Peter and Keith and Greg and Jon and Shaun all told me to:
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 23.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
And because I obviously do whatever anyone tells me to do, you’re reading this post. As Shaun reasoned, there’s nothing in the instructions stating to include the name/author of the book. However, the sentence I found should make it incredibly easy to guess which book just arrived from Amazon the other day:
Change that one line of code, and they can all be purple, yellow, maroon, or any other color you desire.
What you got?
77 comments
Joris von Loghausen 5 years ago
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
Now what do I win? :)
Roger 5 years ago
It was the Old Fella.
Chris Gwynne 5 years ago
Treasure Island, the part where they’re cracking the secret code to the treasure chest.
Rafal 5 years ago
Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card
“In a way, Rooter himself was proof of the wisdom of the policy that forbade the xenologers to ask question that would reveal human expectations, and therefore human practices.”
Mike 5 years ago
Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
“Indeed.”
Ok this is stupid.
Dan Cederholm 5 years ago
Clicking the button with the small box makes the window as small as possible; the window turns into an icon.
greg 5 years ago
"This principle is also true, ultimately, in human behaviour, in human relationships."
Blakems 5 years ago
Context menus and specialized toolbars provide a “focused set of commands for each pane.”
-MM Homesite manual
Dan Phiffer 5 years ago
Google’s search engine counts these links as distributed votes of confidence in the quality of that page as among pages that fit the basic search algorithm.
beto 5 years ago
“Each element on the page has a distinct level of importance. But the designer does not rely on just big…”
-Christina Woodtke: Information Architecture book
Keith 5 years ago
Ohh, well aren’t you all literal with the directions, smart guy! Wait, they didn’t tell you to editorialize either! Neh, so there.
I do think it’s funny how it does tell you to post this in your journal and then you can kind of trace it back to where it started from.
Now we can play six degrees of that 23rd page thing. My site is two degrees away.
François Briatte 5 years ago
Voters can overcome this asymmetry by adopting strategies that provide them with relevant information on internal policies.
– B. Reinalda, B. Verbeek, “Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations” (Routlegde 1998).
Nick Finck 5 years ago
I posted my own to my site shortly after Keith did, here it is.
Conan 5 years ago
“For he coveted Arda and all that was in it, desiring the kingship of Manwë and dominion over the realms of his peers.”
-The Silmarillion
Doug 5 years ago
Oh, Conan. I’ve had The Silmarillion on my bookshelf for over a year now, and I still haven’t had a chance to read it yet…
Nicole 5 years ago
Page 23, sentence 5 of the IRS 2003 1040A instruction booklet:
“Be sure the name and SSN entered agree with the dependent’s social security card.”
(It was the only quasi-book within reaching distance).
Andrew Dunning 5 years ago
From the Faculty of Arts viewbook from University of Ottawa:
We have our very own museum of Greco-Roman antiques.
Charles 5 years ago
“We’re young only once, but with humor, we can be immature forever.”
- M. Helitzer, “Comedy Writing Secrets” (1987, Writer’s Digest Books)
Alex Taylor 5 years ago
“This Ryan amateur had gotten himself a lot of -way the hell too much- publicity for an employee of the CIA, even more so since he was DI guy.”
Eric Meyer 5 years ago
Woo hoo!
moonshake 5 years ago
When under the moonlight you hear the crunching sound made by the zha when it bites the melons, then you take your pitch-fork and creep stealthily over…
justin 5 years ago
“In the previous example, the HREF attribute had a relative URL (goldberg.html) as value.”
sergio 5 years ago
“I undertaked to input the things you counseled me to, and I fatigated the thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared too petite, or not befitting.”
Peter Asquith 5 years ago
Snap!
griffin 5 years ago
“Then he taught me another song, a lullaby I’d never heard before.”
- Memoirs of a Geisha
Mike Woodhouse 5 years ago
Clearly we need to modify the Pop method to check to see whether there are any elements in the Stack and if not, throw the InvalidOperationException.
I need to get out more.
David House 5 years ago
“Tank Drop Level 2″
Command and Conquer manual :)
adam weisshaupt 5 years ago
23 – 5 – illuminati?
Ben 5 years ago
Um…
12.30pm Man Slowly Working a Teaspoon Up His Arse
(TV Go Home, Charlie Brooker)
Subzero Blue 5 years ago
“Secondly, although an English carrier or short-faced tumbler differs immensely in certain characters from the rock-pigeon, yet by comparing the several sub-breeds of these breeds, more especially those brought from distant countries, we can make an almost perfect series between the extremes of structure.”
Taken from Charles Darwin’s The Origin Of Species.
dave saunders 5 years ago
“design is as much about visually embedding a message in its cultural context as it is about strict functionality.”
goddamn, i was hoping for something a bit more exciting than that…
stephen 5 years ago
As can be sen from table 2.7, the numbers of hispanic and asian americans have been increasing particularly rapidly, as a consequence of high birthrates and immigration.
(American Politics and Society, David McKay)
Damn Immigrants…!
Malarkey 5 years ago
“Furthermore, the development of the migratory movement gives an enormous impetus to the disintegration of the peasantry, and particularly of the agricultural peasantry.”
… Lenin, not Zeldman ;).
Alek 5 years ago
Yes, I break down in front of four hundred strangers and loose my mind.
The book of illusions – Paul Auster
Mark 5 years ago
For example, creating a new project can be achieved using the File | New | Project… menu item as above, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N, or by clicking on the corresponding icon in the toolbar.
Benning Visual C# -Karli Watson, Wrox Press
Josh 5 years ago
Closest textbook:
What is the sum of each pair of binary integers?
Ew.
Closest real book:
These enterprises are not distinguished by their commitment to quantitative evidence; better guides for design are excellent maps and statistical graphics.
The former being _Assembly Language for Intel Based Computers_ by Irvine, the latter being Tufte’s _Visual Explanations_.
Aaron Gustafson 5 years ago
If you take the step of getting on the path towards electoral power, we will point you in the right direction and give you the tools you need to create a world you want to live in.
–How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office
Brian O'Neill 5 years ago
Ele com suas viagens e eu morrendo em Poço Fundo , escrevendo e me recuperando do acidente de carro no qual quase perdi a vida.
-Antonio Carlos Jobim: Um Homem Illuminado
Ok Doug let’s see if your site handles my cedilia (ç) correctly ;-)
John 5 years ago
Am I the only one completely amused by this rampant abuse of the law of fives?
Dennis 5 years ago
Moonshake! I read that last week! Are you in Asian 212?
But Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all use Chinese characters, and they have attained a higher literacy rate than the United States.
jim 5 years ago
Thus in a uniform field two equal opposite and parallel forces act on the poles of a bar magnet, tending to turn it on it’s axis and set it in the direction of the lines of force.
-Electricity in the service of man – R. Wormell D.Sc. M.A. 1895.
Nick Cawthon 5 years ago
Use high-contrast text and background colors so that type is as legible as possible.
Larry 5 years ago
“Transistors fall in the last category.”
(Hennessy and Patterson’s Computer Organization and Design … yeah, I’m at work :)
Nathan 5 years ago
“You can rename a view, the the views themselves are not editable-if you need to make a change to a view, you’ll have to make a New View.”
- the illustrator 10 wow! book
diong 5 years ago
“An EJB can offer interfaces that allow the EJB to be invoked remotely(known as the home interface and the remote interface) or interfaces that allow the EJB to be invoked locally (known as the local home interface and the local interface).”
Ant 5 years ago
Therefore, every kilobyte of information matters.
Brude 5 years ago
Did you know that the numbers 23 (page number) and 5 (sentence number) are holy numbers to the secret organization called the Illuminati?
There’s a higher force working hear. Tred lightly.
-brude
Brandt Kurowski 5 years ago
“Marco Polo records the deposition of a Chinese minister of finance in 1285 for his arbitrary augmentation of the tea-taxes.” — The Book of Tea, Okakura Kakuzo
Ryan Saghir 5 years ago
“If text elements look too much like graphics, users tend to overlook them, mistaking them for ads.”
Slowmind 5 years ago
“Under the provisions of the Dawes Act of 1887, many reservations were broken up into allotments and the surplus lands were sold to the government for white settlement.”
Hagbard 5 years ago
23, 5
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
David Shoemaker 5 years ago
tsk, tsk… This is a little too much like a “chain letter”. Don’t debase yourselves like this… It’s not pretty…
David Shoemaker 5 years ago
tsk, tsk… This is a little too much like a “chain letter”. Don’t debase yourselves like this… It’s not pretty…
Tanny O'Haley 5 years ago
Even poor moral philosophy tries to connect the dots of what we know already; the problem is that it does so badly.
- J. Budziszewski, “What We Can’t Not Know” (2003, Spence Publishing Company, Dallas)
none 5 years ago
You can convert between data types with unpack().
Nicolas 5 years ago
Draw tempo data using the Automation tool.
tek 5 years ago
“They want to know what I do with my time.”
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
spoono 5 years ago
Ouch!
“‘And did you notice the hundred pound weights – if only you would look – they are attatched to your feet now and they, of course, will do their best to prevent your body leaving the ground, thereby assisting us to dislocate your hip joints.’”
Ben 5 years ago
It also marks a problem inherent in the knowledge based economy.
- Ideas Generation. Herceg & Flattery
Christian 5 years ago
A man would be annoyed if his son returned from the dentist with his teeth untouched and his head crammed with the dentist’s obiter dicta on bimentallism or the Baconian theory.
The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis
Austin 5 years ago
Randolph is selfish only with money.
Rob 5 years ago
“She put her arms around me and rested her head on my chest.”
Hrm, that’s rather a common sentence. Just FYI, it’s from Prey by Michael Crichton.
Luke Redpath 5 years ago
“Through Diaghilev, Bakst was introduced to the world of theatre, and he began to make valuable contributions to both stage-set and costume design.”
sohalawak 5 years ago
Simply adding some “good ideas” or a handful of “best practices” and checklists to a poor development process will result in only marginally more secure products.
Pete 5 years ago
“In its first stages we must imagine a cluster of small dwellings with clay walls, thatched roofs and earthen floors; narrow alleys ran between them, with a series of streets connecting the two main thoroughfares, filled with the smells and noises of a busy community.”
Alexander Micek 5 years ago
Next up in this random-media sampling frenzy:
1.) Pop in the nearest DVD.
2.) Skip to chapter 3
3.) Write down the second sentence the first female to speak says.
4.) Post w/these instructions, etc.
:)
French Bird 5 years ago
The middle and downstream Danube countries with economies in transition (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia) are facing serious economic and financial problems in responding to the objectives of the convention and implementing pollution reduction and environmental protection measures (…).
Chap. Promoting Cleaner Industry for Everyone’s Benefit in “UN World Water Development Report : Water for People Water for Life” 575p.
http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/
arnar 5 years ago
Excitably in the wind.
Peter De Bouvere 5 years ago
“Zo lang ik iemand heb die mij als het nodig is haar tranen en haar glimlach schenkt, zal ik doorgaan, en hoeveel zinnen ik ook zal schrappen, steeds zullen ze handelen over de Liefde, en hoe die, in naam van God, de enige Troosteres is, naast de onhoorbaar naderbij sluipende onbekende vriend die Dood heet.”
“As long as I have someone who, if necessary, will give me her tears and her smile, I will continue, no matter how many sentences I will cut, they will always describe Love, and how it, in the name of God, will stay the only Comfort, besides the silent stalking and unknown friend we call Death.”
How about that huh? A sentence from “Het Mooie Kotsende Meisje” (“The Beautiful Barfing Girl”) from Herman Brusselmans, a Flemish writer.
JJan 5 years ago
“As has already been mentioned, Gauss’ law can be used to calculate the field when the charge distribution has a simple symmetry.”
-Electromagnetism (I.S.Grant & W.R.Phillips)
En inderdaad, die van Brusselmans is geweldig. “The Beautiful Barfing Girl”!!!
Justin 5 years ago
“And I heard she pushed him in, and he pulled her in after him,” said Sandyman, the Hobbiton miller.
Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of The Ring
ryno 5 years ago
“Suppose you’ve received a text file from a client; you copy and paste the text into Dreamweaver and realize that the document is riddled with urls – http://www.sys-con.com, http://www.yahoo.com, and so on.”
– From MX Developers Journal (vol-2 iss-3)
nick cowie 5 years ago
“Okay, not bad, but the more you look at this, the less you like it”
Eric should know this one too.
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide (First Edition)
Isaac Z. Schlueter 5 years ago
“You have completed the programming for this section.”
From _Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0; An Object-Oriented Approach_.
tim hill 5 years ago
“More on event handlers later.”
Advanced Macromedia FlashMX, ActionScript in Action
Dan Livingston with Carlos Justiniano
—good book by the way.
Kris 5 years ago
“But do you run multiple browsers yourself?”
Joe Clark, Building Accessible Websites, ISBN0-7357-1150-X
Douglas Bowman 5 years ago
And with that, I’ll close it out. Thanks for sharing all. Until next time…