Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

onthemedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#31

Post by smackfu »

gry wrote: post #25
Jabbles wrote: post #22

How hard did the family actually try to solve this mystery though? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=OFWAIHHBTN

To be fair, this wasn't searchable in 1996. :) They rediscovered the card a couple days ago and the string of characters only results in the content itself. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDOEAIIIHFU... The solution was someone recognizing the pattern, not arbitrary Googling, which I find far more interesting.

Actually, arbitrary Googling works pretty well. Just start chopping letters of the end, and you get a hit on "OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDOEAIIIH" from 2007.

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#32

Post by eplanit »

Luc wrote: post #8
cobrausn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old woman dying of cancer didn't have the common courtesy to at least scribble down something more interesting for you to browse for 5 minutes on the internet later. What a shame.

What the hell. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to remark on. It was presented as a conundrum, and it turns out it's something disappointing to the grandparent. You're the one dramatising things.

It's not so much about dramatizing, he's simply a dick.

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#33

Post by zaphar »

interstitial wrote: post #24
Shivetya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go read the original story, there is a link above. Someone even went as far to parse out one version of the Bible to determine if the first letter combinations matched. Even know what the basic thread of her thoughts, its the discovery and how to further that discovery that is the fascination. That is was prayers actually made it easier and leads to other methods to work it out.

So do you think God lets you pray in index form? I mean, if he's the grand super dude, can't we just recite the index?

I don't usually discuss matters of faith in this forum since it's pretty far off topic.

However since you asked. Most christian faiths would say yes. The form is less important than the intended meaning for a prayer. And God would be perfectly capable of understanding the index form since He is considered to be Omniscient. QED: index form is perfectly fine.

Other religions may differ as to whether the form is less or more important than the intended content so I can't say whether principle transfers or not.

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#34

Post by jlgaddis »

anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Ask Metafilter is a very very good place to get random questions answered - a smart and very diverse userbase, along with some sensible rules on how to ask a question, which gives it an edge over Quora for my tastes.

Plus you don't have to create an account.

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#35

Post by jlgaddis »

interstitial wrote: post #23
ithinkso wrote: post #21

If mystery was not known then no one could say it was 20-year-old mystery. Media headlines.

True, but viral it up: Minutes old mystery solved instantly, but what happened next made me fall off my chair.

> You'll never believe what happened next!

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#37

Post by fennecfoxen »

interstitial wrote: post #24
Shivetya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go read the original story, there is a link above. Someone even went as far to parse out one version of the Bible to determine if the first letter combinations matched. Even know what the basic thread of her thoughts, its the discovery and how to further that discovery that is the fascination. That is was prayers actually made it easier and leads to other methods to work it out.

So do you think God lets you pray in index form? I mean, if he's the grand super dude, can't we just recite the index?

In support of the other post going on here, let me crib a Catholic source I happen to know of:

> ... attention is of the very essence of prayer. As an expression of sentiment emanating from our intellectual faculties prayer requires their application, i.e. attention. As soon as this attention ceases, prayer ceases. To begin praying and allow the mind to be wholly diverted or distracted to some other occupation or thought necessarily terminates the prayer, which is resumed only when the mind is withdrawn from the object of distraction.

-- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12345b.htm

So there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it, and if you're starting to lose some of your faculties and of this is a device that helps you actually accomplish the prayer that's great... but if you're all like "oh, great, this will get me my prayer points faster", you've missed the point of the entire exercise.

Many forms of prayer, especially the repetitive ones, are devices for focusing attention (e.g. the rosary). There are also parallels in Eastern forms of meditation that employ chants or mantras (e.g. Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ).

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#38

Post by teraflop »

jlgaddis wrote: post #34
anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Ask Metafilter is a very very good place to get random questions answered - a smart and very diverse userbase, along with some sensible rules on how to ask a question, which gives it an edge over Quora for my tastes.

Plus you don't have to create an account.

Sorry, but that's wrong. Here are the rules for how to sign up: http://www.metafilter.com/newuser.mefi

Re: Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-year-old Mystery

#40

Post by deaconblues »

jlgaddis wrote: post #35
interstitial wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but viral it up: Minutes old mystery solved instantly, but what happened next made me fall off my chair.

> You'll never believe what happened next!

Code crackers hate her!
Post reply on HN