Farmer's Almanac
Last month, a friend told me it had been predicted that there would be snow by Halloween this year.
"Oh, who says?" I sneered.
"Farmer's Almanac."
I thought it was odd she had gone to Princeton and yet believed in the Farmer's Almanac. I remember seeing the Old Farmer's Almanac at my grandparent's farm. I asked Granceil what it was and was told it was a pile of horseshit. This, from people who read the National Enquirer.
Evidently, despite what my grandmother said, the Farmer's Almanac can somehow predict (magic!) overall weather forecasts. No idea how. However, Wikipedia suggests why.
The Almanac was founded two years after what seems to have been a summer of (blissfully) frigid temperatures in 1816. Snow (heaven) in June. Temperatures went for 95 (boo) to freezing (hurrah) in hours. And yes, well, death and famine, but just think. So constantly overcast you could look at the sun and see the sunspots.
Weirdness From The Less Recent Past
One of those weird old coded manuscripts has been decoded by a computer. I've never heard of the Copiale Cipherbefore now, but as ot turns out it was the initiation rites for a freaky eye worship club. Read the almost-complete translation here. (Try not to think of the Knights who say "nee!" while you read it.)
This is exciting. We need to set the computer upon other codes. There is a local man who died in '99 who left notes in his own special code. There is the weirdness of the Voynich manuscript with its naked women bathing in the margins. And why on earth they aren't decoding the Beale Ciphers to get at the $63 million of buried treasure I can't imagine.
I watch a lot of Discovery TV.
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