Equidistant Letter Sequences

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Code_de_la_Bible.png

If you take the text of Genesis 26:5-10 and break it into lines of 33 characters each, the words Bible and code appear, word-search-style, in the resulting grid.

That looks pretty nifty, but in fact you can find almost anything in a long text if you look hard enough. Using the same technique in 1997, Australian mathematician Brendan McKay found that Moby Dick had predicted the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, including the assassin’s first and last names, the university he attended, and even the motive (“Oslo,” referring to the Oslo accords). That Melville — what a genius.

| Religion

“This Is Absurd!”

Uninspired last words:

  • “Wait a minute …” — Pope Alexander VI
  • “Am I dying, or is this my birthday?” — Nancy, Lady Astor, on seeing her family at her bedside
  • “I live!” — Caligula, as he was being murdered by his own soldiers
  • “Lady, you shot me!” — Sam Cooke, after being shot in a hotel room
  • “That guy’s got to stop. … He’ll see us.” — James Dean, before a car accident
  • “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” — Richard Feynman
  • “I think I’m going to make it!” — murderer Richard Loeb, after being slashed 90 times with a razor
  • “Die, my dear? Why that’s the last thing I’ll do!” — Groucho Marx
  • “I’m all right.” — H.G. Wells

On his deathbed Stan Laurel said, “I wish I were skiing.” His nurse said, “Oh, Mr. Laurel, do you ski?” Laurel replied, “No, but I’d rather be skiing than doing what I’m doing.”

More here.

| Death · Quotations

See Other Album

Long song titles:

  • “You Got To Get Through What You’ve Got To Go Through To Get What You Want, But You Got to Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through,” The Wildhearts, Coupled With
  • “Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, Or Any Candy For That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out In The Sun Too Long – And I Think I Just Ate Too Much,” The Hives, Oh Lord! When? How?
  • “Sir B. McKenzies Daughter’s Lament for the 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat from the Straits of Loch Knombe, in the Year of Our Lord 1727, on the Occasion of the Announcement of Her Marriage to the Laird of Kinleakie,” Fairport Convention, Full House
  • “We Were Stoned When We Thought Up The Title Of This And We Didn’t Want To Give It A Name That We Had To Explain As ‘Oh Yeah We Were Stoned When We Thought Of It’ So We’re Just Calling It Improvisational Jam 11-02-01,” !!!, Brain In The Wire
  • “The Sad But True Story of Ray Mingus, the Lumberjack of Bulk Rock City, and His Never Slacking Strive to Exploit the So Far Undiscovered Areas of the Intention to Bodily From the Opposite Species of His Kind, During Intake of All the Mental Conditions that Could be Derived From Fermentation,” Rednex, Sex & Violins
  • “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them until They Are off Our Lands!”, Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
  • “Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me at 11:00 on Friday Morning to Tell Me That 1:00 Friday Afternoon You Were Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab, to Go Out to the Airport, to Catch a Plane, to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks. Not That I Wanted to Go With You; I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years, I Don’t Like Surprises. (A Musical Apology),” Christine Lavin, Future Fossils
| Entertainment