4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, and Other CIA Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight

April 22, 2009 7:23 PM

Wired's Mystery Issue, guest-edited by J.J. Abrams, is a quizzical amalgam of puzzling things both obvious and less obvious... apparently the print edition's misspelled words, irregular borders, and seemingly random placements of numbers are all part of the game too. While the "master puzzle" was recently solved, there are reportedly still some codes left to crack.

-Wired editors chat-you-up on the issue's concept

-Abrams writes about the theme and teases the secrets within

-Also from the issue, previously on MeFi

posted by pokermonk (27 comments total)

"Wired's Mystery Issue, guest-edited by J.J. Abrams..."

Hopefully the "mystery" is better than the massive dissapointment and waste of time that was Cloverfield.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:03 PM on April 22, 2009

Or the massive disappointment that was WIRED. Why read?

I really liked WIRED at one point. But fluorescent pages hurt me, really hurt me. And now I'm afraid of them.
posted by twoleftfeet at 8:10 PM on April 22, 2009

But fluorescent pages hurt me, really hurt me.

Yes. And flipping through this issue for the first couple times, it struck me as its usual obnoxious self... but then I found out that the pain it was causing me was actually part of a sadistic game and not ill-conceived design nourishment.

This has colored my curiosity (and tolerance) a cone-grinding shade of bright orange.
posted by pokermonk at 8:18 PM on April 22, 2009

I really like the idea of a magazine hiding clues and secret messages. That's why I peruse old copies of Readers Digest for hidden messages. That doesn't make me crazy, does it?
posted by twoleftfeet at 8:25 PM on April 22, 2009

(is this the thread where we can talk about lost?)
posted by moxiedoll at 8:30 PM on April 22, 2009

No, only Fringe.
posted by mek at 8:47 PM on April 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

That's why I peruse old copies of Readers Digest for hidden messages.

I miss Games magazine and the hidden contests.
posted by rokusan at 8:49 PM on April 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was just flipping through this in the bookstore. What I like about it is how they print five words of a story on one page, the rest of the page being a picture of a foot or a tree, and then the next page there's an add, then a non-sequitur picture of something else with a clever quote about transhumanism, then you turn over and some cards and stuff fall out, then there's the next page of the article printed right in the middle with an obnixious border, then you go to the end of the magazine for the last part of the article, then you read a quote from the editors congratulating themselves on how clever they are, then you stuff the entire fucking thing in the rubbish bin and start cutting yourself with a plastic knife, but it's not working, it's not working, and why-oh-why did I ever pick up that fucking magazine and attempt to glean something from it when I could have just spent the afternoon figuring out a way to shit on my own head?
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:09 PM on April 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

rokusan: Games magazine is still publishing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:37 PM on April 22, 2009

I had one of those $10/year subs to Wired, and didn't renew it, because I figured I wasted too much time trying to locate the content. And the crap that used to fall out of each issue ...
posted by carter at 10:21 PM on April 22, 2009

Am I the only person on MetaFilter who likes Wired?

I asked this about Ghostbusters 2, once, and the answer was a resounding YES.
posted by brundlefly at 12:16 AM on April 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

I stopped subscribing to magazines a while ago (so I don't know if I would still like the print magazine). But I do like wired.com.

I also liked Ghostbusters 2.
posted by HappyEngineer at 12:22 AM on April 23, 2009

It seems fashionable to slam Wired on the blue, but I think Wired still has some great reporting and decent writing on - granted - really really narrow subjects. Their work on the Antwerp diamond heist was top quality. The article on the Reiser case was superb, with the quotes taken from Reisers code. But I did prefer their old website, where they would release one long feature every day. Now there's too many snacks and not enough real food on their website.
posted by NekulturnY at 1:27 AM on April 23, 2009

So, Leonard Nimoy is going to be on Fringe...who knew?
posted by P.o.B. at 1:45 AM on April 23, 2009

I used to read this magazine in my pediatrician's office, back when it was called Highlights.
posted by Poolio at 2:54 AM on April 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm not an idiot. All the negative comments above are clearly part of the mystery.

I'm going to spend the next 10 hours carefully extracting the clues from those posts and then be in line to win the Golden Cloverfield Monster that JJ Abrams has buried in a secret location.
posted by panboi at 2:59 AM on April 23, 2009

Wired has steadily declined over time.

Their love of shiny widgets has only grown. The laziness of the "Hey, let's just slurp up some blog posts" model of content, ah, appropriation makes me long for the days of their deep detail pieces. Those, they only do so often, just to prove that they can. This serves only to remind us of what we've lost. I do not care if their web design was by people who won awards: it needs some simple fixes that they are unwilling to make.

And I do not want to hear yet another fearful/hopeful squee about the Singularity until we have an AI that can carry on a conversation more complex than what you might get out of a bored six year old on a bus; all of this jabber about how bad/good the Singularity will be is like hearing Cro-Magnons worry about fire insurance and rave about the mammoth steaks they'll cook while never quite getting around to making the trek over to the lightning strike and trying to get a flame back to the cave.

The content is now TVs, games, iPhones, cars nobody will drive, iPhone applications, piracy, etc. It's technology, sure, but not as we knew it. Oh, look, Geekdad nostalgia.

Now we are invited to puzzle away (nerds cannot resist puzzles, right?) for something that will be a barely-more-hip version of "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine." The Abrams thing strikes me mostly as a hopefully synergistic stunt performed by two similar parties: once quite good, now mostly coasting in mystique and name recognition. It's not symbiosis so much as a mutual parasitism, which one of us can drain the other's juices the fastest?
posted by adipocere at 4:45 AM on April 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Um, I like Ghostbusters 2. I got your back on this one brundlefly.
posted by piratebowling at 5:27 AM on April 23, 2009

Wired actually (thankfully) cut back on the expensive shiny gadget love in the last few months. I liked the puzzle issue and am still trying to figure some of them out.
posted by drezdn at 5:42 AM on April 23, 2009

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:43 AM on April 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I read "Wired" through a group subscription at work, so I generally get it about 6 months late. Gives you an interesting perspective on things.

Looking forward to this one in October. No spoilers!
posted by JoanArkham at 5:56 AM on April 23, 2009

No, only Fringe.

Just read an old X-Files thread and delete every other word so it makes less sense.
posted by inigo2 at 6:00 AM on April 23, 2009

I don't like Ghostbusters 2, But I do think Peter MacNicol was great in it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:03 AM on April 23, 2009

Bobby Brown's song from G2 -- awful. That and his cameo should be removed from future editions of the film.

Wait. JJ Abrams?
posted by grubi at 6:51 AM on April 23, 2009

I'm a Wired subscriber. It's certainly worth the ten bucks/year. The puzzle issue is great. There's an interesting discussion with Teller (of Penn & ..) on the psychology of illusion, and a thoroughly absorbing story of the genesis of the "Georgia Stonehenge".

Is Wired perfect? No. Is it as good as it used to be? No. But, IMO, they still get more right than they get wrong. (The colors and small, idiotic font choices grate on my older eyes, though.)
posted by Benny Andajetz at 10:22 AM on April 23, 2009

Games magazine is still publishing.

I don't think that is the same magazine. Didn't someone else buy the rights and ruin it somehow?

Maybe I should find one and check.
posted by rokusan at 12:26 PM on April 23, 2009

Won't take the time to noodle through the puzzles but I appreciate the effort that went into creating 'em.

As for the comments about the magazine, my eyes are too old to handle the fluorescent colors so I tend to skip on that. Ditto for the games-related articles. I do enjoy reading most of the magazine, though, and have enough experience with the written word to tell what is content and what is advertisement.
posted by Man with Lantern at 1:17 PM on April 23, 2009