratings

My restaurant ratings, mostly intended for BBQ restaurants, will be on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best. Unlike most reviewers, I don't intend to play games with the rating scale by introducing fractions such as "2 and 1/2" or "4 and 3/4," I've always considered that stupid and a signal that the reviewer is trying to avoid making an honest 1-5 judgment.

Here is the breakdown of the ratings:

1 out of 5: waste of time, crap, unable to finish eating; apathy by staff/ownership

2 out of 5: edible, but no effort to impress; staff/management going through motions; desultory.

3 out of 5: average; reasonably good food, moderate effort by staff/management

4 out of 5: good; tasty, well-prepared food, staff alert, restaurant clean.

5 out of 5: great; excellent food, cooked fresh. Staff attentive and proactive, management responsive to complaints. Restaurant spotless.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Any Amateur Cryptographers Out There?

1 comment:

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