Skip to main content

Bush hid the facts - Secret Conspiracy

In 1998 Richard Preston, a Princeton Graduate, published his second book, the novel "The Cobra Event." A follow-up to his highly successful non-fiction book "The Hot Zone" about the Ebola virus. "The Cobra Event" starts in Iraq, where state-sponsored scientist in mobile bio-labs on huge trucks create a bio-terrorist weapon. Not the "Cobra virus" of which the book is about, but the book opens this way to scare us into what might be. The novel was so effective that it alarmed then president Clinton.

But then something terrible happened. After Clinton left office, some one read the non-fictional "Hot Zone" and the fictional "Cobra Event" back to back, but didn't realize the second was a novel. Taking it as evidence of Iraqi mobile bio-labs, a secret conspiracy was formed to invade Iraq. Weapons of Mass destruction appeared on top-secret intelligence reports based on the "evidence" from "the Cobra Event."



This conspiracy was discovered by a Microsoft employee, who has gone into hiding. To protect himself he encoded the message. When you type "Bush hid the facts" into Notepad and save it, it turns into a garbled list of Chinese Characters. This is NO JOKE! (Yes it is. It's an April Fool's Joke. Not the garbled text, that's real but the secret conspiracy is not, I think.)
It only encodes in Windows XP after that I guess it became common knowledge, so Vista and Windows 7 don't encode the message.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Medieval Economics can teach us about tariffs.

As a teen, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with my friends. This started an interest in the medieval period that led to me taking a medieval history class in college just to understand the period more. Over the years I've also read great books like " Dungeon, Fire and Sword " about the crusades (I recommend the book) and yet with all that knowledge it wasn't until recently that it occurred to me I had a completely wrong understanding of economics in the Medieval Period. "Viking helmets, sword and footwear" by eltpics is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 In my D&D games, players who are adventures battling monsters and creatures would need equipment and on the trips to town, they'd get resupplied with their adventuring necessities. I'd run these moments referencing my imagination of what it must have been and fantasy books I'd read. There be an inn with a raucous bar, a gruffly black-smith, if a city also a weapon and armor sm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Great iPhone Apps

As a companion to my blog on Windows utilities, here are two paid apps on the iPhone that I consider so fantastic that are must buys in my opinion. -Easy Calendar ( $1.99 ) The iPhone Calendar is one of its weakest features in my opinion. I miss the clear Black Berry calendar on my pearl whenever I had to use it. This app makes the calendar not only easy to use but way more useful, I see my week laid out for me with an easy ability to push things to other days (rather than having to re-enter the appointment). This app has completely re-made the way I organize things. I'm way more organized and rarely miss appointment now. This app is a steal at it's prize. No other app adds such simple functionality to the iPhone like this one does. It's like my secret organizer helper. -Sleep Cycle ( $.99 ) I tried out this app because it was recommended on Tim Ferriss's books . I had seen this app before when it came out and thought it was intriguing, but it was way expensive. N...
1 comment
Read more

Indie Games

I've played a few really great indie games recently and would like to share a bit about them. None of these games are brand-new and all are available in both Mac and PC versions. 1. Aquaria Aquaria is a gem of a game for those that loved the original metriod games. In Aquaria you play a young mermaid creature that decides to explore her world beyond her home waters. In doing that you guide her through many adventures that reveal a bit about her world. The game is visually beautiful and the game mechanics, though simple, are very nice. You can play the whole game with a mouse if you wish though gamepads are supported too. In the game you access special abilities by singing different songs. It is a neat concept.  The game was made by an indie outfit of mainly two people out of Canada. But it feels much more than that. It's very big like an underwater version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with multiple treasures to collect and many secrets to uncover. It is available for ...
Post a Comment
Read more