xxSilverPhinxx

Wisdom means learning from the mistakes of others.

Age of computers, or something computer-related.

Yeah, in what sense did you mean intelligent? Book-smart or street smart? If you feel you aren't getting much out of your friendships, start hanging out with more like minded people *shrug*

I haven't been officially disgnosed by an expert in the area, but I have a lot of things in common with other people who have been diagnosed with Aspergers.

I don't have anything useful to add here, but I just thought that I'd say that it was also my childhood dream to become a scientist (though that didn't work out). I guess firstly you should see some failures as an ok thing, if that's what's keeping you from achieving what you want. They can be made into other oportunities which you might find are not so bad at all. I think you should at least try and go for it, and don't worry so much about whether it's too late or not.

Exactly, a decoder will start testing out the simplest hypotheses, and letter substitution is one of them (especially if newspapers and puzzle pieces frequently publish them). You should aim to making it as simple for yourself as possible and at the same time as complex for them as possible. It's fairly easy to figure out some letters from common and easy words such as 'and' for instance, with 'an' and even 'a' being very common, so keep those sorts of things in mind. From there, whole words can be figured out and so more letters can be filled in. There shouldn't be any hints contained within what you've coded. In some cases people can see if a symbol is more likely to represent a vowel or consonant, and even if they get stuck, they might resort to trial and error. The double letter example for instance. It's way more likely that it would be a consonant. Or else 'ee' or 'oo'. All hints that should be avoided. You could look up various encryption methods and maybe even mix them, sort of like a double encryption. I think these sorts of things are fun. Let me know if I sound like I'm getting too carried away.

Hey, LotR is a fantasy picture, so it's immune from any scientific criticisms!

It's possible because of Einstein's Relativity to travel into the future. There are engineering impediments, however, because you would need to travel at very high speeds. I'm not too sure about going to the past, though. If it were possible based on creating wormholes, it would have to be seen if wormholes big and stable enough could even be created. Not to mention there are all those paradoxes which don't have clear answers such as how someone can go back into the past and alter causes of the universe of which they themselves are an effect.

I think if you just do simple letter-to-symbol switches anybody can eventually decode what you've written if they've got a big enough sample. I think you should complicate things a bit more such as use just one symbol for common words such as "the", "and" etc. instead of a letter by letter substitution. And maybe a new whole symbol for commonly occurring couple of letters. For instance, in a word with double 't' such as 'letter', you could use just one symbol to mean 'tt' which would be different from two 't' symbols (which can actually facilitate any attempt to decode). Those sort of things will make your code more complex and throw people off track. I also think that using alphabet symbols of existing languages is also a good one, especially if one that's recognisable or looks enough like an existing alphabet. Better to have one with not that many speakers avaliable. People will suspect that it is another language and not just a cipher. They might not bother with it because they would assume that they would have to speak the language to make sense of it or find someone who does. Commit your symbols to memory, don't write them down, because once they're found...you've screwed up.

I find the site hilarious. Registered.

Ha! My dad once shot a spider from the wall. What happened was he hit its leg and the spider when crawling under the bed, which of course, scared my mom (she doesn't like creatures with too many legs, and one less didn't seem to alleviate those fears) and it took forever to find the spider. I suggest there are better ways to remove them. But I think it it's not too poisonous, let it be. They can get rid of nasty little insects for you.

I seriously didn't mean to write it that way, but meant to say "I don't see how you can't do both (even if not as much of the music as you might want). Mistake or major slip of the tongue? I know there are people who are able to have a job and have plenty of time for their hobbies. I'm assuming that a better paying job (freelance) can give one more time in fact to pursue what they really like doing. I just think that the music profession isn't an easy one. *** If I were you, Yoseph, I would definitely take music up as a hobby but consider things lot more before making such a life changing decision.

I think liquid nitrogen should do the trick.

Why do I think of The Count Of Monte Cristo when I see things like this?