Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
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Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
1–10 of 49 posts
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#2I don't know what it is, but the thought of Turing running around Bletchley park burying silver ingots is hilarious to me.
Also, I wonder if anyone has found them since. Anyone with a metal detector up for a bit of a project?
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#3Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later.
Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew.
It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is.
I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important stuff before. (Thankfully, not mine, I was just the teenage labor.) We dug a lot and never found it. Also, tree roots grow over/through things and people _love_ to bury things at the base of a tree. Kinda hard to dig through roots.
Don't bury things you want to find later.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#4I highly recommend Turing's biography “Alan Turing: The Enigma” from which this story is taken. It's a great book. Very detailed and well researched. Author dives into many topics related to Turing's work like math, ai, cryptography.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#5> like so many very successful and brilliant people Turing was wildly over-confident in his own analysis
This is so common, yet most individuals that fall into this trap will never recognize it.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#6Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later. Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew. It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is. I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important st…
The story asserts the landmarks changed, but can't you pick landmarks that won't change? Better yet, use GPS and grab the Lat/Long.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#7Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later. Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew. It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is. I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important st…
The story asserts the landmarks changed, but can't you pick landmarks that won't change? Better yet, use GPS and grab the Lat/Long.
That's not as accurate as you think unless you've got a full geodetic antenna. (i.e. $200k worth of equipment + a lot of permits to be allowed to have/use it) Getting to within +/- 30m doesn't help a ton when you're digging a hole to find a small box.
With geocaching, you've got something to look for. You get close-ish and then do an easter egg hunt. When it's beneath the ground, it's really hard to "look". Finding easter eggs with a shovel ain't my cup of tea.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The story asserts the landmarks changed, but can't you pick landmarks that won't change? Better yet, use GPS and grab the Lat/Long.
That's not as accurate as you think unless you've got a full geodetic antenna. (i.e. $200k worth of equipment + a lot of permits to be allowed to have/use it) Getting to within +/- 30m doesn't help a ton when you're digging a hole to find a small box. With geocaching, you've got something to look for. You get close-ish and then do an easter egg hunt. When it's beneath the ground, it's really hard to "look". Finding e…
Doesn't modern GPS claim +/- 3 meters, with a clear enough signal? (Which is still a heckuva lot of dirt to shift.)
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#9I don't know what it is, but the thought of Turing running around Bletchley park burying silver ingots is hilarious to me. Also, I wonder if anyone has found them since. Anyone with a metal detector up for a bit of a project?
It's possible the ingots are still there, but I think the more interesting bet would be "Do you think they were found before or after Turing went looking?"
It's not entirely beyond the realm of the possible that a security guard saw Turing bury something, checked what it was 10 minutes after Turing left, and then quietly pocketed the ingot when it turned out to be money and not a security threat.
Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)
#10Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later. Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew. It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is. I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important st…
Woof, this can be such a pain. One of the more common ones is the pump-out hatch for a septic system. In my experience, people usually do something like remember that it was on the cross-line between this tree and that tree, and that rock and this other tree. If you don't pump the septic as often as you're supposed to, the hole gets filled in, you forget, or maybe your markers have gotten shifted, and then it's miserable poking around to find that one particular one foot square spot.