#Publius Enigma

[mistfunk]

Mistigram: yes, we have fond memories of playing Nibbles, too! This squiggly newschool #ASCIIart logo celebrating our own fine selves was drawn by Publius Emeritus II and included in the MIST0220 artpack collection released three years ago this month.

[iggyinuit]

A Publius Enigma sighting in the Ian Emes movie from The Endless River. Our review (of that movie): https://atagong.com/iggy/archives/2020/01/the-endless-enigma.html

[greenlodgecypher]

Cryptography Column

From Aivas

This month we cover the Polybius cipher. This is not to be confused with Publius, the mysterious newsgroup troll from alt.music.pink-floyd (well, not so much a troll, as a plant, if legend has it aright! They did, supposedly, deliver!). Polybius was an ancient Greek historian and philosopher. He also developed an alphanumeric transliteration tool, which we will use today. Many ciphers, including the one-time-pad variety, depend on a numerical transliteration, so this is a good start. Alphanumeric transliteration tends to lengthen messages, although there are ways to modify that. For this classic method, you will need a table, usually 5x5, with a sixth row and column for your numerals:

Using this, you can see that every letter in the alphabet corresponds to one horizontal and one vertical digit. Since which digit (row or column) comes first (otherwise 2 1 could mean B or F), we'll do row first, column second. For example:

FLASHING WHITE LIGHTS

becomes

21 32 11 43 23 24 34 22 52 23 24 44 15 32 24 22 23 44 43

The transliterated message will always be parsed in pairs of digits, but the message can be transmitted with any division of digits just to make it more interesting. Your monthly practice, should you accept it:

24 44 33 11 54 12 15 43 45 22 22 15 43 44 15 14 44 23 11 44 44 23 15 23 15 44 15 42 35 13 15 32 32 45 32 11 42 32 35 52 15 42 41 32 11 34 44 43 11 34 14 24 34 51 15 42 44 15 12 42 11 44 15 43 52 24 32 32 12 15 32 15 43 43 11 21 21 15 13 44 15 14

[omegasmileyface]

my two beautiful sons, Scrupulous Fingore and Publius Enigma

[venus-pilot]

Watch "Music's Strangest Mystery - Publius Enigma" on YouTube

[ongshat]

The Birth of Alternate Reality Games

The Birth of Alternate Reality Games

Alternate Reality Games have existed for far longer than most people realize, I just wanted to talk about some of the first ones. (the outro has all the music used in order) CONTENTS: 00:00 Intro 00:55 Ong’s Hat 04:17 Publius Enigma 09:13 Blair Witch 11:44 The Beast 14:03 ilovebees 16:04 Closing Thoughts 17:10 Outro

[reigenomic-moving]

wait youre telling me pink floyd made an arg..

[smallchaoscryptid]

Random ask- what are some of your favorite podcasts and which ones would you recommend to people who want to start listening to more?

I took far too long to write this up. Below the read more I have 9 podcasts with what they are about and for the DND one with multiple campaigns and the ones that episodes about different topics (aka most of them) I have my favorite episode or arcs. Yall can come talk to me about any of them.

Adventure Zone: Three brothers and their dad play DND. (They have 3 main campaigns and a few micro campaigns.) I really recommend the first campaign (Balance) its one of those things where there is so much background you only notice after you get to the end and it fucks you up in the best way possible. It follows what I would call the generic DND formula. Right after Balance I would recommend their campaign Amnesty I love it because it has cryptids. For you people who can't get into Critical Role because its too long of an episode (like me) Adventure Zone's episodes I don't think ever get over two hours and managed to keep my attention for multiple episodes at a time. (Episode One of Balance, Episode One of Amnesty The Magnus Archives: A really good fiction podcast that's more on the horror end of things. Like fucked up monsters and stuff. I never finished it because the genre of podcasts it falls into often has bad/sad endings but I listened to the middle of season 5 and often find myself going back and inching closer to the end. Weekly Weird News/Internet Today: This one I found as a Youtube channel but they also put it up online split as two different podcasts. It's pretty much the weird news that happens around the world along with some of the big news stories but with more humor. It makes the horrors of the constant major events happening every day more barrable. Sawbones: A doctor and her husband talk about all the ways we have been both right and wrong (but mostly wrong) about medicine in the past and how we are still learning and evolving today. Sometimes they also dip into bad medical trends people do today and why they are bad. (Trepidation, John Kellogg, National Hotel Disease) Sci Guys: A science podcast where the hosts bring a different topic every week and talk about it. They did one on the death of dinosaurs not to long ago that got me into listening. This feeds into my 'I'm a nerd and need to learn' needs. (The Man Who Drank Radioactive Water, Phineas Gage, and Autism) Causal Criminalist: The host reads scripts the writers for the show about wild crimes people have committed and learns about them as he reads them. He adds his own commentary and sometimes manages to add humor to whatever topic is being talked about. It's done is a mostly reporter way and not the blood and gore way some podcasts do their true crime podcasts. (Doctor Death, The Westfield Watcher, The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist ) Decoding the Unknown: Same host as Causal Criminalist and in this one he reads scripts the writers for the show wrote about weird mysteries. Like Dyatlov Pass, Roanoke Colony, Publius Enigma, Mothman and others. Astonishing Legends: Cryptids and other Legends. They look into the facts of cryptids and legends and attempt to figure out and lay out the facts about a lot of cryptids and legends. (Mothman Part One, Mary Celeste Part One, and D.B. Cooper ) Chuckle Sandwich: This is just a funny comedy podcast. It is a very much turn my brain off and let it become go kind of podcast. Constantly has me actually laughing out loud. Very much has honest boys will be boys vibes kind of podcast. (Some episode recs: One, Two, Three.)

[streamdone]

New top story on SPARTA NEWS: The Publius Enigma (1994) https://ift.tt/3GkDCtX

[mistfunk]

Mistigam: another artefact from our Mistigris World Tour stop with Fistful of Steel in January of 1997, these #ASCIIart logos appeared (with a load of short fiction and other textual nonsense) in the infofile of the FOS-0197 artpack -- the "just the facts, ma'am" one up top by the artist known only as his embedded [cs!] credit, the lower "to compensate, whimsical enough for two logos" one drawn by our own Publius Enigma.

[iggyinuit]

Publius Enigma mentioned in Ian Emes - The Endless River (2019). read our review at: The Endless Enigma.

[henriqueleocadio]

Pink Floyd: 25 anos de “The Division Bell” Há exatos 25 anos, em 28 de março de 1994, o Pink Floyd lançava no Reino Unido The Division Bell, seu décimo quarto álbum de estúdio e o segundo sem o baixista Roger Waters. Esse trabalho se destaca pela maior participação do tecladista Richard Wright durante as sessões de gravação, que culminaram numa sonoridade muito mais concisa do que no trabalho anterior, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, de 1987. The Division Bell é um álbum mais musical que conceitual e aborda o isolamento e falta de comunicação em suas letras escritas principalmente pelo guitarrista David Gilmour, que contou com a ajuda de sua esposa, Polly Samson, em algumas das faixas. The Division Bell é também um dos versos da última faixa do disco, “High Hopes”, uma canção composta por Gilmour e Samson. A sugestão do título foi dada pelo escritor Douglas Adams durante um jantar com a banda. O “sino da divisão” se mostrava um nome enigmático e é um recurso usado no Parlamento do Reino Unido para convocar os membros da Câmara dos Comuns ou da Câmara dos Lordes para encontrar uma solução para um problema através do voto. A estratégia de divulgação de The Division Bell utilizou a internet naquele 1994 para lançar um enigma. Tudo começou com uma mensagem publicada no fórum de fãs chamado alt.music.pink-floyd. Um mensageiro autodenominado Publius apareceu repentinamente por lá dizendo que o novo álbum da banda guardava um segredo. Na mensagem, ele aconselhava os fãs a ouvirem, lerem e olharem todos os detalhes do disco com mais atenção. Ao longo de vários meses, diversas teorias apareceram, e, apesar de todo o alvoroço que causou e da mobilização de diversos fãs ninguém encontrou até hoje a sua solução, pelo menos de forma oficial. Com toda essa movimentação em torno de seu lançamento, o Pink Floyd soava como antes e apesar de críticas negativas, o disco foi número um no Reino Unido e nos Estados Unidos seguido de uma grande turnê. The Division Bell recebeu certificado de ouro, platina, dupla platina e platina tripla nos Estados Unidos, enquanto que a faixa “Marooned” ganhou um Grammy Award na categoria de “Melhor Performance de Rock Instrumental” em 1995. (em São José do Rio Preto) https://www.instagram.com/bandadarkmoon/p/BvjojbJhlbr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=w5sy4rgp4ge1

[omegasmileyface]

my beautiful twin baby boys, Scrupulous Fingore and Publius Enigma

[jaymzeecat]

I picked this up from Everyday Music today. It's the most expensive record I've purchased to date ($43, what?!). I believe the Division Bell may be my favorite Pink Floyd album. 

I know what you're thinking "Seriously, Jaymz? You think the Division Bell is a better album than The Wall?" Well, no... but I like them for different reasons. The Wall has a lot going for it, really fantastic songs, an amazing spectacle of a show with the beautiful and imaginative artwork, props and animations provided by Gerald Scarfe... But here's the thing with Roger Waters' writing: (which I love btw) I think it's brilliant, but his lyrics (especially with the Wall) are so deeply Roger, so personal that all I can really think about when I listen to his music is that "Here is Roger's experience." It's kind of like an autobiography... set to music, which is great. But when I’m looking for some inspiration, I’ll usually listen to something more vague, haha. I listen to music a lot when I'm visualizing stories for my characters. David Gilmour's writing is much more subtle and leaves a lot more room for interpretation (IMO). I must admit, the first time I listened to TDB, I didn't think much of it. I hadn't listened to their previous album so this was my first experience with post Roger Pink Floyd. I didn't hate it, I guess it wasn't what I was expecting. I probably listened to it a couple of times before I shelved it. Then there was the whole Publius Enigma. I think I saw an article about it in Guitar World Magazine probably in '95. In short, there was a guy going by the name Publius online who was leaving cryptic messages about TDB. It seemed like some sort of treasure hunt and he was urging fans to give TDB another listen.

How and Where? The Division Bell Listen again Look again As your thoughts will steer you Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes. Lyrics, artwork and music will take you there

So, I did. I listened to this album over and over again on the word of some stranger on the internet who was probably just making some big hoax, but I didn't care (I think it ended up being some sort of publicity stunt from the record company, haha). It got me really into this album. I wrote the backstory for one of my characters using this entire album as his soundtrack. I don't think I'd ever done that before or ever again.

Fun fact: According to Gerald Scarfe, (in his book The Making of Pink Floyd the Wall, which is fascinating btw and you should totally check it out sometime) the photographer responsible for the TDB cover told him that the two heads on the cover were meant to represent Roger and Syd Barrett and their absence from the band, which now seems so sad and bittersweet to me. I know they had their problems with Roger back then, but they were always still thinking of him. This seems very evident in the lyrics for Lost for Words which if I had to pick a favorite track from this album that would be it.

TL;DR Pink Floyd's The Division Bell is a pretty good album. :)

[ongshat]

The Birth of Alternate Reality Games

The Birth of Alternate Reality Games

Alternate Reality Games have existed for far longer than most people realize, I just wanted to talk about some of the first ones. (the outro has all the music used in order) CONTENTS: 00:00 Intro 00:55 Ong’s Hat 04:17 Publius Enigma 09:13 Blair Witch 11:44 The Beast 14:03 ilovebees 16:04 Closing Thoughts 17:10 Outro

[rockislove-blog1]

There was a popular mystery called the Publius Enigma, surrounding Pink Floyd’s “The Division Bell” album. 

Allegedly, a person named Publius promised an unspecified reward for solving a specific riddle, and claimed there was an enigma hidden within the artwork, music and lyrics of “The Division Bell”. The mysterious Publius announced his appearance at a live performance by Pink Floyd on July 18 in 1994, and, as promised, the words ENIGMA and PUBLIUS appeared flashing in bold white lights during the concert. The words “Publius Enigma” can also be heard spoken in the 2003 DVD release of “Live at Pompeii”, just before the song “One of These Days”. And here things start getting weird...

The page numbers of The Division Bell’s CD booklet are printed on silhouettes of the head statues from the album’s cover. Page 11 features two head statues, with the German word for eleven (”Elf”) printed on either one, thus resulting in “eleven eleven”. The release of David Gilmour’s solo album “On an Island” is exactly eleven years and eleven months from the US release of “The Division Bell”. The band’s last reunion at Live 8 on June 11, 2005 happened 11 years after Publius’ first enigma post to the Pink Floyd newsgroup, on June 11, 1994. During their Live 8 performance, Pink Floyd took the stage at 11:00 pm, and shortly after, at 11:11 pm, were already playing.

But today the Publius Enigma is known as not more than an early successful viral marketing campaign. It was actually confirmed by Nick Mason to be a marketing ploy by EMI, geared to stir and stimulate fans for The Division Bell Tour.