Things you didn't know about Bruce Schneier. They are on the internet, so they must be true.

August 16, 2006 10:59 AM

"Most people use passwords. Some people use passphrases. Bruce Schneier uses an epic passpoem, detailing the life and works of seven mythical Norse heroes."
posted by chunking express (46 comments total)

Some facts are good; some not so much. They are all really nerdy.
posted by chunking express at 11:00 AM on August 16, 2006

HA HA HA! Cuz if you apply ROT13 TWICE, OF ALL THINGS, it comes out the same way it was!

OH MAN! My ribs are breaking.
posted by jon_kill at 11:04 AM on August 16, 2006

I don't know who this Bruce Schneier is, but he sounds like a fat neckbeard.
posted by keswick at 11:04 AM on August 16, 2006

goddammit, internet, please stop with the fucking vin diesel/chuck norris/whoever-the-fuck facts
posted by secret about box at 11:05 AM on August 16, 2006

Bruce Schneier is security expert. He probably gained a lot of fame for his book on Cryptography. He is also the author of the Blowfish crypto scheme.
posted by chunking express at 11:06 AM on August 16, 2006

See, I could have Googled it, but I knew a fanboy would tell me. Amazingly enough, I still don't care.
posted by keswick at 11:09 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Is this supposed to be derogatory? 'Cause, I don't get it. Why would you make fun of Bruce Schneier, of all people?
posted by drinkcoffee at 11:11 AM on August 16, 2006

Many of these are funny, if you understand the crypto gags. Yeah, it's a replay of yet another meme, but the photoshops of Bruce are worth it. I might make a T-shirt, just to horrify.

Fave: Bruce Schneier writes his books and essays by generating random alphanumeric text of an appropriate length and then decrypting it.

Why would you make fun of Bruce Schneier, of all people?

Because we can, silly.
posted by eriko at 11:17 AM on August 16, 2006

I think it's just supposed to be nerdy and funny. There are lots of nerds here, so I thought people would enjoy the link.

Thanks for letting us know you don' t care keswick; now I can start not caring too.
posted by chunking express at 11:18 AM on August 16, 2006

Keswick has anger.
posted by Divine_Wino at 11:23 AM on August 16, 2006

That's pretty much the understatement of the century.
posted by keswick at 11:29 AM on August 16, 2006

In the tradition of...
"Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice."

Which helped Chuck Norris' google-osity do this.
posted by Milkman Dan at 11:32 AM on August 16, 2006

Boooooooooooooooooooo!
posted by Mister_A at 11:33 AM on August 16, 2006

Keswick has anger.

Most people have anger. Some people have a lot of anger. keswick has a vast reservoir of epic rage, reserved for all of the posts he claims he doesn't care about, but still cares about just enough to vent his vast reservoir of epic rage upon.
posted by dersins at 11:55 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

I may be a nerdy fanboy (oh, wait, I *am* a nerdy fanboy!) but I found this laugh out loud funny.
posted by Maastrictian at 11:56 AM on August 16, 2006

This is something that tries to be funny simply by refering to something that only a few people know about. Identity Humor, or the "inside joke" Unfortunetly chuck norris is entirely played out and these jokes just arn't really that funny.
posted by delmoi at 11:57 AM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Keswick are you really an asshat? Is there some kind of certification for this? Just wondering.
posted by Mister_A at 12:00 PM on August 16, 2006

Most of these don't require any technical knowledge, they just use mathematical terms.

Bruce Schneier's discrete logarithms are uncountable and continuous

Woah, that's so backwards and crazy! Just the opposite of what you'd expect!

Bruce Schneier can determine the exact location and velocity of any particle that's being used by quantum cryptography.

Weak. Just because it has "quantum" in it...

Bruce Schneier doesn't even trust Trent. Trent has to trust Bruce Schneier.

Funny.

Bruce Schneier can solve NP-Complete problems in NlogN time.

Lame. Also: is NlogN funnier than Nloglog(N^0.5)?

Ron Rivest wears Bruce Schneier pajamas.

Funny, but untrue. I'd bet as much as FIVE american dollars.

Every time Bruce Schneier writes a fully general halt-checker, God kills a passenger pigeon. This is why passenger pigeons are extinct.

Ridiculous. You'd only need to write it once, then read off all the many answers to problems reducible to the halting problem. This is essentially computing Chaitin's Omega.
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:27 PM on August 16, 2006

I lol'd.
posted by everichon at 12:34 PM on August 16, 2006

More toilet humor might help: Bruce Schneier pooted a little and my passphrase came out.
posted by peeedro at 12:41 PM on August 16, 2006

Wow, we've gone full circle:

"Geologists recently discovered that "earthquakes" are nothing more than Bruce Schneier and Chuck Norris communicating via a roundhouse kick-based cryptosystem."

Funny link, thanks!
posted by kableh at 12:45 PM on August 16, 2006

I thought it was funny. Some bits were too obvious, but others had just the right balance of machismo and math geekiness. But I enjoy the Chuck Norris and Vin Diesel fact lists too, so I may not be critical enough.

Also, once keswick was so unimpressed with a post on a community website that every user stabbed themselves in shame.

The telegraph didn't die because it was replaced by the telephone--it died because keswick was apathetic to it.

If keswick finds your website insufficiently funny, he will burn the entire Internet to the ground and never look back.
posted by moss at 12:49 PM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Okay, some of these are pretty good:

"A mystery wrapped in an Enigma is no more puzzling to Bruce Schneier than a mystery wrapped in ROT-13."
posted by justkevin at 12:52 PM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

I liked, "Bruce Schneier mounts side-channel attacks through the front channel."
posted by chunking express at 12:58 PM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Alice left Bob for Bruce.
posted by Ryvar at 1:03 PM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Crap. Keswick didn't like it.

And I was soooo sure it was funny.

Oh well.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:08 PM on August 16, 2006

Nielsen Media was recently underbid by Keswick Media to measure the effectiveness of next seasons's programming.

Keswick reports it SUCKS.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:11 PM on August 16, 2006

I heard keswick rates everything on a scale from 1 to suck.
posted by chunking express at 1:22 PM on August 16, 2006 [2 favorites]

Adolf Hitler used to hang out with keswick, but later broke off the friendship, claiming 'that keswich fellow needs to lighten up on the hate'.
posted by suckerpunch at 1:31 PM on August 16, 2006 [2 favorites]

(First off, 'keswick', not 'keswich'. I don't want to know what a keswich manwich tastes like. Second, I figure Godwinning this thread will either kill it dead or send it into an awesome downward spiral of invective.)
posted by suckerpunch at 1:33 PM on August 16, 2006

Someone needs to start a Keswick facts site. And then a Keswick vs. Chuck Norris comparison page.
posted by nlindstrom at 1:41 PM on August 16, 2006

This insufferably exsufflicate motherfucker of a site envenoms my humors appallingly! Please internet, stick to porn and illegal file-sharing sites.
posted by Mister_A at 1:46 PM on August 16, 2006

Once Keswick ate a hamburger, and reported it tasted like death.
posted by delmoi at 2:06 PM on August 16, 2006

Schneier must have single sign on.
posted by modernerd at 2:13 PM on August 16, 2006

Hell, Schneier is signed on before the damn thing even boots!
posted by InfidelZombie at 2:17 PM on August 16, 2006

I personally liked "Bruce Schneier's secure handshake is so strong, you won't be able to exchange keys with anyone else for days."

Somebody needs to photoshop that bare-chested Schneier with a Mr. T hairdo and of course lots of jewelry.
posted by ilsa at 2:29 PM on August 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

They even stoop to making π jokes. lame.
posted by blasdelf at 2:52 PM on August 16, 2006

Wouldn't it be nice if the best of the web wasn't stupid non sequiturs written by prolonged adolescents for prolonged adolescents about mid-level celebrities? I like Schneier's writing and enjoy a good math joke every once in a while but don't people have anything better to do with their time? This isn't a complaint about MetaFilter, mind, more a complaint about the sheer, um...actually no it is in part a complaint about MetaFilter. Carry on then.
posted by waxbanks at 3:03 PM on August 16, 2006

Did you hear the one about the constipated mathematician?










He worked it out with a pencil.
posted by rocketman at 4:45 PM on August 16, 2006 [2 favorites]

"Bruce Schneier sneers and solves Godel's incompleteness theorems."

Whoa, you can solve theorems now? I guess when you're Bruce Schneier.
posted by Eideteker at 5:21 PM on August 16, 2006

chuck norris jokes are the web 2.0 equivalent of "all your base"
posted by clevershark at 5:37 PM on August 16, 2006

bash you say?
posted by boo_radley at 9:20 PM on August 16, 2006

The picture was especially weird because I know Schneier pretty well. A definite "Gah!" moment.
posted by jiawen at 2:32 AM on August 17, 2006

Yeah, that must have been awful.
posted by yerfatma at 5:15 AM on August 17, 2006

If ever a post needed a ^, this would be it.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:30 AM on August 17, 2006

For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state: afraid.
posted by beatrice at 12:51 AM on August 18, 2006