September 28, 2005

The biggest buried treasure *in history* has been discovered.
posted by mecurious 18 years ago
  • Yargh! Too late for Talk Like A Pirate Day! Blast!
  • Bullshit.
  • I wants me one of them papal rings.
  • That's just insane... and in the Pacific basin??
  • Has allegedly been discovered. So far, the story sounds very rumoriffic.
  • More info:
    Early in the 18th Century, Spanish sailors buried gold and jewels from South America in the Juan Fernández archipelago off Chile. Earlier, a Scottish sailor was marooned on one of the same islands for four years and became the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Now, 300 years later, a robot named Arturito has located the Spanish treasure 15 meters beneath the surface of one of the islands. The robot is able to look beneath the ground with ground penetrating radar (GPR or GeoRadar). Arturito has been called upon in the past to locate buried weapons and subsurface structures. According to one researcher, Arturito requires both a human operator and a human to interpret the sensor data making it "more of a mobile sensing platform than a robot". The robot is named after R2-D2, which is commonly called Arturito in Spanish because of the similarity in sound to the English name "Artoo-Detoo". Some estimates suggest the treasure may be worth as much as 10 billion dollars today. Not surpisingly, there is already a dispute over who owns the treasure. For more see the recent New Scientist article or BBC article. A photo of Arturito can be found in a La Cuarta article from earlier this year and in a more recent mouse.cl article.
    --shamelessly stolen from robots.net
  • Not exactly the Weekly World News, is it, cynical ones?
  • It's the Grauniad.
  • Oh, I'll be cynical all my life. Where do they say they've dug it up and counted it?
  • Many people are ignorant of the meaning of the word "cynical" and wear it as a badge of honor. What you aspire to be is "skeptical".
  • I'm not wearing anything. What are you wearing?
  • Cologne.
  • Cynicism is simply an unpleasant way of telling the truth. - Lillian Hellman
  • CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. - Ambrose Bierce
  • Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. -David T. Wolf
  • Quotes, while entertaining, sometimes only reflect the incorrect understanding of the person wielding the word (the skeptical among you should especially agree). Dictionaries are much better for finding definitions. From the OED: 1. Resembling the Cynic philosophers in contempt of pleasure, churlishness, or disposition to find fault; characteristic of a cynic; surly, currish, misanthropic, captious; now esp. disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness; sneering. 2. Belonging to the sect of Cynic philosophers; = CYNIC a. 1. Obs. rare. 3. With etymological allusion: Relating to a dog; dog-like.
  • Monkeyfilter: surly, currish, misanthropic, captious.
  • the skeptical among you should especially agree I doubt it.
  • So, mecurious, what meaning did you have in mind when you first used the phrase "cynical ones"? One of the primary meanings of cynic (as you will find in some dictionaries) is one who is skeptical of the motives of others. In this particular case, I'm skeptical of those who claim to have found the most fabulous treasure ever, without providing a lick of hard evidence. Until I see the gold, it might as well be just another Oak Island.
  • Loots like mice, instead of trees. (6) Parrot's treat in robot meat. (8)
  • Then, in the case of missing businessman Jose Yuraszeck, Arturito was able to analyse the soil and identify the molecular composition of human bones, allowing investigators to dig straight to the body of the murder victim. That sounds like some robot. Maybe it could find our way out of Iraq? *patat-dssh!* Thank you, you're beautiful
  • I get it. Somebody got burned when Geraldo opened Capone's vault and vowed never to invest that much hope/emotion in anything ever again. We learned nothing from Tolkien, did we?
  • We learned that treasure is guarded by a big dragon named Smaug?
  • Show me the dragon!
  • We learned that we hates Bagginses, we hates it?
  • 1. Resembling the Cynic philosophers in contempt of pleasure, churlishness, or disposition to find fault; characteristic of a cynic; surly, currish, misanthropic, captious; now esp. disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness; sneering. I'm pretty descriptivist (as is, I'm fairly sure, the OED), so take what I say with that in mind. I think most people use cynic in the sense of the last part of that first definition "now esp. disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness". Which was really pretty central to Diogenes whole thing anyway, aside from the stoicism. "He used to stroll through the Agora with a torch at full daylight. When asked about it, he would answer "I am just looking for an honest man".". I think it's perfectly acceptable to use it in just that sense, without the "contempt of pleasure" part.
  • Darts to the centre and releases bad odour (8)
  • Raises pen upward and speaks of turtles. (6)
  • A baby's arm holding an apple. (4) -- and I have no idea how to do these, but they look fun!
  • Hear a sailor put on cynical front with mixed band (7)
  • I've always considered myself a skeptic, but not a cynic. My brother is a cynic but we, his family and friends, just call him difficult.
  • The announcement was a tremendous idea; it forced everyone's little opinions out in the open, like that of the Chilean government: "All your treasure is belong to us." Now, the treasure hunting team can sit back and watch the government dig all over the place until they 'hire' the team as 'consultants'. Betcha five bucks the position, depth and amount was slightly mis-reported, just to give other teams something to keep busy on.
  • I hear that they found Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis and my virginity buried there as well.
  • I am beyond skeptical and cynical. I am a rock. I am an island.
  • I'm going to down a couple of bran muffins and see if I can excavate my sense of humor.
  • No man is an island.
  • Except this one.
  • Cynicism is simply an unpleasant way of telling the truth. - Lillian Hellman Capt. Renault: Better put more on. Remember, cologne is simply a pleasant way of hiding the truth.
  • *squeeee!*
  • This story is starting to smell more and more fishy.
  • Here's a blog entry by a student apparently in attendance at the above event. And here are 3 blog entries from someone who has looked into the issue in great detail:
  • Legendary Lost Incan Treasure Located on Robinson Crusoe Island (better detail on the story than most of the news articles, but be sure to read the section "Sceptics").
  • Arturito – Scan Artist or Scam Artist?
  • Manuel Salinas (Arturito's inventor) Is a Liar and a Fraud