I've spent hundreds of hours trying to solve the zodiac cipher?

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8 Comments

Most people don't know what I'm talking about here so I'll explain. The elusive zodiac killer of northern California wrote several encrypted messages to police and newspapers during his killing spree in the 60s and 70s. One, the z340 cipher, was never solved. It was the one which he claimed he would identify himself. It was finally solved earlier this week by a small group of amateur code breakers though he didn't identify himself in it like he said.

So is it normal that I spent so much time trying to decipher this code? I think I probably spent around 1000 or more hours on it over the past 20 years.

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Based on 13 votes (9 yes)
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Comments ( 8 )
  • [Old Memory]
    3 years ago

    A 1000 hours over 20 years doesn't sound like a lot

    That's like 40 hours a week over 6 months

    They say 10,000 hours to become an expert in something, with building and strengthening the neuron clusters in your brain

    But I think it's normal, some people do sudoku, some read mystery novels, you decipher criminal messages

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  • Unknown_player
    3 years ago

    Zodiac killer was probably middle aged back then he's probably dead now like not wanting to piss on such tragic events of those people he killed but is it really worth it

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  • Boojum
    3 years ago

    There are many much worse things you could have done with that time. It kept your brain a lot more active than it would have been if you'd spent that average of an hour a week over twenty years watching crappy "reality" TV shows.

    Now that the Zodiac cypher seems to be been solved, maybe you should move on to the Voynich manuscript. That should easily keep you occupied for another few decades.

    https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597

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    • [Old Memory]
      3 years ago

      That's the catalogue of herbs and stuff from like all over the world back when only like half or a third of it was lived in/explored?

      Stuff like that makes me believe in overlaps between like science/magic/alchemy, and it's really just learning about the world around you

      OP should also check out cicada 3133 or whatever it is

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      • Anonymous Post Author
        3 years ago

        The cicadas have been solved and no new ones have shown up in a while. Maybe the taman shud code is next for me.

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        • [Old Memory]
          3 years ago

          Oh man is there a DNA sequence you can work on? Something like that would be so cool!

          Somerton Man sounds interesting, I wonder what the significance of that scrap paper found in his pocket could be

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          • Anonymous Post Author
            3 years ago

            You may have an idea there. I didn't think about DNA.

            The somerton man was possibly a spy or victim of organized crime. Something tells me that scrap of paper holds some telling tales.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      3 years ago

      I don't think I want to tackle that monster. The voynich could be anything from a lost language to a da Vinci work to a hoax. I think I'll try something with a remote chance if me solving. If you know of something I'm all ears.

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