MUTINY

Prior to entering an office building in the Seattle area last Tuesday (September 14, 2010), I had been reviewing a benign/impersonal text message received on my iPhone. I did not respond to this text message, as there was no need to respond to it. Normally, I would have closed the text message application and slid my iPhone into a protective case before putting it into my pocket prior to entering the office building; but I was in a bit of a hurry and slid the unprotected (naked) iPhone directly into my right hand pants pocket along side my key chain. As I walked in and out of the office building (a time span of about 10 minutes), I was somewhat conscientious of the fact that a naked iPhone and a set of keys are not a good mix (as the keys could rub up against the face of the iPhone and scratch it). When I returned to my car and removed my iPhone and keys from my pocket, I looked at the iphone and discovered that a series of letters had been typed into the otherwise empty text box (with the little blue cursor blinking at the end) since I had placed it into my pocket several minutes earlier. This series of letters just happened to spell out a 3 syllable English word: "Mutiny."

I don't know the exact name of the function on computers or iPhones that attempts to guess what word you're trying to spell. Maybe it's called, "auto-spell," I really don't know. But I was not able to repeat this word later on when I started to type in the letters of the word, letter by letter. When I typed in an "M," the iPhone made no suggestions. When I then typed in a "U," the iPhone made no suggestions. When I then typed in a "T," the iPhone did make a suggestion, but it was "Nut." When I typed in MUTI, the iPhone made no suggestions. When I then typed in the letter "N," the iPhone made no suggestions. Therefore, while my iPhone was in my pocket for that 10 minute time span, it seems to me that each of the letters of the word, "Mutiny" were typed out individually, one at a time.

Today, a week later (September 21, 2010), in a very similar scenario (going in and out of an office building in the Seattle area), I placed my naked iPhone in a much safer place: all by itself in my shirt pocket, inches from my beating heart. I'm not even sure if the iPhone "Messages" application was open, but when I returned to my car and looked at my iPhone, there was a simple, one syllable, capitalized word typed into to the text message box (with the little blue cursor blinking after it) that had been typed while the iPhone was in my shirt pocket. By default, the first letter of a typed text would normally be a capital letter. For the second letter to be capitalized, however, there would have to be a 3rd button pushed (the capitalization button) -- as what I discovered spelled on my iPhone this time was simply the capitalized word, "GO."

There have also been mysterious occurrences in my house within the last week that I won't go into at this point and time.