
Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway - sindhiparsani
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060184
======
bradly
Video with English subtitles: [http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-
historier/artikkel.php?art...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-
historier/artikkel.php?artid=10060251)

Article in English: [http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-
historier/artikkel.php?art...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-
historier/artikkel.php?artid=10060251)

Live stream tomorrow: <http://www.vgtv.no/#!id=55544>

~~~
underlines
Hmm the live stream is black since 20min. Is it down for everyone or just me?
:)

~~~
TobbenTM
It should start in 3 hours.

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old_sound
In my hometown in Uruguay we have this monument:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/flodigrip/1510286707/> the sphere on top is
meant to be open every 100 years. In 1992 it was opened and we could see what
the people from our hometown 100 years ago left for us.

They had a letter to us, documents, different kind of money, pictures, etc.
Very interesting stuff

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unreal37
I wonder what they would do if inside there was another package that said
"don't open until 2112"...

~~~
harrylove
And then inside that is a Rush album on a compact phonograph record with the
inscription, "From the Great Library at Temples of Syrinx. Please destroy at
your convenience. Do not play. - Best Regards, The Priests."

~~~
draggnar
but then you play it anyway, and it is actually Rick Astley at his finest.

~~~
douglasfir
Would you please go back to Reddit?

~~~
draggnar
i can taste the smug. btw this entire thread belongs on reddit.

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jaysonelliot
Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package,
I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912.

I'd like to get that back somehow.

~~~
kamaal
Handwriting is an amazing thing.

But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of
intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys
kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting
was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students.
Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a bad
student.

The net result was kids with genuine brilliance, appetite for hard work but
with a bad handwriting struggled. Some times forced to imitate their class
mates in a bad way. I was a big victim of it. In fact the head mistress called
my mom and told her, every thing was brilliant about me and if only I could
have great handwriting I could score higher than everybody else. The worst
part of it was I took it seriously, I had convinced myself no matter how
hardworking or intelligent I was I didn't deserve to score well as I didn't
have a good handwriting.

It was not until a couple of years later. During my pre university days. My
uncle cleared my mind of all this. He convinced me that good handwriting
discipline is nothing great in itself. Although its good to have one. But
greatness lies in what you write and not how you write it.

Later I developed how to write in script with separate letters without joining
them as in cursive writing. It greatly increased readability. But people
around me used to find that strange and some even suicidal for a student.

Its basically what Leo Tolstoy said:

 _What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness._

~~~
johnx123-up

      "Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi
    

Ironically Gandhi's handwriting
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_handwriting.jpg)

~~~
cantrevealname
At the bottom of the letter, Gandhi writes _"I see that I must reserve the
right hand for N.J."_. And the caption at the bottom says "Left hand."

Do you suppose that means that Gandhi deliberately wrote this letter with his
left hand?

~~~
morsch
Yes. His right hand isn't any better, though, in fact:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_handwriting2.j...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_handwriting2.jpg)

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mukaiji
I watched without the subtitles and had no idea what it was about;
nonetheless, i got to listen for 5 minutes to a language i never heard before
and it was beautiful!

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tstev
My guess is that it is collection of letters by people about the historic
value of the day. It must be something boring like that otherwise he would
have kept it for himself.

~~~
INTPenis
Maybe Johan was a huge troll and it's nothing but turn of the century
pornography.

~~~
rquantz
It's actually an old, yellowed photograph of Rick Astley.

~~~
rquantz
But seriously, why the downvotes? I responded to a joke about pretend early
20th century spammers with a joke about pretend early 20th century
rickrolling. Are we only allowed to be completely serious here? Did I do harm
to the level of discourse here? What's going on?

~~~
peterwwillis
The downvotes are probably because joking is already frowned upon enough on HN
that when you make an unoriginal, not really funny joke, it kills it.

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molmalo
Imagine if it was a 100-years old, still functioning and yet to be released
smartphone, with an HD video of the 1912 celebration. :) That would be so
cool... Like in that movie, "Das Jesus Video".

Anyway, as others said, it probably contains letters from people of that time.

~~~
Tichy
It would be cool if it was a smartphone that looked exactly like an iPhone.
Destroy those lawsuits with a bang.

~~~
huxley
There's a chance that time machines would pretty much destroy prior-art as a
defence in patent lawsuits.

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rsiqueira
The package was opened. It contains a collection of historical documents,
letters, telegrams, newspapers clippings and national decorations. Also a
white banner with gold tassels that said "Fra Kongen" which translates to
"From the King." and several other banner and flag-like decorations in the
Norway's colors of red, blue and white. The package weights 3 kg.

------
sixtypoundhound
Anyone else remember Al Capone's vault?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was thinking the same thing! Big buildup and nada.

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Selfcommit
They need to open this damn box already.

~~~
dsirijus
Why?

It's a great oportunity for joyous ocassion and natural attractor for
romantics.

Savour it.

------
tstev
Here is the package being opened:

[http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/pakken-er-aapnet-oj-
oj-o...](http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/pakken-er-aapnet-oj-oj-
oj-3860187.html)

------
peterwwillis
Nothing inside that small package could be as valuable as 100 years of wonder
and excitement. But it would have been hilarious if it was pics of the Mayor's
wife.

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eslachance
I'm wondering what prevented them from doing x-rays on the package, or an
echography, or something to find out what's inside? I mean, I get that they
want to keep the mystery, I just don`t think I'd be able to contain myself for
100 years!

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speedRS
I put my money on it being a Back To The Future 3-style letter from the past

~~~
redial
a Hari Seldon style video/letter/audio would be totally cool, but I'm mostly
sure it would be only a letter. Still Cool.

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swishercutter
"...my dirty laundry...the whites."

<http://youtu.be/dQbpx5Be5rI>

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ChuckMcM
Ok, what was it?

~~~
jufo
You can watch the unwrapping here:

[http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=100603...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060370)

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bearroast
beautiful website

~~~
wilfra
haha alexa #6 site for Norway too!

Pretty common for Scandinavian countries. Something about engagement
plummeting whenever they try to change them. So they do it like Craigslist and
never change anything.

~~~
troels
vg's website has been the poster child for other scandinavian news papers.
Apparently their butt-ugly layout works really well.

~~~
mrcalzone
Not related to their design, but Varnish (the HTTP accelerator) was initially
created by VG: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varnish_(software)#History>

