General Discussion Thread

[Noodles]

Has anybody ever heard of the Voynich manuscript? I discovered it recently, it's an old medieval manuscript written in a completely unkown language.
Yale library: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscript
New Yorker piece on the manuscript: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unread-the-mystery-of-the-voynich-manuscript

OOH OOH IT'S SUPER COOL
This may be repeated in the articles, but the main theory is that it's an herbal. However, some of the plants in it seem to be fictional, which is Interesting.

[Athena]

Has anybody ever heard of the Voynich manuscript? I discovered it recently, it's an old medieval manuscript written in a completely unkown language.
Yale library: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscript
New Yorker piece on the manuscript: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unread-the-mystery-of-the-voynich-manuscript

Currently may favourite theory about the manuscript is that it's a 600 year old D&D Handbook. Would explain the strange symbols and fictional plants.

[urbicande]

Yah. That's my favorite theory too

[Dverghamrar]

Currently may favourite theory about the manuscript is that it's a 600 year old D&D Handbook. Would explain the strange symbols and fictional plants.

That's one of my favorites too, or that the author must have been a writer or otherwise was creating these fictitious plants for a story, sketched them out, perhaps had a conlang (before Tolkien made it cool) to go along with it or used it to keep their notes private, but then their final product never saw the light. This is all we have left.

Either way, this document fascinates me. But yeah, my theory is person was a writer or this is some old D&D handbook.

[Róisín]

Some of the plants are quite recogniseable if you know the art conventions of the period. For instance, that plant in the illustration is pretty obviously Bryonia, with its long tendril, grape-like clusters of fruit, distinctively shaped leaves and weird hairy root with bulges. Bryonia was a poison, a medicine and a tool of magic, as well as a beautiful plant in its own right, and was often substituted for mandragora. The women-coming-out-of-tubes thing strongly suggests alchemy to me, since a lot of alchemical texts represented the process as a marriage or an act of ceremonial sexual congress. Check out the 'Book of Lambspring' or 'The Alchemical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz'.

What puzzles me more is that John Dee couldn't read it. He was a remarkable linguist and cryptographer.

[LooNEY_DAC]

There's a new fic in the Exchange!

[Helia]

It's officially spring now: the annual battle for my bathroom (ants vs Helia) has begun 

[urbicande]

What puzzles me more is that John Dee couldn't read it. He was a remarkable linguist and cryptographer.

Which kind of points to the "totally made up" theory.

[Haiz]

i went all the way to the tyholt tower to use one of my free lunch vouchers, and i managed to accidentally spill pepper all over my meal.

[urbicande]

i went all the way to the tyholt tower to use one of my free lunch vouchers, and i managed to accidentally spill pepper all over my meal.

You say that like lots of pepper is a bad thing!

[Haiz]

You say that like lots of pepper is a bad thing!

if you want to eat a meal completely covered in whole peppers, go ahead!

i managed to salvage most of it^^"

[Iceea]

I've been made aware that there is such a thing as multi-roundabouts, and I can only conclude that the Devil itself was involved in its invention:

My most interesting experience with a roundabout was in the Bahamas. American made car, left hand drive, but driving on the right hand side of the road, BIG decal in the windshield with a large arrow saying "YOU MUST DRIVE RIGHT", and coming to a rotary, as they are known stateside, and going Oh Crap! what do I do now. Luckily traffic was very light and there was no one behind me so we sort of paused/slowed way down until another vehicle entered the roundabout and we saw which way to proceed. Whew!
Here in Massachusetts driving in a rotary is an exercise in frustration, stupidity, and - don't get me started.   

[Róisín]

The Britannia Roundabout in Adelaide is notorious, though in the last few years it has been improved to the point where it no longer has the highest accident figures for the state. Still awful though.

[LooNEY_DAC]

I've been reading about it on wikipedia and apparently it is actually England's safest intersection — because it's scary and people go slow on it, resulting in basically 0 accident in its more than 40 years of existence. And apparently it distributes traffic really well.

I would think it's the safest intersection because nobody uses it unless they have to, but I could be wrong.

[Róisín]

Yeah, same with the Britannia Roundabout. Unfortunately there are a lot of places you can only get to by using it, but many people will drive around three sides of the mile-square city of Adelaide to avoid it. Though the accident rate there has dropped a bit since the 2014 reshaping.