Latest news with #DaVinciCode
New York Post
3 days ago
- General
- New York Post
Frustrated homeowner's missing wallet was hidden in plain sight for days — thanks to a bizarre optical illusion
Dude, where's his wallet? It can be incredibly frustrating to misplace everyday necessities like your keys, phone or wallet. It's even worse to lose something that you spend days looking for — when it was under your nose the entire time. That's what happened to one person who misplaced their wallet and apparently spent a full two days looking for it. In the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit on Reddit, a person outed their relative by sharing how they searched for their personal item for longer than anyone would care to admit. It turns out the MIA wallet was on the bathroom floor the entire time — a place where this confused person probably walked in and out of countless times for two days. 3 The wallet blended in perfectly with the tile pattern of the bathroom floor. Reddit/@Patient_Doughnut_327 In this person's defense, looking at the scene where the wallet lay for 48 hours — at first glance, it is easy to miss the misplaced billfold since it landed perfectly on top of one of the tile squares of the same color on the bathroom floor. Talk about an optical illusion. 3 The confused person supposedly searched for the money pouch for two days. Reddit/@Patient_Doughnut_327 The relative must have been losing their mind searching high and low for their money pouch, despite most likely walking past it too many times to count. Of course, Reddit had a field day with this story, as the thread was filled with almost 500 comments of various opinions from people. Some empathized with the relative as they too struggled to spot the wallet. 'It really blends in.' 3 Some Reddit users also struggled to spot the lost wallet on the bathroom floor. Reddit/@Patient_Doughnut_327 'It took me a minute to find it, but damn that is crazy how it landed.' Other hawk-eyed users found it immediately. 'I found it in about 4 seconds!!! Sorry op! That is a perfectly mildly infuriating placement for a black wallet.' 'Did you not take a shit for two days? It's literally right there.' 'I went right to the floor.' 'My god, I would be so mad at myself lol.' Since losing a wallet is more common than people would want to admit — one good Samaritan devised a genius plan to prevent the lost item from getting into the wrong hands. The person supposedly left a note advertising that they found the lost wallet and in order for the rightful owner to get it back, they would have to solve a 'Da Vinci Code'-evoking equation. 'I left a note in a way so only the real owner could contact me,' declared the person in a viral Reddit post alongside a pic of the note. The only way a person could retrieve the wallet is if they can solve the equation, which involved putting in their birthday alongside another code in order to figure out the good Samaritan's phone number so they could call and be reunited with their personal item.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Officials: Portage IT changes are saving the city a bundle
Former Valparaiso Community Schools IT director Bill Moran is working with Portage's new one-person information technology department to arrange 'a tremendous amount of cuts and potential savings' for the city, Mayor Austin Bonta said. 'Everything that we're cutting or reducing here is something that we either no longer use or that we can get better or cheaper,' Portage IT director Trevor Cherechinsky said at Tuesday's City Council meeting. That will reduce spending this year, but next year it will make a bigger difference, Bonta said. Moran, who moved to Portage and asked how he could help his new city, is offering his services as a consultant. 'For all intents and purposes, this is our first IT budget,' he said, but he did many of them for the Valparaiso school district. Frontier 'has very little that we can use,' he said. Frontier uses 'antiquated copper wire that in many places is 60 to 80 years old,' he said. It's the same copper wire that dates back to Frontier predecessor Verizon and before that, General Telephone. 'We took a very deep dive into these services that we were looking at to make sure they were no longer being used,' Moran said. 'We wanted to make absolutely sure that the services we were going to cut were no longer being used or would not cause a deficit for that department.' That's especially true for emergency services. 'We made absolutely sure that was not the case,' Moran said. Reviewing the phone system took quite a bit of work. 'Frontier invoices are very confusing. It's like reading the DaVinci Code,' Moran said. The city is using voice over internet protocol instead of landlines, greatly reducing costs. 'I think we're looking at an annual cost of about $87,000 a year that we can reduce the IT budget by,' Moran said. Two months ago, the phone bill was about $3,000 a month but jumped to $7,000, so this was a good time to address it, Cherechinsky said. Going through all this took about a month and a half, he said. The city is working with Portage Township Schools on IT issues. The district pays about $700 a month for its phones compared to $4,500 for the city, and the schools have roughly four times as many phones as the city's 250, Cherechinsky said. Working with the school system as the city's IT provider will help costs drop dramatically, he said. Cybersecurity insurance premiums have dropped, too, because the city is no longer using a private company for its IT provider. That was a barrier to quite a few discounts through Microsoft and state government. Using a state grant, the city got antivirus software for free as well as training for employees on phishing scams. Portage has been safe from ransom attacks and cyberattacks so far, but municipalities and schools can be 'literally crippled' because someone clicked on a link and inadvertently allowed a hacker access to the system, Moran said. 'We're not in a safe world anymore.' Some employees might have been shamed during the training, but it's important to protect the city, he said. For the fire department, the city plans to buy more durable, more reliable tablets with a three-year warranty for $3,000 apiece, Cherechinsky said. The city will also switch from .com to .gov email addresses next year, he said. The IT department is also creating 'acceptable use' policies and determining how often devices should be replaced to keep everything current and functioning smoothly. In other business, the council raised fees for building permits and related work. It's been at least 10 years since the council last raised fees for the Planning and Community Development Department. The city is trying to get caught up on collecting the actual costs incurred by the city, Bonta said. In putting together the new fee structure, the city compared Portage's existing fees with municipalities in Porter and Lake counties and studied the department's actual costs. A permit for new construction will cost $600 plus 28 cents per square foot. A permit for a new industrial building will cost $800 plus 32 cents per square foot. The schedule of fees stretches across two pages. The council also tabled action again, this time indefinitely, a proposed fireworks ordinance that would aim to require safe disposal of used fireworks. Fine-tuning of the proposal, which began a few months ago, still isn't complete.
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mirror
Geneticist claims key breakthrough in 'real Da Vinci Code'
The Vitruvian Man - a famous drawing by Rennaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci in 1490 - depicts a nude male figure with his arms and legs spread inside both a circle and a square A geneticist believes he has cracked the real Da Vinci Code in connection with one of the master painter's artworks that has stumped experts for 500 years. Five centuries ago, Rennaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci scribbled down his vision of what the perfectly proportioned male body would look like. Known as the Vitruvian Man, the simple sketch is considered one of the most important anatomical drawings in the world. But its references to art, maths and the human body have remained a mystery to scientists for years. London-based dentist and trained geneticist Dr Rory Mac Sweeney believes he has the answer to how the Italian master placed the male in perfect proportions inside both a square and a circle. He said the key to unlocking the geometric code is the triangle that sits between the man's legs, which da Vinci explained himself in manuscripts that came with the sketch. Rather than a random shape, it corresponds to Bonwill's triangle - which is also used in dental anatomy to measure the optimal performance of the human jaw. But having been drawn hundreds of years before the birth of modern science, it seems incredible to suggest he understood the ideal design of the human body back then, according to Dr Sweeney. The triangle used to construct the Vitruvian produces a specific ratio between the size of the other shapes, 1.634. This ratio is incredibly close to the "special blueprint number", which appears in nature and is said to be used to construct the most-efficient structures, like the human jaw, human skull, or the atomic structure of crystals. "We've all been looking for a complicated answer, but the key was in Leonardo's own words," Dr Sweeney, a graduated of the School of Dental Science at Trinity College in Dublin. "He was pointing to this triangle all along. What's truly amazing is that this one drawing encapsulates a universal rule of design. "It shows that the same "blueprint" nature uses for efficient design is at work in the ideal human body. "Leonardo knew, or sensed, that our bodies are built with the same mathematical elegance as the universe around us." He considers the artowkr a piece of "scientific genius that was centuries ahead of its time".
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: Down in the valley we go, journeying back in time
The chapel at the top of the valley was packed – perhaps unusual in these modern, secular times, but people had congregated for a historical talk, not a religious service. We were at Rosslyn Chapel, seven miles south of Edinburgh, to learn about its history and mystery. Dating from 1446, it is jewelled with stories of pinnacles and pedestals; fallen angels and lovers; camels and peacocks. It also played a role in the Da Vinci Code mystery. The presentation was fascinating, but the eye was drawn outside to Roslin Glen below, with its canopies of woodland and the meandering River North Esk. JMW Turner and William Wordsworth had been similarly inspired by the landscape, so we were in good company. Afterwards, taking the steep (not to mention precarious) path down to the glen felt like journeying even further back in time. The woodland in this vale is ancient, full of oak, birch and hawthorn. Around it, and bordering the glen, were dark and imposing walls, their original patina long gone, embossed instead by primitive species – algae, mosses and liverworts, and the fractal fronds of male ferns, hart's-tongues and ivy leaves. In places, parallel tracks of tree roots tumbled down the wall in search of soil. The solid sandstone blocks were worthy of close inspection. Just as the toolwork of the medieval master masons in the chapel had inspired me, so too did the marks evident in the stones, triggering thoughts of all those anonymous hands that built this wall. The indentations they left are now also populated by moss, early colonisers in search of water holes and footholds. One particular large area of the wall was dominated by liverworts, whose name is derived from medieval times, as their lobed structures resembled liver. The main species was Conocephalum conicum, great scented liverwort. Spreading along the stone joints, cracks and crevices, the lobed thalli overlaid the sandstone with a shiny, verdant carapace. These were descendants of the earliest land plants, thriving in the dark, damp conditions of an ancient wood. The modern world had never felt further away. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
CTV News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Vertigo Theatre looks to audiences to crack The Da Vinci Code in theatrical adaptation of Dan Brown bestseller
Vertigo Theatre is presenting the stage adaptation of the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code through June 8 (Photo courtesy Vertigo Theatre)
