Dear TIGers,

Long time since I have been active, let alone having a rank activity of 13 or so. I have been a bit away from TIG activities since the beginning of this year, reasons including my embarking on few business initiatives as well as switching jobs.

I still used to check on Discussion Boards but did rarely post anything, if any.

I thought I would write this post as I have been thinking, having discussed with Jennifer, Liam and TIG staffers, to take my involvement in TIG activities to a somewhat different level from what it was hitherto, community engagement moderator.

I will be, if things work out well, part of the newly formed TIG Advisory Committee, an advisory body to be consulted on matters of or related to the Online Community activities such as resource submission, member engagement and promotional activities.

TIG has been a major part of my life since 2005 and has, in many ways, shaped over recent years my personality, knowledge and perception of the world. I owe it a very big deal and, by taking this new level of engagement, repay somewhat by contributing to its activities and helping it achieve its goals.

1. If he drops a thousand dollars, he won’t even bother to pick it up because during the 4 seconds he picks it, he would’ve already earned it back.
2. He can donate US$15 to everyone on earth but still be left with US$ 5 Million for his pocket money.
3. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country on earth.
4. Bill Gates is 42 this year. If we assume that he will live for another 35 years, he has to spend US$8.78 Million per day to finish all his money before he goes to heaven.
5. If Microsoft Windows’ users can claim US$1 for every time their computers hang because of Microsoft Windows, Bill Gates will be bankrupt in 3 years..
6. Consider an average American of modest wealth. Perhaps she has a net worth of $70,000. Mr. Gates’ worth is 800,000 times larger. Which means that if something costs $100,000 to her, to Bill it’s as though it costs 12 cents. You can work out the right multiplier for your own net worth.

Last week’s desecration of a Shi’ite shrine moved Iraq towards civil war. Abdel Bari Atwan, who has had unique access to Osama Bin Laden, explains why Al-Qaeda wants to divide Islam.


Osama Bin Laden, who had been sitting cross-legged on a carpet, placed his Kalashnikov rifle on the ground and got up. He came towards me with a warm smile that turned into barely repressed laughter as he took in the way I was dressed.

I had been kitted out in baggy trousers, a long shirt and a turban for my clandestine journey to his hideout in southern Afghanistan. The turban in particular made me feel self-conscious, as I had never worn such a thing in my life.

I spent three days with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, the only western-based journalist to spend such a significant amount of time with him, before or since. I talked at length to him, slept next to him in his cave and shared his modest food.

Listening to him during that visit 10 years ago I realised he was no ordinary figure, but it didn’t occur to me for one moment that this polite, soft-spoken, smiling and apparently gentle person would become the world’s most dangerous man, terrorising western capitals, inflicting hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage on the United States, threatening its economic stability and embroiling it in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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He told me about past Al-Qaeda attacks on the Americans — including the 1993 ambush on American troops in Mogadishu, which he said had been wrongly blamed on the Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid.

More attacks were in the planning stages, he said, and he emphasised that these “operations” took a long time to prepare. He hinted at a strike at the Americans on their home territory, but I confess I did not register the enormity of what he implied when he came out with an unforgettable statement: “We hope to reach ignition point in the not-too-distant future.”

Bin Laden also explained his long-term anti-American strategy. He told me he knew he would never be able to defeat America on its own soil using conventional weapons. He had another plan, one that would take years to reach fruition.

“We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land,” he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora. “If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand.”

We are witnessing part of that plan now, in the battlefields of Iraq, which has become a breeding ground for the most ruthless and militant Al-Qaeda fighters we have seen. In the process we are discovering the new face of Al-Qaeda, as a movement involved in bloody sectarian strife against fellow Muslims.

Paradoxically, the strike on American home territory in September 2001 was a setback to Bin Laden’s long-term plan. Al-Qaeda lost support among more moderate Muslims, who sympathised with the victims. It lost its safe haven and training camps in Afghanistan. And, crucially, there was dissent within the movement itself.

Some inner-circle Al-Qaeda members left as a result of what they considered to be a catastrophic decision, according to Abu Qatada, a radical cleric believed to be Al-Qaeda’s spiritual leader in Europe. (He is currently fighting a deportation order in Britain.) They predicted the US would respond with unparalleled ferocity.
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Iraq is in many ways a better base for Al-Qaeda than Afghanistan. It provides an Arabic-speaking environment and culture. Geographically it is the heart of the region. In Islamic terms it is as important as Saudi Arabia and Palestine.
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from http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15900

I will here explain how Ottendorf Cipher works.
Look at the following three lines,

1) This line is the first.
2) Now comes the second one.
3) Perhaps the third line.

Now if I say
(1-4), (1-3), (2-6) ,(3-1), (1-5), (3-2) = simple
Here (X –Y), where X is the line number and Y in the letter on the line X (skip all the spaces in between letters, they are not counted)

i.e ( 1-4) = "s" , first line, fourth letter :)



Now lets come to the first puzzle.

An English mathematician, logician, author, and photographer.

To find the answer to this puzzle we need answers to the six other puzzles that followed.(this time I have provided the answers :)

1) What is the name of one of the most learned men of all times who always described himself as "omo sanza lettere" (unlettered man)? = Leonardo Da Vinci (he often referes to himself as such)


2) Eating ______ is a crime equivalent to eating the heads of one's parents" = Beans (Pythagoras' famous expression)


3) The famous Latin proverb typifying Romans (and can easily typify a modern Hamas-led government strategy!). = "If you want peace prepare for war"

4) O3.7.5.5.4.7.6.6.7.? (What's the ? mark standing for)

O3 refers to the sun - (3) is the number of letters in the name - and then 7 = mercury , 5 = venus, 5 = earth and so on…the names of the planets and the ninth one "?" = Pluto ( though Pluto is no more a planet now but when I designed the puzzle it was still a planet :)….so the Answer here is PLUTO


5) What has two pairs of wings, three eyes, and a three-jointed beak, and it can be heard from a quarter-of-a-mile away when calling its ladylove? = Common Cicada

6) To what corresponds the hieroglyphic sign of 16 in the "Hieroglyphica" of Horappolo? = Pleasure (meaning the age from which this notion comes into the game)

So the following are the lines and the answers:

1) Leaonardo Da Vinci
2) Beans
3) If you want peace prepare for war
4) Pluto
5) Common cicada
6) Pleasure

and now look at the Ottendorf Cipher:

4-2 5-1
2-2 1-5
3-6 6-7
5-8 1-6
2-5 3-4
___6-2_
___1-1_

Considering that each of two columns is a word - name and surname - we have, beginning with (4-2) - line number 4 and the letter that comes in the 2nd position i.e "L"

Similarly, second letter of the first word (first column) is "e"
Third letter is "w"
Fourth letter is "i"
Fifth letter is "s"

The second column starts with (5-1) = "C"
Second letter is "a"
Third letter is "r"
Fourth letter is "r"
Fifth letter is "o"
Sixth letter is "l"
Seventh letter is "l"

Now lets see which are the two words we got!!!

Lewis Carroll

I know it wasnt all as easy as i claimed, and thanks to all the people who tried. Special thanks to Anu who was instrumental in bringing a more clarified and easy-to-understand reformulation of this puzzle.

P.S. There were two mistakes in the Ottendorf code of the answer for which i apologize and which might have perhaps deterred some of getting correct answers put together.

Dinosaurs have disappeared many years ago, partially because of their ignorance, or at least it is what is claimed....

Humans, risk to undertake the same route... Moreover, all evidence points that the direction we head to is that of oblivion... that of destruction... that of movies such as Terminator 1 - a science-fiction, where the humans dont see the sun, dont breath a fresh air... cause there is nothing remaining...

I hope the final result will not be the same as for dinosaurs...