Background icon modified from "The Boingo Page". Check 'em out.
By the way, check out SRL's videos. Even if you don't want to buy them, you have to wonder about titles like The Pleasures of Uninhibited Excess and A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief.
My Brain Candy #38 column discusses Voynich in detail. There is significant duplication with what is below, but this article is more recent and more detailed.
The Voynich Manuscript has been described as the most mysterious manuscript in the world. It is a document found by Wilfred M. Voynich in 1912 in a Jesuit College in Italy and is now in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. It is 232 pages of fantastic drawings of various unreal plants, astrology charts, an odd "physiology" section, all surrounded by "text" that has resisted all attempts at deciphering. And there have been many. There appear to be a huge number of web sites that mention the Voynich document. Here, thanks to Yahoo are some to get you started.
Here's a book reference for comp sci types who want to know more about the manuscript. Scientific and Engineering Problem-solving With the Computer, William Ralph Bennett, Jr., Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976, pp. 187-195. He does a statistical analysis of the document and finds that its information content is below that of European languages, but is similar to some Polynesian languages! There are many other interesting applications in the book, like studying the epidemology of syphilis in Europe after it was brought back by Columbus' men, using Monte Carlo simulation, Raudive voices (extracting meaningful signals from purely random noise), highly accurate simulation of moving bodies, etc. Worth looking up; it was designed for beginners in both comp sci and engineering/science.
In the 1930's (perhaps even into the 1920's), hobos, vagrants and minor criminals or in most cases, persons unknown, started turning up dead in the Cleveland, Ohio area. The bodies were skillfully cut up and were usually severed at the midsection. Often, the bodies were incomplete and parts (usually the heads) were never found. Few of the dead were ever identified.
The official death toll of "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run" ended at 12 in 1938, but some believe that it may have exceeded 40 and the killings might have continued into the 1950's.
This case seriously damaged the career of Eliot Ness, who became Cleveland's Public Safety Directory after his crime busting exploits in Chicago. His inability to catch the elusive killer was a sad failing in an otherwise illustrious career. It was not for a lack of effort on his part.
A suspect in the case was killed in county police custody; most students of the killings believe he was innocent, but the official murders did stop after this.
The Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles in the mid-1940's may have been a copycat killing, mimicking, albeit poorly, the technique of "the Cleveland Torso murderer". One of the major Dahlia suspects had been in Cleveland at the time of some of the murders and was known to have seen the death mask made from the severed head of victim #4.
An excellent reference for this topic is TORSO: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run by Steven Nickel. It is available in both hardback and paperback; the photos in the hardback version are very dramatic.
He is involved in a major legal case in Oregon, in which he pointed out security flaws to Intel Inc. while he worked as a computer consultant for them. Intel chose to prosecute him for being where he was not supposed to be. Sad to say, the law is not doing well by him so far, but he hopes to do better on appeal.
He has his own Geek Code, P+++++ (shared with Larry Wall, creater of Perl and Tom Christiansen, another Perl deity).
He's been involved with the Internet (Usenet) since 1980!
Be sure to check out his latest "Stupid Randal Trick". This is an interesting site from an interesting guy; take a look!
The Egyptian Mau Web Page A nice, big Mau picture, even if they didn't get the eye color right. Few Mau pictures do complete justice to the Egyptian Mau. See one in person as soon as possible.
One of the best choices I made in my college career was to join Triangle Fraternity at UMR. I could have went to a dorm surrounded by a bunch of guys who didn't especially care about you, whether you could study, sleep, etc., but by joining Triangle, I could be surrounded by a bunch of Fraternity brothers who didn't especially... Just kidding.
We had 30 - 50 guys in one big and one small house while I was there. There was always a brother to study with, or to head to the bar with or to shoot the bull with or to look for mischief with. Making close friends was automatic. And I don't think it was just our fraternity; most of the fraternities at UMR seemed to be much the same, and friendship between members of different fraternities were quite the rule.
The Greek scene at Arizona State seemed totally different, I wouldn't have wanted to be a part of it.
Triangle at UMR struck the right balance of hijinks, brotherhood and scholarship for me. I'll always remember the time I spent there.
Zoom out from the SPIN-2 version of this photo to see some spectacular hills in the vicinity. This site is near the Death Valley National Monument
What's playing on the MusicMatch jukebox? Oh Me Oh My - Lulu
On Deck: The Rio Connection - Steve Hackett
Themesong for the page: Too Much Time on My Hands - Styx
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