Songs in (computer) code (you can also see the Twheat seperated from the Tw-chaff over at Favrd)
posted by melorama on Aug 20, 2009 - 32 comments

The wonderful Ben Schott (previously on Mefi) has posted an awesome excerpt from the 1891 Anglo-American Telegraphic Code, showing how folks got around (economically-induced) character and word limitations over a century before Twitter. Too wacky to be true? Gleam tus!
posted by ericbop on Aug 3, 2009 - 36 comments

The Apollo 11 Command Module code (Comanche054) and Lunar Module code (Luminary099) have been open sourced.
posted by chunking express on Jul 21, 2009 - 47 comments

Thomas Jefferson's cipher message from Robert Patterson For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.... To Mr. Patterson's view, a perfect code had four properties: It should be adaptable to all languages; it should be simple to learn and memorize; it should be easy to write and to read; and most important of all, "it should be absolutely inscrutable to all unacquainted with the particular key or secret for decyphering." [more inside]
posted by caddis on Jul 2, 2009 - 22 comments

Java Demo: "four-letter words have a special status in the english language and culture. counting in at over 1650 words,...this small project is an attempt to give a spacial overview of the entirety of this part of english language heritage, as well as to explore and visualize relations between all those words."
posted by hortense on Jun 4, 2009 - 18 comments

Museum archivist, exploring Henry Ford's office records, stumbles into the interesting world of commercial telegraphic code.
posted by Miko on May 27, 2009 - 15 comments

Konami Code Sites
posted by sciurus on May 7, 2009 - 74 comments

"The avionics system in the F-22 Raptor, the current U.S. Air Force frontline jet fighter, consists of about 1.7 million lines of software code. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter...about 5.7 million lines of code...Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner...about 6.5 million lines of software code. These are impressive amounts of software, yet if you bought a premium-class automobile recently, it probably contains close to 100 million lines of software code."
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey on Feb 4, 2009 - 64 comments

What real-life bad habits has programming given you? "This has actually really happened to me. I was trying to hang a glass picture frame on the wall and accidentally dropped it. And in the shock of the moment, I loudly yelled 'Control Z!' Then the glass hit the floor and smashed."
posted by grumblebee on Jan 30, 2009 - 170 comments

Cloth Physics Simulation
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Dec 29, 2008 - 25 comments

[slyt] Hug a developer today.
posted by sunshinesky on Aug 29, 2008 - 31 comments

In March 2007, the FermiLab Office of Public Affairs in Batavia, IL "received a curious message in code" via USPS. In May 2008, scientists posted a facsimile image of the letter to their blog in the hopes of soliciting cryptologists to decipher the letter. [more inside]
posted by subbes on Jul 16, 2008 - 45 comments

code_swarm, an animated visualization of open source software project commits. e.g.: Python.
posted by signal on Jun 18, 2008 - 18 comments

Google's Android goes live for demo. Lots of video and stills. Cache.
posted by loquacious on May 28, 2008 - 62 comments

It's no secret that amateur radio operators, or hams, often build their own equipment. Especially with the aid of antenna tuners, most anything can be used as an antenna. One group of hams took this to the extreme, using ladders and shopping carts as antennas as they started an annual competition that would eventually see trucks, train tracks, a tree, and even a pair of exercise machines and a football stadium used. I stumbled across the site last night, and it turns out that this year's competition is this weekend! Ham radio, by the way, no longer requires a Morse code exam, just a set of questions on electrical and operations theory. Those curious can take practice tests online, since the FCC releases the question pools.
posted by fogster on May 22, 2008 - 23 comments

Look up any Zip Code here, get lots of cool demographic data by entering it here (make sure you enter a zip code, not just a town and keep scrolling down, down, down). [more inside]
posted by Rafaelloello on May 10, 2008 - 27 comments

POV-Ray Short Code Contest #5 - The animation round! This time the competitors were allowed 512 bytes of POV-Ray code to create a (short...) animation. The rules of rounds 2 and 3 (previously on Mefi) allowed 256 bytes but to create stills. [more inside]
posted by elgilito on Feb 16, 2008 - 11 comments

Getting to the source of 5 beautiful lines of Quake 3. Rys Sommefeldt traces the history of a very quick (and now infamous) inverse square-root function used in Quake 3. (via) [more inside]
posted by spiderskull on Feb 8, 2008 - 60 comments

MATSYS Based on the idea that architecture can be understood as a material body with its own intrinsic and extrinsic forces relating to form, growth, and behavior, the studio investigates methodologies of performative integration through geometric and material differentiation.

B_Complex, N_Table, Endless Ocean, Endless Sky (more), P_Wall. more.
posted by klangklangston on Jan 18, 2008 - 6 comments

How many HTML elements can you name in five minutes?
posted by divabat on Nov 28, 2007 - 68 comments

"This is the story of when I re-wrote the Lotus Notes Formula Engine.... So here was I was, offered this position that I clearly wasn't qualified for. I had no experience with language runtimes or compilers, I knew very little about C and didn't know anything about C++, I had never dealt with platform byte ordering and packing and all the other issues associated with writing something for eight different operating systems, I had never even used proper version control. But none of that mattered to me. It seemed to me like an amazing opportunity and I would be doing exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy most..."
posted by grumblebee on Nov 24, 2007 - 64 comments

Bar Code Revolution! With more than just lines and rectangles, Japanese company Design Barcode works around the basic elements of a barcode and infuses real, functional barcodes with creative designs and silhouettes. See barcodes as tomatoes, stomachs, rain, pianos, guns, train tracks, waterfalls, cliffsides, and yes, even combovers.
posted by Lush on Aug 15, 2007 - 46 comments

lolcats are great but now they can code!
posted by jeffburdges on May 29, 2007 - 69 comments

Freemasonry has a long history of accusations of evil conspiratorial machinations, both in print and elsewhere. But it seems that, if you ask most Masons, they're just in it for the booze. Now, the newspaper of record is taking a look at the Masons' efforts to open up to the public in this post-Da Vinci code age.
posted by huskerdont on Oct 4, 2006 - 49 comments

Gbalf Xozmn Ram Rqzyk Wtacu Lkugc Aaxjx Owkyu Dkoxk Zamdg Bnuio Nmrxk Zmqyf Nqeog Ziqxf Gutxe Nkmxd Gzmqj Brqge Kxkfs Qqzui Nactg Djfnq Eenaa Xjnk
posted by justkevin on Aug 4, 2006 - 68 comments

“Smithy code” The secret lies in HBHG and DVC. According to news reports the Judge who recently ruled in the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case has included his own code in his high court ruling (PDF). At this time, no one seems to have decoded it all...
posted by tiamat on Apr 26, 2006 - 39 comments

More map fun: The first world map of internet country codes. Large jpg here.
posted by hydrophonic on Apr 21, 2006 - 17 comments

Code Snippets is a tag-based repository for (duh) code snippets.
posted by turbodog on Mar 22, 2006 - 15 comments

A previously unbroken Enigma code has been solved by a group of hackers. After just over a month of effort, the M4 group, using distributed computing, cracked a 60 year-old German naval code. The message: "Forced to submerge during attack." There are lots of other interesting historical codes that still remain mysteries, however. Lots of Enigma goodness in an earlier post.
posted by blahblahblah on Feb 27, 2006 - 16 comments

Time commenting could be time coding. Day in, day out, you pull off star moves: gnarly algorithms, wicked refactorings, stunning optimizations. Why should you stop and explain? Yes, you've got plodders on your team, but hey — youAreAStar and yourTimeIsExpensive. Time spent explaining, documenting, commenting — dude! — that's time you could be using to crank out yet more mind-altering code. Welcome The Commentator.
posted by Lectrick on Aug 2, 2005 - 24 comments

"A shocking discovery has been made deep within the text of Moby Dick. The great codes researcher Michael Drosnin, who pioneered the art of predicting assassinations using Equidistant Letter Sequences, is himself encoded in a famous book. And directly across his name appears the text 'Him to have been killed'! Yes, folks, using the method that Drosnin himself uses, and the text that he himself chose as a challenge to his critics, we find that Drosnin himself will be murdered in a grotesque manner."
posted by brundlefly on Jun 20, 2005 - 23 comments

That, as previously reported, a newly deciphered fragment of the Book of Revelations shows 616 is the true Number of the Beast, rather than the popular 666, is nothing new in the world of those obsessed with codes in the Bible. However, one Bible code in particular -- Theomatics -- has sparked debate among believers and non-believers alike.
posted by me3dia on May 10, 2005 - 25 comments

DailyWTF is a "Programming Bloopers" repository and forum, collecting, dissecting and making good fun of badly written code. Programmers can appreciate their fellow coders' strange or plainly funny problem solving techniques. Sometimes programmers will square the wheel while reinventing it. Or take the best practices to the insanity level.
Some programming knowledge required.
posted by nkyad on Apr 27, 2005 - 21 comments

The Daily WTF features braindead code samples. High-larious to a nerd like me.
posted by sonofsamiam on Oct 15, 2004 - 41 comments

Ceci Nes't Pas Une Satanic Message • "Years ago someone told me that if you played Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song backwards that you could make out 'satanic messages'. It is not my opinion that Led Zeppelin and the other artists here were given some kind of evil power to make these backwards sounds have a satanic message. And, no, I did not create this to show the evils of Rock and Roll. Instead I made this flash piece for two reasons: 1. I was new to Flash and wanted to be better at it and 2. The reverse files sound cool. "
posted by dhoyt on Oct 8, 2004 - 15 comments

Coincidence or contortion? Ivan Panin deciphered a numeric code in the Bible. Known as Gematria, the 'code' implies the Bible could not have been written without Holy assistance. Panin offered an open challenge for someone to create text using a similar pattern, yet no one was able to create one(nor tried).

However many people doubt the authenticity of the code though. The code is found in the same verses using different translations. It is also claimed that Panin manufactured his own translations to create this mathematical phenomenon.

Whether or not you believe, you can determine how good or evil any text or website is.
posted by JakeEXTREME on Jun 25, 2004 - 30 comments

1980s Vinyl Multimedia In the 1980s UK, artists were busy embedding multimedia-enabling compiled computer code into the locked grooves of their vinyl releases (and some cassette tapes). Who knew?
posted by meehawl on Mar 19, 2004 - 28 comments

Voynich manuscript detemined to be a hoax ... maybe? Discussed here previously, this cryptic document has been intriguing researchers worldwide. In December scientists determined that the text could have been produced using a Cardan Grille and look to known prankster and alchemist Edward Kelley as the likely agent of this deception. But the question still remains, is it encoded gibberish, or encoded something else?
posted by jessamyn on Feb 16, 2004 - 11 comments

ZIP Code Visualizer A Java-based map of the continental US that progressively narrows down the area covered by a ZIP Code as you type in the numbers one by one. [Doesn't work so good in Mac IE 5. via xBlog]
posted by kirkaracha on Dec 22, 2003 - 25 comments

The Last Stage of Delirium Research Group (LSD-PLaNET) have posted code on the Internet that can allow hackers to exploit a previously disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows operating system. This kind of thing happens all the time. What never happened before is a widespread government and media panic perpetuating the buffer overrun threat as terroristic in nature, originating from the Department of Homeland Security and upsetting the gerneral public at large.
posted by jdaura on Jul 31, 2003 - 6 comments

The Code of Hammurabi is generally recognized as the first laws ever written. Hammurabi was the ruler who chiefly established the greatness of Babylon (present day Iraq), the world's first metropolis.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 31, 2003 - 14 comments

CSS on Demand allows users to set several preferences for how they want to see your site, rather than just using one of your themes via a switcher. Kind of like Matt lets you do here.
Perl. Free. Try it out.
posted by Su on Jan 28, 2003 - 15 comments

You've probably heard of the WWII Navajo "code talkers" who managed to baffle crack Japanese cryptanalysts and were credited with enabling US success at Iwo Jima. Civil engineer, journalist and photographer Philip Johnston was the determined mind behind the "windtalkers". The son of missionaries, Johnston grew up on a Navajo reservation and was one of only a handful of outsiders fluent in the Navajo language. A bit of his background is included this article, and you can read a complete history of his plan, view an archive of photos by Johnston, and see copies of his enlistment application letter to the Marine Corps commandant, as well as a recommendation letter from the Commanding General. (more inside...)
posted by taz on Jan 22, 2003 - 13 comments

CodeDoc, a new exhibition at Whitney Artport, forces us to view the scripts and codes that generate software art before seeing the “art.” The other aspect of the curatorial premise: each artist's code must create art that connects three points in space.
[via rhizome].
posted by hama7 on Sep 23, 2002 - 12 comments

While poking around today, I found a link to Treefold, which isn't all that impressive in and of itself. The reason for my interest was that it's the first use I've come across of the Proce55ing language, which is a sort of continuation of John Maeda's teaching language, DBN(Design by Numbers). While still not ready for general release, it's grown a lot since the last time I looked at it.
posted by Su on Sep 10, 2002 - 11 comments

Winners of The 5K Competition revealed. Remember the thread about the call for entries back in May? Well, there were many fine entries, but finally the winners have been announced. Check out the Editor's picks for the cream of the crop. My favorite is Wolfenstein 5K, which ones have you enjoyed? Of course, 'real men' do it in 256 bytes instead ;-)
posted by wackybrit on Aug 8, 2002 - 10 comments

Competition to "reverse engineer" mystery program.
Another cool thingy from the HoneyNet Project; they're inviting people to convert a binary file into its original source. So, who's participating?
posted by arnab on May 3, 2002 - 2 comments

Interesting The guy who wrote Your CSS Bores Me(previously linked and discussed here) has decided to accept his own challenge. For the month of February, he will be applying a different stylesheet to the index page of his site, with no manipulation of the HTML document itself. This is one to watch, if you're also a code geek.
posted by Su on Feb 5, 2002 - 21 comments

Blogger Code Decoder. Those Blogger Codes are the most annoying thing since Pokemon but just in case...
posted by lostbyanecho on Jan 14, 2002 - 11 comments

B4 d t+ k s++ u-- f++ i o++ x e l- c--
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 10, 2002 - 99 comments