[HN Gopher] **|*****|**|*
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       **|*****|**|*
        
       Author : crazypython
       Score  : 329 points
       Date   : 2021-05-11 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (scp-wiki.wikidot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (scp-wiki.wikidot.com)
        
       | osenthuortuh wrote:
       | i5ie
        
         | crb3 wrote:
         | That's how I read it too; and then the link could be seen as an
         | elaborate QSL card.
        
       | screye wrote:
       | Reminds me of the Chandrian. Haliax is afterall a shadowy figure
       | that is obsessed with keeping themselves secret without any clear
       | goals.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | _Microft wrote:
       | /!\
        
       | skibz wrote:
       | This website has some truly great stories. Where/how do I begin
       | to understand this one?
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | Read on, I found I could figure out most of it on the go.
         | 
         | I still don't understand this part, though: https://scp-
         | wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/scp-2521/clearance...
        
           | jerf wrote:
           | Those are in-universe classification levels. It says low-
           | level personnel are not allowed to access this file, only
           | Level 4 and O5, the latter being the top tier Foundation
           | ruling council. So that one can't really be decoded without a
           | bit of SCP-specific knowledge.
        
           | kuu wrote:
           | O5: http://www.scpwiki.com/o5-command-dossier
        
           | gclawes wrote:
           | Access to information restricted to Level 4 clearance and O5
           | council only.
        
           | isoprophlex wrote:
           | Probably that the data contained therein is authorized for
           | foundation members at O5 and O4 level
           | 
           | http://www.scpwiki.com/security-clearance-levels
        
           | jdshupe wrote:
           | This part is talking about who is allowed to view the
           | materials. Level 4 and O5 are the top people of the
           | foundation and the information is only allowed to be seen by
           | them.
        
           | xboxnolifes wrote:
           | Information must only be shared with those of level 4
           | clearance or higher.
           | 
           | Edit: Oh wow, a lot of people replied between my last page
           | refresh.
        
         | TchoBeer wrote:
         | The important thing is that 2521 (ohgod don't hurt me) seeks
         | out and destroys everything which contains information about
         | itself, but only if that information is words. It doesn't
         | destroy pictorial representations.
        
       | throwaway_2047 wrote:
       | Can someone explain to me what am I reading here? Everyone is
       | mentioning SCP. What is SCP?
        
         | kuyan wrote:
         | > The SCP Foundation[note 3] is a fictional organization
         | documented by the web-based collaborative-fiction project of
         | the same name. Within the website's fictional setting, the SCP
         | Foundation is responsible for locating and containing
         | individuals, entities, locations, and objects that violate
         | natural law (referred to as SCPs). The real-world website is
         | community-based and includes elements of many genres such as
         | horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy.
         | 
         | > On the SCP Foundation wiki, the majority of works consist of
         | "special containment procedures", structured internal
         | documentation that describes an SCP object and the means of
         | keeping it contained. The website also contains thousands of
         | "Foundation Tales", short stories that take place within the
         | SCP Foundation setting. The series has been praised for its
         | ability to convey horror through its scientific and academic
         | writing style, as well as for its high standards of quality.
         | 
         | > The Foundation has inspired numerous spin-off works,
         | including the horror indie video games SCP - Containment Breach
         | and SCP: Secret Laboratory.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_Foundation
        
       | stefanvdw1 wrote:
       | Ah yes, the wonderful world of SCPs. When I first discovered the
       | subreddit[0] I read through a ton of them. Some are very well
       | written and the whole universe is very interesting. Would
       | recommend to anyone interested in sci-fi.
       | 
       | 0. https://old.reddit.com/r/scp
        
         | Severian wrote:
         | The Antimemetics Division stories are very well written, and
         | make for some great reading.
         | 
         | http://www.scpwiki.com/antimemetics-division-hub
         | 
         | Imagine fighting something that actively eats any knowledge
         | about itself and anything you know about it, including
         | yourself.
        
           | MrRadar wrote:
           | You can now buy it as an e-book or paperback from the
           | original author: https://qntm.org/scp
        
             | isoprophlex wrote:
             | I can highly HIGHLY recommend reading this. I blazed
             | through it within 24 hours.
             | 
             | Favorite pun: "digitized" to describe being absorbed by a
             | monster consisting of a mass of fingers...
        
             | inasio wrote:
             | Highly recommend. One of my favourite books from last year,
             | probably the most surprising one. It reads like one
             | coherent book, not just a collection of short stories.
        
             | ohazi wrote:
             | If you like this, you should also consider reading qntm's
             | other work -- I thought `Ra` and `Fine Structure` were
             | particularly good:
             | 
             | https://qntm.org/fiction
        
               | Severian wrote:
               | Oh wow! I didn't know he was the same author. I've been
               | looking all over for the Fine Structure website since
               | reading it ages ago and lost my bookmark. Thank you!
        
           | ball_of_lint wrote:
           | Loved this series. IMO many scp hubs/stories are low-quality
           | or have unsavory themes. This series avoids the worst of that
           | and tackles a difficult problem in a thoughtful way.
        
         | protomyth wrote:
         | I gotta admit that playing a bunch of the SCP animations on
         | youtube is pretty entertaining. Multiple channels do a nice job
         | of bringing life to the entries.
        
         | kuu wrote:
         | Just give some context about what is the SCP (I had no clue):
         | https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/SCP_Foundation
        
         | delecti wrote:
         | For a time, I read through hundreds of them, but then I had a
         | bad trip involving seeing a lot of imagery from them, and it
         | rather soured me on reading more.
        
           | jerf wrote:
           | Yeah, if you're in the habit of taking such trips, I think
           | I'd recommend considering very carefully whether you want to
           | start reading through that wiki. There are some real-life, no
           | fooling psychologically-hazardous things to read on there.
        
             | silicon2401 wrote:
             | Any recommendations on those hazardous things?
        
               | jerf wrote:
               | Obviously, by the nature of the question, existential
               | horror trigger warning. Further, bear in mind that your
               | reactions may vary; none of these particularly bother me
               | because for better or worse I have my own solid opinions
               | on such matters.
               | 
               | A lot of people have a bad reaction to http://scp-
               | wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2718 . An entire "canon" (collection
               | of stories and sometimes some SCP entries) that can be
               | similarly rough is http://www.scpwiki.com/end-of-death-
               | hub . Here's a roughly-equivalent reddit question: https:
               | //www.reddit.com/r/SCP/comments/ai3aik/recommendations...
               | & if you're serious, by all means feel free to post your
               | question there, the community as a whole never tires of
               | answering it (no sarcasm).
               | 
               | But I would just say in general that if you've got a
               | "hole" in your psyche, hundreds of writers across
               | thousands of articles _will_ eventually find it. No joke.
               | For instance, I 'm sure a lot of people would just bounce
               | off of http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-5045 but it spoke to
               | me, probably because I've played rather too many video
               | games from an era where those sorts of graphics were
               | current and I've got neural pathways adding overtones
               | related to the graphics that a younger person probably
               | doesn't. (But said younger person might have found
               | Herobrine stories legitimately spooky at some point.)
               | 
               | (5045 is a bit of a "format screw", which is to say, it
               | has stuff hidden beyond the usual text, images, and
               | clearly-labelled expandable drop-downs that most of the
               | Wiki is built with. Be sure to click on the images as you
               | go along. Most images in the Wiki don't do anything but
               | many of these do. But not all.)
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | As a Jeep owner I was excited for a brief moment.
       | 
       | *|||||||*
        
       | aranelsurion wrote:
       | If you're interested in SCP, this game might also be of interest:
       | https://store.steampowered.com/app/870780/Control_Ultimate_E...
        
         | EamonnMR wrote:
         | This is one of the most enjoyable action games I've played
         | recently. The things it does with visual design, shaders,
         | perspective, and environments are incredibly impressive.
        
       | jasonhansel wrote:
       | This gives me an idea for a way to easily and securely get rid of
       | a hard drive...would be much cheaper than those companies that
       | shred them.
        
       | crazypython wrote:
       | In less than one minute, this post went from #4 to #12,
       | suggesting anomalous behavior.
       | https://upvotetracker.com/post/hn/27120460
        
         | dang wrote:
         | That's not "anomalous behavior", that's routine:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
         | 
         | If you want anomalous behavior: we not only put your post in
         | the second-chance pool
         | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), we unbanned
         | wikidot.com and unkilled your submission so that it could go
         | through in the first place.
        
           | crazypython wrote:
           | I'm joking. It's userflags or mods.
           | 
           | Thanks for putting it in the second-chance pool.
           | 
           | The issue is anything that seems to disagree with Hacker
           | News' mainstream[0] beliefs[1] gets flagged. Or even things
           | the flagger doesn't understand: see this post being killed in
           | the first place.
           | 
           | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112353
           | 
           | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26838634
        
             | dang wrote:
             | The flags were correct. The first link was unsubstantive,
             | and you can tell from the comments why people were flagging
             | it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112503. The
             | second was flamebait on the biggest flamewar topic in
             | months. By the time it was posted HN had had a massive
             | number of threads about it (see
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713650). It's easy
             | to see why users would consider yet another such post off-
             | topic.
             | 
             | > _The issue is anything that seems to disagree with Hacker
             | News ' mainstream[0] beliefs gets flagged._
             | 
             | You don't have to resort to "beliefs" to explain those
             | cases. You may be falling prey to the bias where the bad
             | (what you don't like) stands out more than the good (what
             | you like), leading to false feelings of generality.
             | 
             | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
             | e...
             | 
             | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
             | e...
        
               | crazypython wrote:
               | > By the time it was posted HN had had a massive number
               | of threads about it (see
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713650).
               | 
               | Almost all the threads you linked to were misinformation
               | or anti-RMS posts with no substance.
               | 
               | Stallmansupport.org is a website made by a group of
               | women, with articles only from women, debunking the
               | sexism claims. It is rich in primary sources.
               | 
               | Yet it gets flagged.
               | 
               | Non-substantiative news like "Red Hat supports the
               | removal of RMS" doesn't get flagged, but an in-depth
               | website by a group of women does.
               | 
               | "Red Hat Pulls Free Software Foundation Funding over
               | Richard Stallman's Return" is a dupe. Also, less than 3%
               | of FSF funding is corporate, so it's not really relevant.
               | 
               | There were far more "calls for RMS to be removed" that
               | weren't flagged than substantiative in-depth articles
               | that looked at the issue.
               | 
               | I suggest a simple remedy: Don't count flags from people
               | who didn't click to open the article. To implement this,
               | require a min delay between the time the link list is
               | loaded, and the time they flagged.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | Your perceptions of one-sidedness are coming from the
               | force of your passions. I assure you that people on the
               | opposite side of this story say exactly the same things,
               | just with one bit flipped.
               | 
               | I addressed all of this in depth at the time (ironically,
               | in a submission of the same URL that you posted, which
               | wasn't killed):
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713636
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26714003
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26713701
               | 
               | That took hours, and I don't have hours to write anything
               | new. If, after reading those comments, you still think
               | there's something I haven't addressed, please double-
               | check to make double-sure that I didn't address it. If it
               | passes that test, ask me then and I'll try to answer. In
               | the meantime, though, please don't post new variations in
               | this endless sequence.
        
               | crazypython wrote:
               | > The first link was unsubstantive
               | 
               | The most well-known VPS provider (DO) is not profitable
               | and a competitor (Linode) with the same price and a very
               | similar product is profitable.
               | 
               | That in itself is interesting to me, particularly how DO
               | managed to pull off that marketing.
               | 
               | > The second was flamebait on the biggest flamewar topic
               | in months.
               | 
               | Sorry, I didn't see that it was already duplicated. If it
               | was, I would have avoided submitting.
        
         | unyttigfjelltol wrote:
         | HNers may well have flagged it after clicking through to the
         | symbols and picturgrams.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | I was about a second from flagging it when I saw it - I
           | didn't remember what's on wikidot.com, and that domain +
           | Unicode dots smelled like something that doesn't belong. But
           | then I realized it's an SCP, so it got my upvote instead :).
           | 
           | I consider many of the SCPs as intellectual curiosity
           | equivalent of catnip; they take your mind to places it never
           | expected to find itself in. But it takes reading some to
           | realize that, and this one definitely requires context.
        
       | peanut_worm wrote:
       | the domain being "wikidot" really threw me off
        
       | jvanderbot wrote:
       | I get that this is instructions / data about a baddie that steals
       | all written / spoken information about itself. Including the
       | person who spoke it.
       | 
       | BUT, what is the bit about half way down showing that you cannot
       | share the pictoral data with people 0,1,2, or 3, but you can
       | share with 4 and ... 0.5?
        
         | fao_ wrote:
         | Security clearance, only level 4 or higher. An O-5 is one of
         | the directors of The Foundation.
        
       | HPsquared wrote:
       | Reminds me of this real-world example:
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Forc...
        
         | xvector wrote:
         | Did anything ever come of this? Were the ideas ever implemented
         | in the real world?
        
           | gswdh wrote:
           | I heard they concluded the best sign was no sign. Any sign
           | would draw attention to the site if it could not be
           | understood. The best thing to do is to bury waste as deep as
           | possible in secure and boring (geologically) locations to
           | reduce the chances of anyone digging.
        
             | TrevorJ wrote:
             | There's a common theme among fantasy stories of a race of
             | (usually dwarves) that 'dug too deep' and uncovered
             | something evil underground. It's interesting that this
             | cautionary tale already seems embedded in our lore. I
             | wonder why? Have we made this mistake before, at some point
             | in our forgotten past?
             | 
             | Probably not, but it's interesting to think about.
        
               | NortySpock wrote:
               | "dug straight down" and fell in a cave... cave might have
               | been full of something that eats flesh like piranha or
               | bacteria, or even just angry bats...
               | 
               | Seems pretty trivial for this kind of lore to get
               | started.
        
               | avaldes wrote:
               | Maybe those stories refer to natural fission reactors.
               | Cursed stones buried deep in the ground that heat
               | themselves and kill people who comes too close.
        
           | sbierwagen wrote:
           | Regrettably, the actual markers at the WIPP burial site are
           | far more boring and government-y: https://commons.wikimedia.o
           | rg/wiki/File:WIPP_Large_Surface_M...
        
             | p1mrx wrote:
             | <o><o>!
             | 
             | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WIPP-09.jpeg
        
             | 1_player wrote:
             | The Wikipedia page for WIPP still mentions that "[warning
             | information] will be recorded in the six official languages
             | of the United Nations (English, Spanish, Russian, French,
             | Chinese, Arabic) as well as the Native American Navajo
             | language native to the region, with additional space for
             | translation into future languages. Pictograms are also
             | being considered, such as stick figure images and the
             | iconic The Scream from Edvard Munch's painting."
             | 
             | A great video about Fear of Depths briefly talks about
             | this: https://youtu.be/7MOKTU9tCbw?t=1299 (timestamped at
             | 21:39 when they mention WIPP, but I highly recommend the
             | whole video)
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | The deliberately use simple language, and then go and use
             | "berm" in a way that makes it pretty hard to understand
             | without knowing what a "berm" is. I know a lot of English
             | words, but I'd have to look that one up.
        
               | HPsquared wrote:
               | It also optimistically assumes the intended readers,
               | living in the future, will have finally adopted the
               | metric system.
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | There is also _Don 't change color, Kitty_, the _" 10000 - Year
         | Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste
         | Repositories"_.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g78hZIEqONM
        
       | kevinmgranger wrote:
       | For additional context: this was the winning entry in the SCP's
       | Short Works Contest[1]. The idea was: can you make a good SCP
       | entry in under 500 words? Bonus points if it's under 237 words,
       | the length of the first ever entry.
       | 
       | Of course, the entry with zero words won.
       | 
       | [1]: http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/short-works-contest
        
         | hatsuseno wrote:
         | Seems like that's a common thread for 'shortest X' contents,
         | like that 0-byte IOOCC entry.
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | This would make a fantastic horror movie. I could see it being in
       | the same vein as "It Follows", except in this case you can't talk
       | about the monster.
        
       | pkulak wrote:
       | My 11-year-old son is absolutely obsessed with SCP stuff. Never
       | in a million years did I think I'd see something about it here.
       | Wow.
        
         | tywkeene wrote:
         | It's definitely not "just kid stuff" if it gives that
         | impression. There's some seriously talented writers out there
         | that can really grab your imagination.
         | 
         | I recall one "tale" that about a time when SCP failed to secure
         | everything all at once, and a normal guy is detailing the world
         | basically falling apart as long as he can.
         | 
         | In the right hands a lot of these stories could make
         | magnificent movies, but that's a long shot.
        
           | TchoBeer wrote:
           | Sounds like an 001 story. For my personal favorite one read
           | "When Day Breaks."
        
       | MetallicCloud wrote:
       | In people like these and haven't tried playing the game
       | `Control`, you definitely should. It is very heavily inspired by
       | the SCP project, and is a super fun and interesting game.
        
       | crazypython wrote:
       | Another interesting SCP: the "Adaptive Distributed Intelligence"
       | http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5241#toc0
        
       | outsidetheparty wrote:
       | SCP Wiki has really matured over the years; it started out as
       | creepypasta and murder monsters -- many of them well-written, to
       | be sure, and an interesting setting -- but still just basically
       | straightforward horror stories.
       | 
       | In recent years some of the writers there have really upped their
       | game, they're tackling much more nuanced and complicated issues
       | than "SCARY THING WILL DESTROY WORLD". I'm particularly fond of
       | http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-5031, for example, which directly
       | addresses those aspects of the early site in a very humorous way.
        
         | rthomas6 wrote:
         | I love this :)
        
         | phiiiillll wrote:
         | This is a good long form SCP read:
         | http://www.scpwiki.com/antimemetics-division-hub
        
           | ChrisClark wrote:
           | I really loved reading through this one. Such a great idea
           | for a story.
        
         | ctdonath wrote:
         | Bravo. 5031 was a brilliant read. ("Salt", OMG.)
         | 
         | First encountered SCP by chance, absolutely baffling - so much
         | fictional detail. Favorite is the self-filling whiskey tumbler.
        
         | inopinatus wrote:
         | having Gears shoot Kondraki was the smartest move that O-5 ever
         | made.
        
       | rory wrote:
       | Could the person who made the entry write in abstract? Like what
       | if I say: you shouldn't write or talk about beings that don't
       | want to be written or talked about.
        
         | dsr_ wrote:
         | That Depends.
         | 
         | There may be classes of infovores and memetic cognitohazards
         | which are not triggered by information so general that it does
         | not assert the actual existence of any given entity.
        
           | abhorrence wrote:
           | As I recall, in one of the antimemetic stories they can (with
           | some intentional effort) remember and describe what it isn't:
           | "It isn't... round."
        
             | zro wrote:
             | I believe that was SCP-055
        
         | jerf wrote:
         | One of the general principles of the SCP-verse is that it hates
         | rules lawyers. If you try to get clever, things tend to react
         | even worse. This is used in-universe as an explanation of why
         | they "contain" rather than "destroy". One of my favorite
         | examples, albeit a very old one now, is
         | http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-145 .
        
           | tedivm wrote:
           | Another really good example of that is SCP-1609:
           | http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-1609
        
       | dharmab wrote:
       | IIRC this was written for a contest for the best entry written
       | with a low word count
        
       | gorgoiler wrote:
       | Be sure to check out the discussion page for links to the
       | original artwork:
       | 
       | http://www.humantropy.com/
       | 
       | http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-1292498/scp-2521
        
       | sxp wrote:
       | If you're new to SCP, I suggest starting with qntm's Antimemetics
       | stories. They're well written and self-contained. You can read
       | them for free online or buy the ebook: https://qntm.org/scp
        
       | geoah wrote:
       | > SCP-2521 (also known as **|*****|**|*) is a Keter-level SCP not
       | currently contained by the SCP Foundation. He is a creature who
       | steals every piece of information about his nature, as long as
       | the information is expressed in textual or verbal form. Because
       | of that, nearly everything about him is registered by ideograms
       | and pictures.
       | 
       | from https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/SCP-2521
        
         | agmm wrote:
         | .
        
           | jeffgreco wrote:
           | I just tried to wipe that off my screen.
        
             | canadianfella wrote:
             | So did I.
        
         | Jommi wrote:
         | delete this
        
           | ta988 wrote:
           | Is that the roko basilisk all over again?
        
         | 4bpp wrote:
         | If I were working for the SCP foundation, I'd be putting some
         | D-class personnel on the problem of figuring out where exactly
         | the line between ideograms/pictures and "textual or verbal
         | form" lies. Can you describe it in Chinese writing? A
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus? Is the determinant whether
         | any sound sequences used for human communication are being
         | encoded? What about only using the purely pictographic Chinese
         | characters, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols?
         | 
         | (What about a picture of the waveform of a verbal description?
         | ...a complete scifi brain scan of someone who understands what
         | it is?)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | dogecoinbase wrote:
           | This reminds me of an all-time favorite essay:
           | https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756
           | 
           | "We can ask: if consciousness is reducible to computation,
           | then what kinds of computation suffice to bring about
           | consciousness? What if each person on earth simulated one
           | neuron in your brain, communicating by passing little slips
           | of paper around? Does it matter if they do it really fast?
           | 
           | Or what if we built a gigantic lookup table that hard-coded
           | your responses in every possible interaction of at most, say,
           | 5 minutes? Would that bring about your consciousness? Does it
           | matter that such a lookup table couldn't fit in the
           | observable universe? Would it matter if anyone actually
           | consulted the table, or could it just sit there, silently
           | effecting your consciousness? For what matter, what
           | difference does it make if the lookup table physically exists
           | --why isn't its abstract mathematical existence enough?"
        
             | sorokod wrote:
             | Isn't this the same construct as Searle's Chinese Room ?
        
               | de_keyboard wrote:
               | It's the Chinese Mind thought experiment
        
             | pantalaimon wrote:
             | > What if each person on earth simulated one neuron in your
             | brain, communicating by passing little slips of paper
             | around?
             | 
             | I do think this kind of group consciousness or meta
             | consciousness exists, on many layers even. That's how
             | society works.
        
               | CamperBob2 wrote:
               | Yep. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes watching
               | an anthill should understand that more or less
               | intuitively.
               | 
               | We're just bigger ants, is all.
        
             | perl4ever wrote:
             | >silently effecting your consciousness
             | 
             | You deserve a medal for first class orthodox use of
             | "effect".
             | 
             | >what difference does it make if the lookup table
             | physically exists
             | 
             | The difference it makes is that if it doesn't exist, nobody
             | who does exist can talk to it. It seems like much the same
             | situation as wondering if someone over the cosmological
             | horizon or inside the event horizon of a black hole exists.
             | If I was entering the answer into a database, I would
             | probably choose null or "N/A" rather than yes or no.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | Looking at it from first principles:
           | 
           | Information given in the SCP tell us that digitally stored
           | files are affected to. That seems to mean digitally stored
           | _text_.
           | 
           | Text in a digital form is just a way to indirectly reference
           | _pictures_ to be shown on the screen or printed. Sometimes it
           | 's a straight lookup table correspondence (ASCII), sometimes
           | more complex (Unicode); there may be noise (OOXML). I'd guess
           | that, in context of this SCP, a PNG with letters on it would
           | count as text too.
           | 
           | This suggests that the issue isn't with a representation
           | format, but the interpretation of it - or at least in a way
           | the representation is processed by human minds.
           | 
           | I put forward a hypothesis that the relevant recognition
           | criteria is words being recognized from sensory inputs by the
           | human brain, and backtracking to most direct source of these
           | words. This would explain the results of both documented
           | tests. I propose following further tests to be made:
           | 
           | - Repeating Test 1, but blindfolding the test subject before
           | telling them to write words down, so that they can't see
           | them. Expected outcome: like in Test 2.
           | 
           | - Repeating Test 2, but instructing the test subject to _not_
           | repeat the words heard out loud. Expected outcome: like in
           | Test 2.
           | 
           | - Repeating Test 2 with the test subject incapable of
           | hearing. Expected outcome: nothing happens.
           | 
           | - Repeating Test 2, using a machine recording sounds and
           | replaying them after a delay, in place of the test subject.
           | Expected outcome: nothing happens.
           | 
           | - Repeating Test 1, using a computer connected to a
           | microphone and a printer, in place of test subject; the
           | machine would run a dictation algorithm to print the spoken
           | words. Expected outcome: nothing happens.
        
             | blamestross wrote:
             | Huh, the server has not been stolen yet, maybe it doesn't
             | work the way we think.
        
           | olodus wrote:
           | It was actually for this reason alone that a top secret team
           | of scientists came up with wingdings.
        
         | antihero wrote:
         | Well, whoever wrote that is fucked.
        
           | jychang wrote:
           | Nah, 2521 would just take the piece of paper it's written on.
           | If someone said it out loud, then they're fucked.
        
         | jschwartzi wrote:
         | Oh damn it now I have to throw my laptop away.
        
         | someguyorother wrote:
         | Now I wonder if he detects indirect statements and exhaustive
         | lies, e.g. "The creature is in $CONTINENT" for all continents
         | but one.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | nine_k wrote:
         | This is because self-referential jokes are the funniest -- like
         | this one.
        
       | soheil wrote:
       | Secure Contain Protect not to be confused with cmd line tool scp,
       | secure copy.
        
       | kickscondor wrote:
       | Some other Internet 'lore' rabbitholes:
       | 
       | * SilvaGunner (also: Unregistered HyperCam 2):
       | https://siivagunner.fandom.com/wiki/SiIvaGunner_Wiki
       | 
       | * Pronounciation Book / horse_ebooks:
       | https://77days.fandom.com/wiki/Pronunciation_Book_Conspiracy...
       | 
       | * Cicada 3301: http://www.cicada3301.org
       | 
       | I'm cataloguing some of these here:
       | https://href.cool/Stories/Folkmeme
       | 
       | Interested to hear about other favorites of yours!
        
         | geoah wrote:
         | One of my favourites:
         | 
         | > John Titor is a name used on several bulletin boards during
         | 2000 and 2001 by a poster claiming to be an American military
         | time traveler from 2036. Titor made numerous vague and specific
         | predictions regarding calamitous events in 2004 and beyond,
         | including a nuclear war. Inconsistencies in his explanations,
         | the uniform inaccuracy of his predictions, and a private
         | investigator's findings all led to the general impression that
         | the entire episode was an elaborate hoax.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor
        
           | dragontamer wrote:
           | And of course, the anime based off of John Titor's legend:
           | Steins;Gate (and other urban legends: such as miniature black
           | holes are being created by "SERN" in the LHC: the obvious
           | play on CERN in the real world).
           | 
           | A pretty funny (and horrific!!) "what if" scenario if a lot
           | of those legends happened to be true. I have my doubts if it
           | has aged very well: a lot of the pull of that anime was that
           | it felt very "in the now"... where "now" was ~2010 when it
           | was released. Those urban legends / online conspiracy
           | theories have a short lifespan, and I doubt that many people
           | today would pick up on all of the stuff integrated into that
           | story.
        
             | debo_ wrote:
             | The urban legends may have an expiry date, but "tuturuu~"
             | is timeless.
        
               | dragontamer wrote:
               | That's true. A lot of the characters are very memorable
               | and stand on their own, even without any context of the
               | urban legends.
               | 
               | Isn't that right Chrrrrris-TINA!!
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Indeed.
               | 
               | I imagine it also had a measurable impact on the sales of
               | Dr Pepper. It took me a year to kick the habit of
               | drinking it, which started after binge-watching
               | Steins;Gate.
        
         | heavyset_go wrote:
         | One of my favorite classics that I didn't see in your catalogue
         | is Ted the Caver[1].
         | 
         | [1] https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/
        
         | codeulike wrote:
         | Ulillillia
         | 
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20161203081232/http://www.ulilli...
         | 
         | I bought his book back in the day. His main website is offline
         | but he's still around and doing ok it seems
        
           | tracedddd wrote:
           | Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters is a masterpiece, never
           | read anything remotely like it.
        
             | codeulike wrote:
             | Its still available!
             | 
             | https://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-legend-of-
             | th...
             | 
             | Review from the Lulu page:
             | 
             |  _This book is nothing like anything you 've ever read
             | before. The author himself doesn't read at all, so the book
             | basically reinvents the concept of the book, built on a
             | background of video games and a serious obsession with
             | numbers. If you are a very 'literate' reader and unable to
             | read anything without seeing it against the conventions of
             | a thousand years of literary tradition, you'll have trouble
             | enjoying this book. If you can keep a very open mind,
             | you'll get a rare glimpse to a world seen by a mind that
             | doesn't work like most of ours. I would like to call this a
             | gem of outsider literature, but the term suffers from
             | association with lunacy and incompetence. Nick Smith is
             | neither. He is very conscious of the peculiar workings of
             | his mind, and follows confidently the path laid out by
             | those peculiarities, and the result is something wonderful.
             | Highly recommended! Review by Heikki Malkki_
        
         | dwighttk wrote:
         | Ted's Caving Page
         | 
         | https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/page1.html
        
         | 1_player wrote:
         | LEMMiNO has a nice 18 minutes documentary and summary on Cicada
         | 3301: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2O7blSSzpI
         | 
         | --
         | 
         | Some "internet lore" off the top of my head:
         | 
         | * Body builders try to figure out how many days are in a week,
         | summary dramatised here:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eECjjLNAOd4
         | 
         | * Time Cube: https://timecube.2enp.com/
         | 
         | --
         | 
         | EDIT: speaking of SilvaGunner, I've never heard this name
         | before, I found two mentions of it on two unrelated YouTube
         | videos in the past 3 hours. Incredible. Baader-Meinhof strikes
         | again.
        
           | jcun4128 wrote:
           | Cicada 3301 is also a movie now released in 2021, I was
           | surprised it had some basis in reality.
        
           | kickscondor wrote:
           | These 'going deep' videos also bring to mind 'The Lasangacat
           | Monologue': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh9oLs67Cw
           | (Originally ran across this in HN comments btw)
        
           | lukasdanin wrote:
           | lol thanks for the body builders link
        
           | jyrkesh wrote:
           | Does anyone else remember EPIC 2014?
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPIC_2014
           | 
           | I thought it was crazy how many of these turned out to be
           | mostly right (even if the explicit stuff about mergers and
           | lawsuits was wrong)
        
         | kickscondor wrote:
         | Also interested in stuff like the 847-page 'please will anyone
         | speak to about anything to me' historical document.
         | 
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20060324180631/http://www.moviec...
        
           | dash2 wrote:
           | What in hell is that????
        
             | nonbirithm wrote:
             | It was an Internet phenomenon caused by a quirk in Google's
             | "I'm feeling lucky" ranking.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_lonely_will_anyone_speak
             | _...
             | 
             | HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25532050
        
         | mjsir911 wrote:
         | +1 on SiIvagunner (with a capital i!), the amount of variation
         | they provide on a daily basis has quickly made them my go-to
         | focus music.
        
       | pvaldes wrote:
       | For a fly, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of
        
       | robotnikman wrote:
       | Funny to see this as I just got back into reading SCP articles
       | again.
        
       | VectorLock wrote:
       | Its nice to call out a SCP that isn't cringe self-insert
       | material.
        
       | DiggyJohnson wrote:
       | Well let me be the first to say: I'm intrigued.
        
       | isoprophlex wrote:
       | Weaponizing this would be fantastic for use in ransomware.
       | 
       | "Pay us crypto or else we'll overwrite your disks with data about
       | SCP-2521"
        
         | csunbird wrote:
         | But this sentence is about him, isn't it?
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-11 23:00 UTC)