The Voynich Manuscript has finally been decoded.

Renzatic on 8/9/2017 at 21:05

For centuries, scholars, linguists, cryptologists, and experts of other various fields have pondered the mysteries of the (http://www.voynich.nu/) Voynich Manuscript. The book itself held so much promise. Forbidden secrets of lost worlds contained therein. Plants never before seen on this earth, seemingly drawn and explained in excruciating detail. Little nude women engaging in some form of advance alien biomechanical based entertainment. Arcane symbols, secret rites, mysteries upon mysteries, all explained in a book written in an undecipherable foreign alphabet, teasing untold knowledge and glory for any who could manage to translate it.

Well, it finally happened. After hundreds of years, someone managed to translate it.

(https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript-has-finally-been-decoded/) It's an overly fancy medieval women's health manual on how to care for their vaginas.

This? This is funny.

Jeshibu on 8/9/2017 at 21:15

I hope this newly recovered knowledge can help vaginas around the world.

Renzatic on 8/9/2017 at 21:20

Apparently the secret is to scrub it in bath with herbs under certain zodiac signs while UFOs fly overhead.

...we've know about that for YEARS now!

Renault on 8/9/2017 at 21:22

We really should verify these findings. Volunteers?

Renzatic on 8/9/2017 at 21:30

It's medieval medicine, man. Might give me a yeast infection.

Kolya on 8/9/2017 at 22:23

I'm glad to see that Annalee Newitz, who used to be the whole charm of io9, settled in well at Ars Technica.
As for ancient pussy care: Just (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb) suck on this giant fennel and it'll all be good. Promise.

Inline Image:

https://www.systemshock.org/Smileys/sbf/heart.gif

demagogue on 9/9/2017 at 00:40

If I were to "find" a mysterious coded manuscript like this, say in the Mogao Caves in China--the largest deposit of medieval books in Asia, where I've been busy looking into manuscripts written in ciphers and lost languages--it would work more like The Witness, starting off with some very easy ciphers in the first chapters that give the reader hints how to solve increasingly difficult ciphers as they read deeper into the book, and as you read on, also the mystery of the author and his or her world would also deepen, until it starts making mysterious connections with our own world, and by the end of it, you don't know who or what to trust, who or what is really running our world.

Now I'm not saying I've actually "found" a manuscript like that just yet, but my investigations are leading me to one particular mysterious little scroll that is entirely written in ciphered code except for a few known characters scrawled on the outside in phonetic Chinese characters, presumably by some ancient monk librarian labeling it according to its presumed source: The Zarkent Manuscript. I'm investigating further.

Kolya on 10/9/2017 at 20:17

No! The Voynich Manuscript hasn't been decoded. And while it's still probably a treatise on women's health, that wasn't news to begin with. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/experts-are-extremely-dubious-about-the-voynich-solution/)

Nicker on 11/9/2017 at 00:30

YAY! Finally......

(https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/experts-are-extremely-dubious-about-the-voynich-solution/) Oh, wait....

Quote:

Gibbs said in the TLS article that he did his research for an unnamed "television network." Given that Gibbs' main claim to fame before this article was a series of books about how to write and sell television screenplays, it seems that his goal in this research was probably to sell a television screenplay of his own. In 2015, Gibbs did an interview where he said that in five years, "I would like to think I could have a returnable series up and running." Considering the dubious accuracy of many History Channel "documentaries," he might just get his wish.

In after Kolya...

Renzatic on 11/9/2017 at 00:54

Damnit! Oh well.