Hi There! We’re looking for people to write up their theories on cipher mysteries such as the Voynich Manuscript, the Beale Papers and how astroturfed the Tea Party is. You may be surprised to discover that your foolish clickbait opinions could earn you upwards of $0.02 per day, and might even be worth double that (if they are so unbelievably bad that they go viral on Slashdot or Reddit).
To tap your teensy spile into this towering cask of wealth, there’s no need for an office, formal clothes or indeed any clothes beyond your normal tattered rags. Simply compose your posts and comments from the comfort of your own bedsit, surrounded by your piles of old newspapers, unreturned library books, and much-loved microwave meal boxes. Who could ask for a better or more convenient life?
Yes, you too can turn your vapid leaden thoughts into 24 carat Internet gold, just like alchemists and well-known YouTube sock puppet presenters the world over already do. And let’s face it, if Stampy and Squid can make it there, then so can you, right?
Who cares if you haven’t cut your toenails since Dubya left the White House? We don’t! Google values novelty over content, so to become a high-value content creator in this brave new online world, all you have to do is tap into the same rickety stream of consciousness that pushes angry unspoken words in your mouth when you’ve yet again found yourself stuck in the non-moving queue at the supermarket till and type, type, type.
There, now doesn’t that feel better! And how much do we charge you for this “keyboard therapy”? $100? $1000? No, not even close – in fact, we pay you for it. A frighteningly small amount, sure, but let’s not bicker over mere semantics.
How do you get going? Just start your own blog, proclaim yourself an expert on a particular subject (it doesn’t matter what, nobody cares), leave back-linked comments on forums and other people’s blogs, or even – now get this – leave comments on your own blog under false names to make visitors think that there’s some kind of ‘community’ buzz around the nonsense you’re passing off as high-quality thought.
Before long you’ll even be ready to cut-and-paste all your tripe into a 65-page ebook and sell it for $12 a pop. Still think this is all a pipe-dream? No, it’s not! Many thousands of people have jumped about this $$$money$$$ $$$train$$$ already, so why not you as well?
Still believe you’re not right for this extraordinary new world? Think again! You’ll shock yourself when you find out quite how painfully easy it is. Amaze your friends (if you have any, which seems fairly unlikely), take that step, and type, type, type!
Out of pure curiosity, Nick, what do you reckon actually solving one of these things is worth, monetarily? If somebody did figure out the solution to the Voynich manuscript what could they look to earn from Book/TV/talks?
I’m hardly mercenary enough to care, but it’s an interesting question.
Emma: unless someone has already used their Beale Papers decryption to dig up some buried treasure 🙂 , I don’t believe anyone has ever made any serious money out of breaking historical ciphers, and it would certainly be a surprise to many if this changed in the future.
At the same time, I think it was Ray Clemens who said that he thought the Voynich Manuscript was now one of the most talked-about medieval artefacts, second only to the Turin Shroud. (Of course, there are plenty of people out there who think one (or indeed both) of the two aren’t actually medieval, but let’s pass by that issue in silence.)
So perhaps a successful decryption of the Voynich Manuscript will break that general rule, who can tell? But even so, being able to say that it was you who cracked one of the hardest puzzles in history would hardly do your CV any harm. 🙂
I happen to have deciphered and translated the entire Voynich. However, I can’t figure out how to get in touch with those who will pay me $0.02 a day to read my efforts.
Can anyone offer any help?
Thank you.
Robert: I don’t know, perhaps if they all clubbed together they’d be able to afford $0.02 between them.
no one on earth can translate or decipher entire manuscript . only one book can give a key to ms408 it is not for commercial purpose . a book that may put some linguistic researchers into embarassement . a book that can change a lot of concepts .
is that $0.02 US? I think under current exchange rates with AUD I’d still be paying for it….
The way to make money out of the historical cipher and other mysteries – ‘badly written airport novels (involving all the usual cliches)
🙂 of course
@ Mr. MacCartney (spelling?) :
I’ve reached the point of ‘bleh’. When all else fails, Nick waves the “Voynich” manuscript at us. I can’t blame him (when all he gets from the reading public is bleh …. bye-bye Nick). You know I have translated every detail of the Voynich, including the labels which appear on the pharmaceutical jars and the various roots which appear on every botanical essay . Take a good close-up look at each of the jars — and see for yourself.
Most of all, Nick, have fun ! I’ve given up all hope of your producing a sequel to your earlier book.
Cya, bye and bye……
I recently bought Chapter Eleven of Fray Sahagun’s magnificent Florentine Codex. Fascinating translation of every item of botanical, forestry, and sericene interest.
bd
I am now imagining someone ‘crowdsourcing’ a decryption by cutting images of the VMS up into individual lines, posting them as jobs on Amazon Mechanical Turk asking the turkers to type in what they think each says, then gluing all the responses together…
Prufrax: I think you’ll find that there are plenty of Voynich bloggers out there who do this already.
One suggestion for the writing of the VM – a quotation from James Joyce
I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.
You have inspired me. I am immediately resigning from my job as a software developer and moving back into my parents’ basement to type, type, type random historical cipher theories until one of them hits big and I start raking in the big bucks.
Wait a minute – as a software developer, I can write a program to type random historical cipher theories into a blog, much faster than any human could. Multiplying the tries by a factor of a thousand vastly increases the odds of hitting big.
Ken: what, you didn’t seriously believe anyone actually typed in all that bullsh*t?
90% of WordPress posts are plugin-generated by algorithmically cutting-and-pasting old posts, I thought everyone knew that? And thanks to Torsten Timm’s autocopying app, all I need to do is type in a couple of lines of text and it autocompletes the rest automatically.
I tell you, it’s great here on the beach in Barbados, you really ought to get with the programme (so to speak).