Episode #774
December 2, 2023
I have a tradition, started by a friend on my 50th birthday.
Carey sent me 50 postcards. They arrived in my mailbox, one or two a day finishing a couple days before my birthday. They were interesting art postcards which he collects from museum gift shops and antique stores. On each card was a single letter.
Together the 50 cards spelled out a message. It was up to me to decode the anagram. Spaces between the words were not included.
As the cards arrived I tried making words of them. Most of the sentences I created were nonsensical, but I kept at it. The fun of the game was in the playing. To make matters more difficult, a “C” was lost by the post office.
These are the letters I received:
YIRFILTAYNYSEEYFFSMVTBSAI
CRAOURKAEAAPPEHUKHDBHSER
The message was:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICK BLUE SKIES HAVE FUN STAY SAFE FROM CAREY.
The missing “C” was in my name, so I was able to write RIK, instead of RICK.
Each year since, I have sent postcard anagrams to friends and relatives on their even “0” birthdays (30, 40, 50, etc.).
Thirty cards are fairly easy, but the decoding becomes exponentially more difficult the older the recipient. I asked chatGPT how many different sentences could be made of the 50 letters Carey sent me. It said:
“To accurately determine the exact count of meaningful and grammatically correct sentences, one would need to analyze and generate sentences systematically, considering all possible combinations and valid linguistic rules, which is a highly intricate task.”
AI is not very good at this highly intricate task. Humans, it turns out, are very good at it:
This year many of my friends turn 70.
The name of one of them is Taco (maybe a topic for another blog).
The letters on the 70 postcards I sent to Taco were:
MAWIORNRLNBOORAWIEIUOESHSIMHUEAUVT
TOVIYHAFSPS&COGTYLTYROYIDEKHTSCASETS
Taco played the game with enthusiasm.
The following are some of his solutions:
The message we intended to send Taco was:
THIS MESSAGE IS TO WISH YOU SEVENTY TACOS ON YOUR BIRTHDAY WITH LOVE FROM RICK & PAULA
The intention of our message hardly mattered in light of Taco’s creativity.
In total he decoded more than 50 different messages.
Well played Taco.
PLEASE BUY MY BOOKS:
“Skydivers Know Why Birds Sing” by Ricki T Thues is now available on Amazon.
It is a Love story of Rick and Paula Thues and their 35 years of Skydiving.
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ALSO AVAILABLE:
“Technically Human” by Ricki T Thues, the iMentor, is available on Amazon.
It is a compilation of selected episodes from this bLog which tell the story of Humanity through the eyes of the iMentor.
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The “Technically Human” ebook is also available on Apple Books . Click HERE.
Good job to Taco. Nice fun idea.
WOW That would be a REAL Birthday challenge don’t know is I could hack its. Thank goodness my ext birthday is 86! I have a few years to practice.
Something my brother would do…I need to share this with him!
Precious creativity! Loved this story. By present-ing a 70 item puzzle you contributed to Taco’s “Super Aging”. All those neurons were hot and firing.
Claire
No wonder your brain is still so fit. Besides the fact that you’re still a baby, anyone participating in this type of “fun”, certainly keeps that brain power going. I wish I had that kind of patience, but at my age, I’m just happy to get through my newspaper (written at the grade 8 level). Shameful. I haven’t been reading your blogs for awhile, Rick. Nice to get back to real thinking for the short-term.