Curious, eh?
Excellent! Curiosity sometimes pays off. Or was it trial and error? Either way, you've just tasted a little bit of what it can be like to take part in one of our Events - there's a seemingly ordinary or innocuous element in the world that might, in fact, be discovered to be a portal to something unanticipated. Sometimes you'll need a port key to get through.
Consider how each of these "curiosities" might apply to your group.
There are several of these peppered around this website - see if you can find them!
here's a teaser on coding ...
Our Events are a bit code-y ... Check out the Beginner's Guide to Code Breaking and the cipher challenge at the University of Southampton's maths department. Brush up your coding skills by breaking these ciphers from the 2016 Cipher Challenge.
Let me know if you get hooked into their annual challenge - fabulous.
Like codes?
A code is really just another type of map. There are rules about how one piece of information relates to another. We translate from one to the other.
Language too is coded. Puns are funny (if at all) because the codes about how we use words are stretched.
- Why do toadstools grow so close together?
- Because they don't need mushroom.
'Take care', 'take my car' and 'take control' could all be said to someone wanting transport but the use of 'take' is different in each sentence. When we communicate, the application of codes and the assumptions we make about the codes that are being used provides a rich source of misunderstanding, inspiration and humour. Here's a classic.