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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

In the communist days the writers of letters (in sealed envelopes) would routinely greet the censor or wish them merry Christmas and stuff like that.

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Feynman's version of messing with the censors: https://books.google.com/books?id=7papZR4oVssC&pg=PA114#v=on...

He came up with sending powder in envelopes? That's news to me.

The trick he played on Teller and then Teller seeing through it instantly, priceless.

I didn't quite get the desk/paper thing -- was it continuous feed paper, so Feynman grabbed the end and pulled it all out?

No, he just kept on pulling and then another paper would be within reach until the drawer just about emptied. Similar to how folded napkins are all separate but you can pull one out of a container and then the next one will be pulled into place by the previous one. That's on purpose and this is accidental but the mechanism would be much the same.

Even though I just re-read that excerpt (lovely book indeed), for a moment there I thought you were talking about Teller from Penn & Teller, and how much I'd love to see those three talking or playing tricks on one another :) (well, without Teller talking, obviously)

That book is absolutely fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Lots of very interesting bits that made me laugh.

That page is not available to me - I can see 113 and 115, but not 114. Can someone tell me what's about?

Edit: Found a link for those that cannot see it either: http://litru.ru/book/?p=214644&page=24 . No idea why Google decided I cannot read that particular page.

Maybe you exhausted your 'allowed page quota'.

Wow this book is really interesting, thanks for the recommendation!

You also had that with military radio coms during the cold war, both sides would include messages to the other in their "internal" communications.

That's interesting, it's a pity none of those will likely ever see the light of day.

And that in turn reminds me of this:

http://www.wjpbr.com/wwixmas.html

Pity they didn't just pack up and go home after that.

> Pity they didn't just pack up and go home after that.

Indeed. The public radio station in my town (in the U.S.) airs a special on the Christmas Truce every year around Christmastime. It's supposed to be uplifting, but I find it almost unbearably sad. The Europe out of which that spirit came was demolished during the war.

I suspect those messages were never official, but more the local operators making the best of being posted during holidays. Thus they were likely never recorded anywhere.

reminds me of rms' post-snowden email header.

    [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
    [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
    [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

3 lines. On every email.

Also, 2016 is almost here. Don't forget to post your annual "You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein." status update to Facebook.

Haha, I find it amusing that people even think that's effective.

I wrote someone in prison a letter and included a greeting to the prison warden. It's very tempting somehow.

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